Context as Combinatory Conditionality of Word Meaning's Actualization

The article touches upon the problem of identifying the term ‘context’. Within Combinatory Linguistics that is the area of linguistics studying syntagmatic properties of language units and their combinatory potential of special importance is the concept ‘context’ denoting the minimum stretch of speech necessary and sufficient to determine which of the possible meanings of a polysemantic word is used. Moreover, the article deals with the problem of distinguishing the concepts of ‘context’ and ‘compatibility’. In accordance with the theory of Combinatory Linguistics context is a condition and combinatory conditionality of a language unit in actualization of its lexical meaning, while compatibility is a property of language units to be combined with each other forming units of a higher level.