This distinguish goes back to the Greeks.

Motivation is the relationship existing between the phonemes or morphemic composition ans structural pattern of a word on the one hand and it’s meaning oh the other hand.

3 types of M.:

Phonetical

Morphological

Semantic

When there us a certain similarity between the sounds of a word and the sounds referred to by the meaning of a word – phonetical.

Звукоподражательные слова (onomatopoeic):

Bang

Whistle

Ding-dong …etc.

Morphological- it’s possible to guess the meaning of a word from it’s parts.

(in newly coined words)

Semantic motivation is based on the coexistence of direct and figurative meaning of the same word.

Foot- a lower part of smth; part of a body

The foot of the mountain.

Each word has a hard core of meaning, which stable, but can’t be modified by the context within certain limits.

2 types of context:

Linguistic (verbal)

Extralinguistic

L. the environment in which the word occurs as for the extra L. It consists of the entire cultural background against which we said this or that event.

-> The meaning of a word can change depending on the environment.

Instead of the term “word» some linguists prefer the terms “lexical unit”, “lexical item” or “lexeme”. “Word” causes much confusion because it’s used orthographically, grammatically and lexically.