DESEMANTICATION OF WORD MEANING

Traditionally, analyzing the lexical and semantic content of a word, attention is focused on its significative and denotative components. This is natural, since if the signifier is the quintessence of the lexical meaning of a word, then the denotation is the typical appearance of the referent, the appearance of all the entities of the so-called specific word. In the article, the desemanization of the significative and denotative components is considered not so much as the disintegration of the original lexeme, but as an emergence of a new vocabulary unit, a metaphorical derivative and a homonym. Similarly, any changes in the signifier (sounding or graphic sign) leads to the formation of synonyms of the meanings of a polysematic word. It is proved that desemanization, being an integral part of the process of semanticizing the lexical meaning of a word, includes its demotivation and de-etymologization. Pragmatics, the speaker’s subjective attitude to the addressee and the fact of an utterance may result in the destruction of the old lexical meaning of a word, even its transformation into a deictive or a discursive word, but ultimately - to the emergence of a new vocabulary unit based on generalization or specialization. The article substantiates how the new pragmatic connotation of the word, which arises on the basis of various semantic associations, replaces and displaces its original meaning, especially in the diachronic plane.