A word is a two facet unit

I.V. Arnold, The
English Word, §1.4.
Types of Lexical Units [pp. 18-21]:

T

Lexicological units

he term unit means one of the elements into which a
whole may be divided or analyzed and which possesses the basic
properties of this whole. The units of a vocabulary or lexical units
are two-facet elements possessing form and meaning. The basic unit
forming the bulk of the vocabulary is the word. Other units
are a morpheme that is parts of words, into which words may be
analyzed, and set expressions or groups of words into which
words may be combined.

W

Words

ords are the central elements of language system, they
face both ways: they are the biggest units of morphology and the
smallest of syntax, and what is more, they embody the main structural
properties and functions of the language. Words can be separated in
an utterance by other such units and can be used in isolation. Unlike
words, morphemes cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units and
are functioning in speech only as constituent parts of words. Words
are thought of as representing integer concept, feeling or action or
as having a single referent. The meaning of morphemes is more
abstract and more general than that of words and at the same time
they are less autonomous.

S

Set expressions

et expressions are word groups consisting of two or more
words whose combination is integrated so that they are introduced in
speech, so to say, ready-made as units with a specialized meaning of
the whole that is not understood as a mere sum total of the meanings
of the elements.

I

Ability to segment speech

n the spelling system of the language words are the smallest
units of written discourse: they are marked off by solid spelling.
The ability of an average speaker to segment any utterance into words
is sustained by literacy. Yet it is a capacity only reinforced by
education:it is well known that every speaker of any language is
always able to break any utterance into words. The famous American
linguist E. Sapir testified that even illiterate American Indians
were perfectly capable of dictating to him — when asked to do so —
texts in their own language «word by word». The
segmentation of a word into morphemes, on the other hand, presents
sometimes difficulties even for trained linguists.

M

Choice of the basic unit

any authors devoted a good deal of space to discussing which
of the two: the word or the morpheme is to be regarded as the basic
unit. Many American linguists (Ch. Hockett or Z. Harris, for
instance) segmented an utterance into morphemes ignoring words.
Soviet lexicologists proceed from the assumption that it is the word
that is the basic unit, especially as all branches of linguistic
knowledge and all levels of language have the word as their focal
point. A convincing argumentation and an exhaustive review of
literature is offered by A. A. Ufimtseva (1980).

I

Fluid boundaries

f, however, we look now a little more closely into this
problem, we shall see that the boundaries separating these three sets
of units are sometimes fluid. Every living vocabulary is constantly
changing adapting itself to the functions of communication in the
changing world of those who use it. In this process the vocabulary
changes not only quantitatively by creating new words from the
already available corpus of morphemes and according to existing
patterns but also qualitatively. In these qualitative changes new
morphemic material and new word-building patterns come into being,
and new names sometimes adapt features characteristic of other sets,
those of groups of words, for instance.

O

Orthographic words

rthographic words are written as a sequence of letters
bounded by spaces on a page. Yet, there exist in the English
vocabulary lexical units that are not identical with orthographic
words but equivalent to them. Almost any part of speech contains
units indivisible either syntactically or in terms of meaning, or
both, but graphically divided. A good example is furnished by complex
prepositions: along with, as far as, in spite of,
except for, due to, by means of, for the sake
of, etc.

T

Phrasal verbs

he same point may be illustrated by phrasal verbs, so numerous
in English: bring up ‘to educate’, call on ‘to visit’,
make up ‘to apply cosmetics’, ‘to reconcile after a
disagreement’ and some other meanings, put off ‘to postpone’.
The semantic unity of these verbs is manifest in the possibility to
substitute them by orthographically single-word verbs. Though
formally broken up, they function like words and they are integrated
semantically so that their meaning cannot be inferred from their
constituent elements. The same is true about phrasal verbs consisting
of the verbs give, make, take and some others
used with a noun instead of its homonymous verb alone: give a
smile, make a promise, take a walk (cf. to
smile, to promise, to walk).

S

Compound words

ome further examples are furnished by compound nouns.
Sometimes they are not joined by solid spelling or hyphenation but
written separately, although in all other respects they do not differ
from similar one-word nominations. By way of example let us take some
terms for military ranks. The terms lieutenant-commander and
lieutenant-colonel are hyphenated, whereas wing commander
and flight lieutenant are written separately. Compare also
such inconsistencies as all right and altogether, never
mind and nevertheless.

All these are, if not words,
then at least word equivalents because they are indivisible and
fulfil the nominative, significative, communicative and pragmatic
functions just as words do.

I

Formulaic sentences

t is worth while dwelling for a moment on formulaic sentences
which tend to be ready-made and are characterized by semantic unity
and indivisibility: All right, Allow me, Nothing
doing, Never mind, How do you do, Quite the
contrary. They are learned as unanalyzable wholes and can also be
regarded as word equivalents.

T

Summary: Vocabulary as a
field

o sum up: the vocabulary of a language is not homogeneous. If
we view it as a kind of field, we shall see that its bulk, its
central part is formed by lexical units possessing all the
distinctive features of words, i.e. semantic, orthographic and
morphological integrity as well as the capacity of being used in
speech in isolation. The marginal elements of this field reveal only
some of these features, and yet belong to this set too. Thus, phrasal
verbs, complex prepositions, some compounds, phraseological units,
formulaic expressions, etc. are divided in spelling but are in all
other respects equivalent to words. Morphemes, on the other hand, a
much smaller subset of the vocabulary, cannot be used as separate
utterances and are less autonomous in other respects but otherwise
also function as lexical items. The new term recently introduced in
mathematics to describe sets with blurred boundaries seems expressive
and worthy of use in characterizing a vocabulary — such sets are
called fuzzy sets.

R.S Ginzburg, A
Course in Modern English Lexicology,
§4. Lexical Units, §5. Varieties of Words [pp. 9-11]:

I

Word is the basic unit

t was pointed out above that Lexicology studies various
lexical units: morphemes, words, variable word-groups and
phraseological units. We proceed from the assumption that the word is
the basic unit of language system, the largest on the morphologic and
the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis. The word
is a structural and semantic entity within the language system.

I

Distinction between words and
phraseological units

t should be pointed out that there is another approach to the
concept of the basic language unit. The criticism of this viewpoint
cannot be discussed within the framework of the present study.
Suffice it to say that here we consistently proceed from the concept
of the word as the basic unit in all the branches of Lexicology. Both
words and phraseological units are names for things, namely the names
of actions, objects, qualities, etc. Unlike words proper, however,
phraseological units are word- groups consisting of two or more words
whose combination is integrated as a unit with a specialized meaning
of the whole. To illustrate, the lexical or to be more exact the
vocabulary units table, wall, taxi are words
denoting various objects of the outer world; the vocabulary units
black frost, red tape, a skeleton in the cupboard
are phraseological units: each is a word- group with a specialized
meaning of the whole, namely black frost is ‘frost without
snow or rime’, red tape denotes bureaucratic methods, a
skeleton in the cupboard refers to a fact of which a family is
ashamed and which it tries to hide.

A

Problem of definition of a
word

lthough the ordinary speaker is acutely word-conscious and
usually finds no difficulty either in isolating words from an
utterance or in identifying them in the process of communication, the
precise linguistic definition of a word is far from easy to state; no
exhaustive definition of the word has yet been given by linguists.

T

Word is a two-facet unit

he word as well as any linguistic sign is a two-facet unit
possessing both form and content or, to be more exact, soundform and
meaning. Neither can exist without the other. For example, [θɪmbl]
is a word within the framework of the English language primarily
because it has the lexical meaning – ‘a small cap of metal,
plastic, etc. worn on the finger in sewing’ (Russ. наперсток)
and the grammatical meaning of the Common case, singular. In other
languages it is not a word, but a meaningless sound-cluster.

When used in actual speech the
word undergoes certain modification and functions in one of its
forms.

T

Paradigm of a word

he system showing a word in all its word-forms is called its
paradigm. The lexical meaning of a word is the same throughout the
paradigm, i.e. all the word-forms of one and the same word are
lexically identical. The grammatical meaning varies from one form to
another (cf. to take, takes, took, taking
or singer, singer’s, singers, singers’).
Therefore, when we speak of the word singer or the word take
as used in actual utterances (cf., His brother is a well-known
singer or I wonder who has taken my umbrella) we use the
term word conventionally, because what is manifested in the
speech event is not the word as a whole but one of its forms which is
identified as belonging to one definite paradigm.

T

Two approaches to the word
paradigm

here are two approaches to the paradigm: (a) as a system of
forms of one word it reveals the differences and relationships
between them; (b) in abstraction from concrete words it is treated as
a pattern on which every word of one part of speech models its forms,
thus serving to distinguish one part of speech from another. Cf. the
noun paradigm – ( ), —‘s, —s, —s’ as
distinct from that of the regular verb – ( ), —s,
—ed₁, -ed₂, -ing,
etc.

B

Variants of words

esides the grammatical forms of words, i.e. word-forms, some
scholars distinguish lexical varieties which they term variants of
words. Distinction is made between two basic groups of variants
of words.

I

Group One (lexico-semantic
variants)

n actual speech a word or to be more exact a polysemantic word
is used in one of its meanings. Such a word in one of its meanings is
described as lexico-semantic variant. Thus Group One comprises
lexico-semantic variants, i.e. polysemantic words in each of their
meanings, as exemplified by the meaning of the verb to learn
in word-groups like to learn at school, cf. to learn about
(of) smth, etc.

G

Group Two (phonetic and
morphological variants)

roup Two comprises phonetic and morphological variants. As
examples of phonetic variants the pronouncing variants of the adverbs
often and again can be given, cf. [‘ᴐ:fn] and [‘ᴐ:ftan], [ǝ’geɪn]
and [ǝ’gen]. The two variant forms of the past indefinite tense of
verbs like to learn illustrate morphological variants, cf.
learned[-d] and learnt [-t]. Parallel formations of the
geologic—geological, phonetic—phonetical
type also enter the group of morphological variants.

I

Word as a unity of all its
forms and variants

t may be easily observed that the most essential feature of
variants of words of both groups is that a slight change in the
morphemic or phonemic composition of a word is not connected with any
modification of its meaning and, vice versa, a change in meaning is
not followed by any structural changes, either morphemic or phonetic.
Like word-forms variants of words are identified in the process of
communication as making up one and the same word. Thus, within the
language system the word exists as a system and unity of all its
forms and variants.

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Basic problems of lexicology:
Semasiology and semantic classification of words;
Word groups and phraseological units;
Word structure;
Word formation;
Etymological survey of the English vocabulary;
aspects of vocabulary units and ways of
replenishment of Modern English word-stock;
• Variants and dialects of Modern English;
• Fundermentals of the English Lexicography;
• Methods and proceedures of lexicological analysis.
•
•
•
•
•
•
The word as a basic unit of language
(semasiology)
• The definition of the word is one of the
most difficult questions in Linguistics.
• A word has different aspects: it is
simultaneously a phonological,
grammatical / morphological and
semantic unit.
Jackson and Z. Amvela:
Presented three approaches to a word
definition:
1) Word as a unit made up of letters with
spaces before and after it. But….
(phonograph record = one unit of
meaning);
2) Psycological approach: word is a unit of
thought , but ….phono – graph re-cord.
3) Formal analysis suggested by Bloomfield
in the 1920s does not handle relational
words, (conjunctions, particles,
prepositions, interjactions) and
grammatical morphems very well.
9 facets of the word:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Phonology – the sound form
Orthography a word’s written form
Reference – what the word indicates
Semantics – word meaning
Register – how a word is used appropriately
Collocation – words that go together
• Word association – the network of
mental word links
• Syntax – how a word fits into grammar
• Morphology – the units that make up the
form of a word
Defining «word»
Jackson and Ze Amvela, 2007
«We shall consider a word as an
uninterruptible unit of structure consisting
of one or more morphemes and which
typically occurs in the structure of
phrases».
WORD
• A group of sounds with a grammatical
function. It is a semantic, phonological
and grammatical unit.
• Constantly changing in form and meaning
• Lexicologists study the contrasts and
similarities between words (and phrases)
and how these change over time.
Arthur Meillet:
«The word is the basic unit of a given
language, resulting from the association of
a particular meaning with a particular group
of sounds capable of a particular
grammatical
empolyment».
(how
to
distinguish a word from phrase?)
The word is the smallest unit of a given
language capable of functioning
independently /alone and characterized by
positional mobility within a sentence,
morphological uninterruptability and
semantic integrity.
A word is the smallest communicative unit
of a language, characterized by certain
syntactic distribution/ position in a
sentence, morphological unity and
semantic integrity.
• A word is the largest unit on the
morphological level and the smallest on
the syntactic level of the linguistic
analysis.
• A word is a two-facet unit, possessing a
form and a content (meaning), which is
used ready-made and not created in
speech.
Word as grammatical unity
A word possesses an ability to exist as a
system/unity of all its forms creating its
paradigm and variants: lexical-semantic,
morphological, phonetic and graphic.
PARADIGM
• The system showing a word in all its
word-forms;
• The lexical meaning of a word is the
same throughut its paradigm: give-givesgave-giving,given; ……
Lexical varieties = variants of
words
• A polysemantic word in one of its
meanings in which it is used in speech is
described as a lexiccal-semantic variant
(A.I.Smernitsky):
Lexical-semantic variants of a word:
•
•
•
•
Learn
Learn
Learn
Learn
at school
the news
a language
about something/somebody
variants of a word:
• Often [often]/[ofen] – phonetic
• Birdy/birdie – graphic
• Phonetic/ phonetical – morphological,
(but : historic / historical)
lexeme
Within the language system the word
exists as a system and unity of all its forms
and variants:
to go- went- gone, have gone; good –
better – the best; badly – worse – the
worst.
• In actual speech a polyemantic word is
used in one of its variants.
• A slight change in its morphemic or
phonemic form does not affect its lexical
meaning.
Semantic relations in English
• Polysemy
• Homonymy
POLYSEMY
is a situation when a word has two or more
related meanings: mark (22)
HOMONYMY
• the words have the same form – written
identically and/or sound the same but
have entirely different meanings: bank,
TYPES OF HOMONYNY
• Homographs – bored (бурить)/bored
(скучающий): same spelling, same sound
form but different meaning;
• Homophones – board (доска)/bored
(бурить): same sound form, but the
spelling and meaning are different.
Determine relationships between these
homonyms
• Lead pipe
• Led the troops
• Led Zeppelin
SEMASIOLOGY
A branch of Lexicology devoted to the
study of meaning.
Lexical units: words, morphemes,
phraseological units, word-groups or
phrases – all have form and meaning and
therefore treated by semasiology
WORD-MEANING
• Referential approach seeks to establish
interdependence between words and
objects or notions of the objective reality
they denote.
• Functional approach studies the function
of the word in speech and is less
concerned with what the meaning is
than with how it works.
REFERENTIAL APPROACH
COMPONENTS
• THE SOUND FORM OF THE LINGUISTIC
SIGN
• THE CONCEPT
• THE ACTUAL REFERENT (belongs to
the actual reality)
• The meaning is in some form or other
connected with the referent.
Conventional and arbitrary
nature
• [kot] = cot / кот / cod
• Seal [si:l] = a sea animal / a piece of
wax = homonyms
•
•
•
•
Sound form – concept- referent
Symbol- thought of reference – referent
Sign – meaning – thing meant
Sign – designatum — denotatum
Meaning and sound form are arbitrary
connected:
Sound form may change in the course of
time but it does not really change the
meaning:
Lufian [luvian] – love [lˆv] = hold dear,
cherish.
Meaning is not identical with concept or
concepts:
Fixed residence of family or household –
home (not house, which is a building)/ дом
Concept is a category of human cognition.
Synonyms express one and the same
concept but have different meanings: look,
stare, glare, gaze, watch, peep, etc.
Meaning and referent
• Meaning is a linguistic matter and
referent belongs to the extralinguistic
reality.
• We can denote one and the same object
or phenomenon by more than one word
of a different meaning: apple = fruit –
something , this, it; summer = season,
holiday time, part of the year,
june+july+august.
Meaning cannot be equated with the
actual properties of the referent
Water =H2O the meaning of water as a
substance we all know is not identical by
its chemical formular; salt = NaCl;
Angel, demon, phoenix, unicon – the
meanings are understood by the speakerhearer, but the objects they denote do not
exist. Hobbit, troll, ogre, …..
• Meaning is not to be identified with any
points of the referential/semantic
triangle
MEANING IN THE REFERENTIAL
APPROACH
A.I. Smirnitsky: «meaning ia a certain
reflection in our mind of objects,
phenomena or relations that makes part of
the linguistic sign – it’s so called inner
facet, whereas the sound form functions as
its outer facet».
The outer facet of a linguistic sign is
indispensable to meaning and
communication.
FUNCTIONAL APPROACH
The meaning of a linguistic unit may be
studied only through its relation to other
linguistic units and not through its relation
to either concept or referent.
To move / movement – are two different
words because they occupy different
positions in relation to other words and
function differently in communication:
• Move a chair; move house; do not move;
move slowly/ fast;
• Movement of something/sb; someone’s
movement, slow/fast; akward/graceful
movement, etc.
• But: indispensible = indispensable;
realize/realise
• As the distribution of the two words is
different, and they belong to different
word classes, their meanings are
different too:
• the birds are pecking at their food.
• finally Sandie understood the pecking
order in the family.
In the functional approach
1)semantic investigation is confined to the
analysis of the sameness or difference of
meaning; 2)
meaning is understood esentially as the
function of the use of linguistic units.
• Distribution = the position of a linguistic
unit in relation to other linguistic units.
Which approach to choose?
• The two approaches are applied together
and complement each other:
Fauw pas – commit a major faux pas;
Now came the moment to commit his
major faux pas – he asked David how his
wife was doing, not knowing they had
divorsed last week.
TYPES OF MEANING

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                                              LECTURE 1.

                               THE WORD AND ITS MEANING

                                          OUTLINE

1.  The word and its main characteristics.
2.  Types of meaning.
3.  Semantic changes and their causes.

1.  The word and its main characteristics.

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics that deals with the vocabulary of the language and characteristics of words as the main lexical units. Lexical units comprise words and set expressions, or groups of words of fixed character.

There are over 200 definitions of a word but none is generally accepted. The word reflects world mapping which is culturally and nationally specific. Word use is also pre-determined by person’s social and educational status, gender, age, etc.

The word performs the following functions:

1.  denotational (denotes things, qualities, actions,etc);
   1.  generalizing function (e.g. tree, house, animal);
   2.  emotive function (expresses our feelings and emotions);
   3.  structural function (performs a certain syntactic function, is a part of a sentence).

The word is the smallest meaningful unit possessing the following features:

1.  isolatability, i.e. ability of a word to function  in communication  alone, to make a sentence, e.g. ‘Help!’ This distinguishes a word from another meaningful unit – a morpheme, which cannot be used in isolation. It can function only as a part of a word.
2.  indivisibility, i.e. a word cannot be further divided  without breaking its meaning.    Cf. asleep – a (sound) sleep, alive – a (quiet) life.
3.  positional mobility, i.e. a word can change its position in a sentence. E.g. Suddenly they came up to a house. They came up to a house suddenly. Up to a house they suddenly came.

The word is a two-facet unit combining meaning and form. The relationship between the two is denoted by the term motivation. If the connection between the meaning of a word and its form is clear and the form helps us to understand the meaning, the word is considered motivated. If the connection is conventional, the word is said to be non-motivated at the present stage of language development.

There are three types of motivation:

1.  Phonetic , the sound form of the word helps us to understand its meaning, e.g. bang, bump, hiss, cuckoo, etc.
2.  morphological, the morphemic composition of a word helps to understand its meaning, e.g.  ex+ noun  = former …; re+ verb = do again; verb+er = agent, doer of the action.
3.  figurative meaning of a word becomes clear through its direct meaning, e.g. the leg of the table, the foot of the mountain, the eye of the needle.

II. Types of meaning.

           The meaning is not homogeneous. It is a system of systems:

           1).  It combines lexical and grammatical meanings, e.g. actress is a personal noun.

           2).  Lexical meaning includes denotative and connotative ones.

           3).  Denotative meaning is conceptual (what a word denotes), it is divided into semantic

                 components called semes , e.g. Father is a male parent. Denotative components may

     be culturally predetermined (cf. winter in Siberia and in Australia, it is a season

     between autumn and spring but all other characteristics are different: duration,

     temperature, etc.).

           4).  Connotative meanings express the speaker’s attitude to the subject of speech and may

                  be as follows:

1.  stylistic: chap, fellow, associate; child, infant, kid;
   1.  emotive: cool, awesome, terrific;
      1.  expressive: to trudge, to march, to gobble;
      2.  evaluative: clever, silly, good, bad(rational evaluation), scoundrel (emotional evaluation);
      3.  associative (a fir-tree – forest, New Year);
      4.  national and cultural (kilt – Scots);
      5.  pragmatic: Can you open the door?

           5).  A word may be polysemantic, i.e. it may have several interrelated denotative                 

      meanings:

1.  One of the meanings is called primary, this is the meaning in which the word made its first appearance in the language, all the other meanings which developed later are called secondary, e.g. chair as a piece of furniture (primary), chair as the head of some meeting, conference or chair as a department (secondary meanings).
2.  One of the meanings is central, others are peripheral. As a rule, primary and central meanings coincide but it is not necessarily so. In the course of language development a secondary meaning may become the central one ousting the primary meaning to the periphery, e.g. revolution:  primary meaning is that of rotary movement, revolving, secondary – social change (now central).
3.  Meaning can be direct and indirect (figurative, transferred), e.g. white collar, blue collar, smoke screen, etc.

III.  Semantic changes and their causes.

1.Specialization, or narrowing of meaning

  e.g.  garage – a safe place

meat – any food

2.Generalization, or widening of meaning

  e.g. ready (in O.E. – ready for a ride, now – ready for any activity)

arrive – to land at a shore

3.Elevation of meaning (getting better, going higher)

   e.g. queen (in O.E. – woman)

          knight (in O.E. – young servant).

4.Degradation of meaning (getting worse, lower)

  e.g.  a spinster – a woman that spins wool

idiot – a private person

5. Transference of meaning. The name of one thing is used to name some other things.

   Transference is further subdivided into metaphor, metonymy and euphemism.

1.  Transference of meaning based on likeness is called a metaphor. Metaphors can be based on likeness of form ( a head of cabbage), of position (the foot of the mountain), function (Head of the Department), size, quantity (ocean of troubles, storm of applause),etc. Sometimes a combination of several features makes up the foundation for a metaphor (a leg of a table – function, position, shape). Metaphors may involve transition from proper names to common ones, e.g. a Don Juan, Apollo, Vandals, Hooligans.
2.  Transference of meaning based on associations of contiguity (being together) is called metonymy. We can use the name of a container for the thing it contains (Will you have another cup?), instrument for the agent (His pen knows no compromise), the place for the people who live or work there ( Kharkiv greets the guests. The Kremlin agrees to the treaty), the name of a person for the things s/he made (He reads Byron), the name of a part for the whole (Who’s the moustache?)
3.  Transference of meaning dictated by social conventions, norms, rules of behavior. A word or a word combination is used instead of the other word that is offensive, rude, or taboo.

e.g. to die: to perish, to pass away, to join the silent majority, to meet one’s maker, to be with the angels, to cross the Great Divide, etc.

toilet: WC, bathroom, the necessary facilities, powder room, ladies/ gents, public conveniences, cloakroom, throne room, porcelain collection, Windsor Castle, etc.

Causes of semantic changes may include linguistic and extra-linguistic ones.

The latter are connected with social, political, economic, cultural and scientific development.

e.g. computer, space, feedback, bikini, villain, boor, etc.

The former embrace differentiation of synonyms (e.g. time and tide), borrowings (hound and dog), preserving the old meaning in idioms (love token, token of respect), etc.

                                                LECTURE 2.

                                          PHRASEOLOGY

1.  Set expressions, their features and origin.
2.  Classification of phraseological units.

1.  Set expressions, their features and origin.

Set expressions are stable ready-made units with fixed integrate structure. They are contrasted to free phrases and semi-fixed combinations. A free phrase permits substitution of any of its elements without any semantic change in the other element, e.g. to go early: to work, get up, move, etc. early: to go late, quickly, down, etc.

In semi-fixed combinations there are some boundaries for the substitution, e.g. go to school (market, college, court, etc.) is used only with nouns of places where definite actions are performed.

Features  that make set expressions stable:

1.  euphonic;
   1.  imaginative;
   2.  connotative.

Euphonic: rhythm, rhyme, alliteration,e.g. safe and sound, stuff and nonsense, by hook or by crook.

Semantic stylistic features: simile, contrast, metaphor, synonymy, antonymy, e.g. as like as two peas, as old as hills, more or less, from beginning to end, a lame duck, arms race, to swallow a pill, proud and hauty.

A bit of expressions are connected with different spheres of people’s life, nature, etc.

1.  nature, e.g. out of the blue, as welcome as snow in May, to rain cats and dogs, etc.
2.  agriculture, e.g. plough the sand, reap a rich harvest, sow wild oats, etc.
3.  sports, e.g. fair play, to kick a goal, etc.
4.  mythology, e.g. the apple of discord, Achilles’ heel, etc.
5.  the Bible, e.g. Solomon’s judgement, forbidden fruit, etc.
6.  folklore, e.g. peeping Tom, Calamity Jane, etc.
7.  literature, e.g. to fight the windmills, a green-eyed monster, etc.

1.  Classification of phraseological units.

There are different approaches to studying and classifying phraseological units.

1.  The classification of V.V.Vinogradov is synchronic and semantic. It is based upon the type of motivation. He distinguishes:
   1.  phraseological fusions, e.g. tit for tat. They represent the highest stage of blending, are not motivated nowadays, are specific for every language and cannot be literally translated;
      1.  phraseological unities , e.g. to know where a shoe pinches, to rise to the bait, etc. They are clearly motivated, some of them are easily translated and even international;
      2.  phraseological combinations, e.g. to meet the demands, to make friends. They are not only clearly motivated but also contain one component used in its direct meaning (demands, friends).

2.Larin’s classification is also semantic but diachronic. He believes that each unit goes through three stages in its development. First it is a free word combination, then a motivated metaphoric phrase and then an idiom with lost motivation, e.g. to give a sack, to give a cold shoulder, to dance attendance on smb., etc.

Semantic classifications of Vinogradov and Larin are open to criticism since the degree of motivation may be different for different speakers depending on their knowledge of history, customs and traditions, level of education, etc. So they are subjective, not reliable enough.

1.  N.Amosova’s approach is contextological. She defines phraseological units as units of fixed context characterized by a specific word-order and peculiar semantic relationship between the components. Phraseological units are divided into phrasemes and idioms. Phrasemes are always binary. One of their components has a phraseologically bound meaning, the other serves as the determining context, e.g. small change, small hours, small talk. In idioms the new meaning is created by the whole, each element having its own meaning weakened or lost. Idioms may be motivated and demotivated.
2.  Koonin’s classification is functional: depends on the functions phraseological units fulfil in communication. There may be: a) nominating (e.g. a man of straw, a bull in a china shop); b) nominative communicative (verbal), e.g. to go round the bush, to pull one’s leg, etc.; c) communicative (sentences by form), e.g. Curiosity killed the cat; d) interjectional, e.g. Good heavens, a pretty kettle of fish, etc. Further classification depends on whether the units are changeable or unchangeable, what their structure is, etc.

LECTURES  3-5.

WORD-BUILDING. STRUCTURE  OF WORDS.

                               OUTLINE

1.  Structural types of words.
2.  Affixation. Classification of affixes. Suffixes and prefixes.
3.  Conversion (zero derivation).
4.  Compounding. Classification of compounds. Criteria of compounding. Borderline cases (semi-affixes).
5.  Shortening.
6.  Abbreviations.
7.  Minor types of word-building.

I. Structural types of words.

     Each word consists of morphemes, the smallest meaningful units of the language. According to the role they play in constructing words, morphemes are divided into roots and affixes.

The root expresses the main lexical meaning of a word. The root may often be homonymous with the word. Such roots are called free morphemes. Affixes are always bound morphemes, they can function only within a word.

According to their function and meaning affixes are divided into derivational that serve to form new lexemes (words) and functional that express grammatical meanings and serve to create grammar forms of the same word. Functional affixes are also called flections (inflections), or endings. When a functional affix is stripped from a word, what remains is the stem. If the stem contains nothing but the root, it is a simple stem. If a stem also contains one or more derivational affixes, it is a derived stem.

Depending on their structure and type of formation words are divided into:

1.  simple words consisting of a root morpheme and the ending or zero-ending (e.g. start, helps);
2.  affixational derivatives consisting of a root morpheme and one or more derivational affixes (suddenly, fearless, teacher);
3.  compounds in which several stems are joined together (peace-loving, car-sick, sweetheart);
4.  derivational compounds where stems are joined together by composition and affixation (bare-legged, heart-shaped);
5.  shortened words (fridge, ed, pram);
6.  abbreviations (MP, UN).

II. Affixation. Classification of affixes. Suffixes and prefixes.

Affixation is a way of forming new words by adding derivational affixes to the stem. Derivational affixes are classified in a number of ways.

According to their position in a word affixes are divided into prefixes, which precede the root, suffixes, which follow the root, and infixes inserted into the root (historically n in stand is an infix).

According to the degree of productivity affixes are divided into productive that help to form new words nowadays and non-productive no longer used in word-formation at the present stage of language development, e.g. –lock  (as in the word wedlock).

According to their origin affixes are divided into native and borrowed. Native affixes are those, which already existed in O.E. or were formed from O.E. words. A root morpheme in a compound word may gradually develop into a suffix and become a bound form no longer homonymous with any Modern English word. E.g. –dom (O.E. fate, power), -hood (O.E. state), etc.

The most important native affixes are: -d, -dom, -ed, -en, -fold, -ful, -hood, -ing, -ish, -less, -like, -let, -lock, -ly, -ness, -red,-ship, -some,-teen, -ty, -th, -wise, -y.

Borrowed affixes are classified according to their origin: Latin (-able, -ible, -ant/ent), French (-age, -ance, -ence, -ancy, -ency, -ard, -ate), Greek (-ist, -ism, -ite), etc. Affixes are borrowed only if a large number of words with the same affix are borrowed, if both the meaning and the function of the affix are clear and if the structural pattern corresponds to the structural patterns already existing in the language. If all these conditions are fulfilled, the foreign affix may even become productive and combine with native stems or borrowed stems within the system of the English vocabulary. E.g. –able in laughable, unforgettable, unforgivable. The English words balustrade, brigade, cascade are borrowed from French but the English word blockade was coined by analogy from an English  root with the borrowed suffix.

The next classification deals with suffixes and divides them according to the part of speech the words they help to form belong to:

1) noun-forming suffixes: -age (bondage, breakage), -ance/-ence (assistance, reference), -ant/-ent (desinfectant, student), -dom (freedom, kingdom), -hood(widowhood, sisterhood), -ee(nominee, trainee, employee), -er(teacher, writer), -ess(actress, lioness), -ing (building, moving), -ion (rebellion), -tion (creation), -ation (explanation), -ism (heroism, criticism),

-ist(novelist), -ment (government), -ness (tenderness), -ship(scholarship), -ty (minority);

2) adjective-forming suffixes: -able(unbearable), -al(formal), -ant/ent (dependent),

-ary(revolutionary), -ate/ete(accurate, complete), -ful(delightful), -an(African), -ish(reddish, childish), -ive(active), -less(useless), -ly(manly), -ous(curious), some (tiresome), -y(cloudy, dressy);

1.  adverb-forming suffixes: -ly(coldly); -wards(northwards), -wise(likewise);
2.  numeral-forming suffixes: -teen(fourteen), -ty (sixty), -th(seventh);
3.  verb-forming suffixes: -ate(facilitate), -er(twitter), -en(shorten), -fy(terrify),

-ise(specialise), -ish (establish).

As to their  lexico-grammatical meanings suffixes can be further subdivided, for example,   noun suffixes into:

1.  suffixes of abstract nouns: -dom, -hood, -ion, -ism, -ment, -ness.
2.  suffixes of personal nouns which are emotionally neutral: -an(grammarian), -ent (student), -ant (servant), -er (porter), -or (inspector), -ist (linguist), -ician (musician);
3.  feminine suffixes as a subgroup of personal noun suffixes: -ess (actress, lioness, tigress, hostess), -ine (heroine), -ette (cosmonette);
4.  derogatory suffixes of personal nouns: -ard (drunkard), -ster (gangster), -ton (simpleton);
5.  diminutive suffixes (used to name both persons and things): -y/ie (hanky, daddy, auntie, nightie), -let(booklet), -ock(hillock), -ette(kitchenette).

In contrast to suffixes most prefixes do not radically change the basic lexico-grammatical

meaning of the stem but just modify it. So the prefixed derivative and its prototype usually belong to the same part of speech. E.g. behave- misbehave, read – re-read, please – displease, grateful – ungrateful. Some prefixes are used with words of one part of speech only, others – with several parts of speech, e.g. re-  with verbs and nouns, un- with adjectives, verbs and nouns.

In some cases, however, prefixes may also change general lexico-grammatical meaning and form words belonging to a different part of speech as compared with the original word:

1.  verb-forming  prefixes be- (with adjective and noun stems), e.g. belittle, benumb, befriend, becloud, behead; en-/em- (with adjective and noun stems), e.g. encamp, enable, enslave, encase, embed;
2.  adjective-forming prefixes pre-, post-, non-, anti- (with noun stems): pre-war, post-war, anti-war, non-party.

The meanings conveyed by prefixes are as follows:

1)    negative or reversative: de-, dis-, in-, im-, il-, ir-,  non-, un, anti-.

            e.g. decentralise, disagree, impatient, illiterate, irregular, nonsense, unhappy, unmask ,      

           anticlockwise.

2)   repetitive: re-.

     e.g. rearrange, remake, remarriage.

1.  adverbial of size or degree: out-, over-, under-, super-.

e.g. outdo, outnumber, overgrow, overfeed, underestimate,  superman.

1.  adverbial of manner: mis-.

e.g. misbehave, mistake.

1.  adverbial of time: post-, pre-.

e.g. post-mortem, postgraduate, prepay, pre-war.

1.  adverbial of place: trans-, sub-, in-, out-, a-.

e.g. transatlantic, subway, input, output, aboard.

III. Conversion (zero derivation).

 Another type of derivation is conversion, or zero derivation. This is a process of coining a new word belonging to a different part of speech without adding any derivative element to the original word. So the basic form of the original word and that of the derived word are homonymous, e.g. Don’t forget to dust the furniture.

As a type of word-building conversion exists in a lot of languages but in English it has developed most intensely due to the lack of morphological signs indicating the part of speech a word belongs to, e.g. home may be a noun (Home, sweet home), an adjective (home assignment), an adverb (go home), a verb (A missile automatically homes the target).

Conversion is the predominant way of forming new verbs in Modern English. They may be formed from nouns (to hand, to shoulder, to knee, to finger, to eye, to nose, etc.), from adjectives (to busy, to slow), from adverbs (to down) and other parts of speech. Nouns may be formed from verbs (a good catch, a short walk, a long drive), adverbs (ups and downs), etc.

A special case of conversion is substantivation of adjectives, i.e. conversion of adjectives into nouns. The degree of substantivation may be full or partial. Fully substantivized adjectives share all the characteristics of nouns: can be used in the singular and in the plural, in the common and possessive cases, with the indefinite, definite or zero articles, e.g. a private, a group of privates, the private’s uniform, privates’ duties.  Words female, male, criminal, native, red, grown-up and some others belong to the fully substantivated. Partially substantivated adjectives cannot add –s or ‘s, are always used with the definite article and refer to a group of people, e.g. the blind, the dead, the wounded, the poor, etc.

Most regularly conversion involves simple words but affixed and prefixed words may be converted as well (though less commonly): commission- to commission. Conversion may be combined with compounding, e.g. a drawback, a handout, a take-over, to pinpoint, to blacklist.

IY. Compounding. Classification of compounds. Criteria of compounding. Borderline cases (semi-affixes).

Compounding is a way of forming new words by joining together two or more stems that occur in the language as free forms (separate words).

There are several classifications of compound words.

According to the way the stems are joined we distinguish:

1.  compounds made by juxtaposition without any connecting elements, e.g. heartache, heart-beat, heart-burn, heart-attack;
2.  compounds with a vowel or a consonant as a linking element between the stems, e.g.  speedometer, handicraft, craftsman;
3.  compounds with linking elements represented by prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns: son-in-law, up-to-date, hide-and-seek, forget-me-not.

According to the structure of stems we distinguish:

1.  compounds consisting of simple stems, e.g. film-star, sun-beam;
2.  compounds in which at least one of the stems is a derivative, e.g. chain-smoker, mill-owner;
3.  compounds in which at least one of the stems is clipped (shortened), e.g. math-mistress, lab-test;
4.  compounds in which at least one of the stems is a compound  by itself, e.g. wastepaper-basket.

According to the relations between the stems compounds are divided into endocentric and exocentric. In endocentric compounds one of the stems is the main and the other describes, characterizes it, serves to differentiate it from similar ones. E.g. a sun-beam (not moon-beam or torch-beam), text-book (not exercise-book or note-book or reference book). The main component is also grammatically the most important  part which undergoes morphological changes: sunbeams, brothers-in-law, textbooks. In exocentric compounds we cannot distinguish the main stem, the status of stems is equal, e.g. a killjoy.

According to their conformity to current grammatical patterns of the language, compounds are divided into syntactic, which conform to the patterns and may be transformed into corresponding word combinations, and asyntactic, which do not. E.g. syntactic: a sea-shore (a shore of the sea), bookselling (selling books), a bookbinder (a person who binds books). Asyntactic: babysitting (not sitting babies), bookmaker (not a person who makes books).

According to the degree of their motivation, compounds are divided into idiomatic and non-idiomatic. Idiomatic compounds are different in meaning from the corresponding word combinations, e.g. a blackboard is not necessarily black and may be not a board at all being made of plastic, linoleum, etc. In non-idiomatic compounds the meaning is equal to the sum of the meanings of its components, e.g. text-book, seagull.

It is not always easy to differentiate a compound word from a word combination. There are several criteria to help with this task. Unfortunately, no one type of criteria is normally sufficient for establishing the status of a lexical unit, is relevant by itself. We need  at least two of them to be sure.

1). Graphic criterion: solid or hyphenated spelling proves that the unit is a compound word. However, English spelling is not consistent enough, e.g. airline, air-line, air line; textbook, phrase-book, reference book.

2). Phonological criterion: compounds usually have a single stress on the first syllable: ice-cream, blackboard (compare: a black board – each word is equally stressed). But the rule doesn’t hold with adjectives which are always double-stressed (green-grey, snow-white), the stress may be logical (It’s an express train, not a passenger train) or the stress may help to differentiate the meaning of compounds (e.g. mankind).

3). Semantic criterion: A compound expresses a single idea, which is not identical in meaning to the sum of the meanings of its components in a free phrase (e.g. blackboard). But it cannot be applied to clearly motivated compounds (e.g. sunrise) or to idiomatic phrases (e.g. it rains cats and dogs).

4). Syntactical criterion is based on comparing a compound and the phrase comprising the same morphemes. E. g.  black birds can be modified by very (very black birds) and it is impossible with the compound blackbirds. However, the criterion cannot serve to distinguish compounds from set expressions in which the words cannot be modified either: black market, black list (cannot say a very black list).

5). Morphological criteria include: a) formal integrity (e.g. shipwrecks may be wrecks ofa ship or wreck of several ships or wrecks of several ships; window-cleaner does not clean just one window, the same about cigar-smoker or lip-reading. The plural number present in the corresponding phrases is neutralized in compounds.) But such examples are not numerous; b) connective elements (e.g. Anglo-Saxon, craftsman). But there are very few words like that.

No criterion is sufficient by itself.

Sometimes it is not easy to distinguish a compound from a derivative either. Such elements as man, berry, land, etc. have acquired valency similar to that of affixes. They are now unstressed, their lexical meaning is somewhat weakened, e.g. like, proof, worthy. The elements like this may be called semi-affixes. E.g. fire-proof, damp-proof, kiss-proof; mini-bus, mini-crisis, mini-dress. The factors conducing to transition of free forms into semi affixes are high semantic productivity, adaptability, high valency and brevity.

Y. Shortening.

Shortening is a way of coining new words by clipping a part of their prototypes. The remaining part does not usually change phonetically so it is sometimes necessary to change the spelling: mike (from microphone), trank (from tranquilizer), dub (from double).

The change of meaning may also take place:

a) shortened words are usually colloquial while their prototypes may be neutral (e.g. bike, mike, doc);

b) shortened words are as a rule monosemantic while their prototypes may be polysemantic (e. g. to double has several meanings:1) to increase twofold; 2) to multiply by two; 3) to add the same note in the lower or higher octave; 4) to make another soundtrack of a film in a different language. The shortened word to dub retains only the fourth meaning).

The correlation of a shortened word and its prototype may be as follows:

a) the curtailed form is a lexical variant or a synonym differing from the prototype stylistically or emotionally (e.g. exam: examination, doc: doctor);

b) the connection can be established only etymologically, e.g. fan: fanatic, fancy: fantasy.

Unlike conversion shortening produces new words belonging to the same part of speech as their prototypes. The bulk of shortened words is constituted by nouns. Verbs are hardly ever shortened (e.g. to rev from revolve). Shortened adjectives are few and mostly reveal a combined effect of shortening and affixation, e.g. comfy from comfortable, mizzy from miserable.

Shortened words are often homonymous with other shortened words, e.g. van (the short for caravan and for vanguard), gym (gymnastics and gymnasium), vet (veterinary and veteran).             

Classification of shortened words is based on the position of the clipped part. We distinguish:

1) final clipping (the end is cut off, the beginning of the prototype is retained), e.g. ad (advertisement), ed (editor), coke(coca-cola);

1.  initial clipping (the final part of the prototype is retained), e.g. story (history), phone (telephone), drome (airdrome);
2.  final and initial clipping combined, e.g. fridge (refrigerator), tec (detective), flu (influenza);
3.  medial clippinf (the central part of a word falls out), e.g. specs (spectacles), ma’am (madam), maths (mathematics), fancy (fantasy).

Shortened words are opposed to shortened phrases, which result from a combined effect of clipping, ellipsis and substantivation, e.g. weekly (weekly paper), finals (final exams), pub (public house).

A special case of shortened words are fusions, or blends, or telescopic words. They result from shortening and compounding of clipped stems. The patterns may be:

     a)  initial element of the first stem + the second stem, e.g. paratroops (parachute troops),

          automaniac (automobile maniac);

1.  the first stem + the final element of the second stem, e.g. slimnastics (slim + gymnastics),

     popcert (popular concert), videot (video + idiot);

1.  the initial element of the first stem + the final element of the second stem, e.g. smog

    (smoke + fog), weddiversary (wedding anniversary), bit (binary digit).

YI. Abbreviations.

Abbreviations are words formed by initial letters of some other words. Depending on the way they are read abbreviations are divided into:

a)  those   preserving  alphabetical reading, e.g. BBC, SOS, TV;

b)  acronyms   read as though they were ordinary English words, e.g. UNO, NATO, NOW.

A specific group is represented by Latin abbreviations which may be read:

a)  alphabetically, e.g. a.m., p.m.

b)  as corresponding Latin words, e.g.- exampli gratia, p.m. – post meridium, a.m.- ante

    meridium.

c)  as corresponding English words, e.g.- for example, a.m. – in the morning, p.m.- in the  

afternoon.

YII. Minor types of word-building.

1.Sound interchange.

It is a way of forming new words by changing some sound(s) in the root, e.g. food: feed, life: live, speak: speech. It can be combined with affixation,  e.g. strong: strength or with affixation and shift of stress, e.g. democrat: democracy.

2.Distinctive stress.

It is a way of coining new words by changing the place of stress, e.g. import (n, v), conduct (n, v), research (n, v in AmE).

3.Sound imitation.

It is a way of forming new words by imitating sounds associated with the objects or actions the words denote, e.g. to splash, to giggle, to buzz, whisper, cuckoo, etc.               

           4.Back formation.

It is a way of coining new words by cutting a supposed  or real suffix from existing words, e.g. to butle (from butler), to beg (from beggar), to housekeep (from house-keeper), etc.      

                                              LECTURE 6.

           LEXICAL SYSTEMS.  HOMONYMS. SYNONYMS. ANTONYMS.

                                                OUTLINE.

1.  Definition of homonyms. Classification of homonyms.
2.  Sources of homonymy.
3.  Definition of synonyms. Classification of synonyms.
4.  Sources of synonymy.
5.  Antonyms and their classification.

I. Definition of homonyms. Classification of homonyms.

Homonyms are words identical in sound and spelling or at least in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning and distribution. The term is derived from Greek (homos – the same, onoma – name, i.e. the same name combined with the difference of meaning.

E.g. bank: 1) a shore, a river bank; 2) a financial institution;

Ball: 1) any spherical body; 2) a large dancing party.

Homonyms exist in many languages but in English this language phenomenon is especially frequent, mostly in monosyllabic words (nearly 90 % of homonyms).

Homonyms are divided into homonyms proper (identical in both sound and spelling), e.g. ball, bank; homophones (identical in sound but different in spelling), e.g. piece-peace, knight-night, scent-sent-cent; homographs (the same in spelling but different in sound), e.g. to bow – bow, lead – to lead.

Another classification is based on the part of speech homonyms belong to. If both homonyms belong to the same part of speech, they are lexical, e.g. to read – read, knight –night, to lie – to lie. Homonyms belonging to different parts of speech are called lexico-grammatical, e.g. left – left, eye –I, knows – nose.

 The third classification is based on the similarity of the paradigms (grammatical forms each homonym possesses). E.g. match-matches: match – matches, such homonyms are called full. Homonyms that coincide in one or two members (not in all members) of their paradigms are called partial. E.g. to lie- lying-lied – lied : to lie-lying- lay-lain ; left : to leave-leaving-left-left.

II. Sources of homonymy.

 There are several sources of homonymy.

1.  Phonetic changes. In the course of the language development two or more words that were pronounced differently may develop identical sound form, e.g. knight-night, sea-see, write-right.
2.  Borrowing. A borrowed word may duplicate in form a native word or another borrowing, e.g. write (native) – rite(Latin ritus), fair (adj, native) – fair (noun, French),bank (shore, native)-bank (institution, Italian).
3.  Wordbuilding:
   1.  conversion, e.g. pale-to pale, water –to water, comb-to comb;
   2.  shortening, e.g. fan – fan (from fanatic), van – from vanguard and from caravan;
   3.  sound imitation, e.g. bang – to bang; mew –mew- mew.
4.  Splitting polysemy, e.g. board. It is difficult to establish exact criteria by which

     disintegration of polysemy could be detected. The knowledge of etymology and other  

     languages will help to supply the missing links. The imprecision of the criteria is recorded in the data of different dictionaries which often contradict each other. E.g. board is represented as two homonyms in Muller’s dictionary, as three homonyms in Arakin’s dictionary and as one polysemantic word in Hornby’s dictionary.    

III. Definition of synonyms. Classification of synonyms.

      Synonymy is one of the most controversial points in linguistics. Roughly we may say that when two or more different words are associated with the same or nearly the same denotative meaning, the words are synonyms.

Sometimes criterion of interchangeability has been applied to definition of synonyms. Accordingly, synonyms have been defined as words, which are interchangeable in at least some contexts without any considerable changes in denotative meaning. This criterion, however, has been much criticized. If all synonyms were interchangeable, they would become useless ballast in the language. Even those synonyms that seem to be interchangeable and are called total by Academician Vinogradov, still differ in their distribution, use, etc. e.g. cosmonaut is used in reference to European spacemen and astronaut – to American ones. Or offer is followed by a noun while suggest – by a gerund. So the prevailing majority of synonyms are partial.

Synonyms are united into synonymous rows. In each row there is one word, which presents a kind of centre of the group of synonyms. Its semantic structure is usually simple. This is the dominant synonym characterized by:

1.  high frequency of usage;
2.  broad combinability;
3.  broad general meaning;
4.   lack of connotations.

E.g. in the row:  to look-to stare-to glare-to gaze-to peer-to peep-to glance-to glimpse-etc. the dominant synonym is the word to look.

Synonyms can be classified as stylistic and ideographic. Stylistic synonyms differ in their stylistic connotations, e.g. father-parent-daddy; stomach-belly. Ideographic synonyms may differ in the following connotations:

1.  degree or intensity,  e.g. to like-to admire –to live – to adore- to worship; to surprise – to astonish- to amaze- to astound;
2.  duration, e.g. to glance- to stare ; to say – to talk ;
3.  manner, e.g. to  stagger – to trot – to pace – to march, etc.;
4.  cause, e.g. to shiver –to shudder ; to blush – to redden ;
5.  emotive connotation, e.g. alone – lonely;
6.  evaluative connotation, e.g. well-known – famous- celebrated- notorious, etc.

We can also single out contextual synonyms that are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions, e.g Go and buy some bread – Go and get some bread.

I cannot stand it any longer – I cannot bear it any longer. These words are not synonyms outside the specified contexts.

IY.  Sources of synonymy.

1) Borrowings from other languages or from dialects and regional variants                  

      e.g. to ask (native) – to question (French) – to interrogate (Latin)

 girl – lass (Scottish), lake-loch (Scottish), wireless – radio (AmE);

            2) Wordbuilding:

1.  conversion, e.g. a laugh( from to laugh) – laughter, to entame – to tame;
2.  shortening, e.g. veteran –vet, refrigerator – fridge, to telephone – to phone;

3) Euphemisms, e.g. drunk – merry – elevated, lavatory – restroom, etc.;

4) Phraseology, e.g. naked – in one’s birthday suit; to die – to join the silent majority, to kick the bucket, etc.

Y. Antonyms and their classification.

            Antonyms may be defined as two or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and often used together so that their denotative meanings render contradictory or contrary notions.  

 Contradictory notions  are mutually opposed and deny each other, e.g. alive – not dead, illiterate – not literate. Contrary notions are also mutually opposed but they are gradable, e.g. old and young are the most distant poles on the scale: young – middle-aged- elderly-old  or hot-warm-cool-cold.

Classification of antonyms is based on  the way they are built. Root words form absolute antonyms (having different roots), e.g. right-wrong, derivational antonyms are created by negative affixes added to the same root, e.g. happy-unhappy, helpful-helpless.  

In derivational antonyms morphological motivation is clear, there is no necessity in contexts containing both members to prove the existence of derivational antonyms. The word unsuccessful presupposes the existence of the word successful. But the patterns, though typical are not universal. Morphologically similar formations may show different semantic relationships.

E.g. disappoint is not the antonym to appoint, to unman (to deprive of human qualities) is not the antonym of man (to furnish with personnel).

Another type of antonyms is contextual antonyms, i.e. words, which are contrasted in actual speech and are not opposed outside certain contexts, e.g. Some people have much to live on but little to live for. On and for are antonyms in this context.

Almost every word can have one or more synonyms. Comparatively few have antonyms.

This type of opposition is characteristic of:

1.  qualitative adjectives, e.g. old – new, pretty-ugly;
2.  words derived from qualitative adjectives, e.g. gladly-sadly, gladness-sadness;
3.  words denoting feelings or states, e.g. triumph-disaster, hope-despair, love-hatred;
4.  words denoting direction, e.g. to and from, hither and thither;
5.  words denoting position in space and time, e.g. far-near, over-under, late-early, day-night.

Polysemantic words may have different antonyms when used in different meanings, e.g.

short –long (a long story, a short story), short- tall (a short man, a tall man), short- civil (to be short with somebody, to be civil with somebody).

Polysemantic words may have antonyms in some of their meanings and no antonyms in the others, e.g. criticism (blame) – praise, criticism (literary critical essay) – (no antonym).

One more type of semantic opposition is conversives. They denote one and the same referent or situation as viewed from different sides, with a reversed order of participants and their roles, e.g. buy-sell, give-receive, parent-child. Conversive relations are possible within one word, e.g. to sell: He sells books. This book sells well. The same pair of words may function as antonyms or as conversives, e.g. fathers and sons.

LECTURE  7

                              LEXICAL SYSTEMS (continued).

                                                   OUTLINE.

1.  Stylistically marked and stylistically neutral vocabulary.
2.  Slang and its characteristics.
3.  Neologisms.
4.  Archaisms.

I. Stylistically marked and stylistically neutral vocabulary.

 All words are divided into stylistically neutral (basic vocabulary having no stylistic connotations) and stylistically marked.

Stylistically neutral words can be used in any styles and situations, everyday, everywhere and by everybody, regardless of profession, education, age group or geographical location. Their meanings are broad, general and direct. A lot of these words have synonyms, which are stylistically marked, e.g. child-infant-kid, continue –  go on – proceed, begin – start- commence.

Stylistically marked words are limited in their use and include formal and informal vocabulary.

Formal vocabulary comprises:

1.  official vocabulary used in documents, business transactions, diplomacy, etc. E.g. high contracting parties, hereinafternamed, etc.
2.  learned words common to all fields of knowledge, e.g. synthesis, analysis, hypothesis, antithesis, etc.
3.  words associated with professional communication, special terminology different for each branch of science or art, e.g. linguistic terms: inflection, euphemism, paradigm, phoneme, etc.

Informal words are traditionally divided into:

1.  dialect words used within a certain territory, e.g. Cockney dialect;
2.  colloquial words
3.  slang.

Colloquial words serve for a comparatively wide sphere of communication. They are

       further subdivided into:

1.  literary colloquial words used in everyday conversational speech by both cultivated and  uneducated people of all age groups. It is widely reflected in fiction, especially in modern writers’ works. E.g. to have a bite, to have a snack, a bit of, a lot of, to start, to finish, to give up, to make up, turn up, flu, pram, fridge, zip, etc.
   1.  familiar colloquial words. There is no strict border between literary colloquial and familiar colloquial words. Yet the circle of speakers using familiar colloquial words is more limited – the young and the semi-educated. E.g. doc, hi, ta-ta, to pick up somebody, shut up, etc.

Slang is controversial as to its definition, characteristics and classifications. It is usually

      divided into general slang and special slang (e.g. teenager slang, university slang, football                                       

      slang, etc.)

 2. Slang and its characteristics   

Slang consists either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense. Most of slang words are current words whose meanings have been metaphorically shifted and it is often accompanied with a course, jocular, cynical colouring, e.g. saucers (eyes), trap (mouth).

Slang synonyms for ‘head’: attic, brain-pan, nut, hat-peg, upper storey.

Money: beans, brass, dough, etc.

People use slang for a number of reasons:

1.  to sound picturesque, striking, different from others;
2.  to sound modern, up-to-date;
3.  to demonstrate independence;
4.  to sound the same as all the rest in a group, to show that you ‘belong’ (especially important for teenagers).

After a slang word has been used in speech for a certain period of time, people get accustomed to it and the most vital words are then accepted into literary vocabulary. This happened to such words as snob, bet, bore, chap, donkey, fun, mob, pinch, teenager, hitch-hiker, etc. But the bulk of slang is formed by short-lived words.

Slang should be differentiated from argot (criminal jargon). Slang words are clearly motivated, e.g. window-shopping, cradle-snatcher. Argot words do not show their motivation, their purpose is to hide the real meaning, to be comprehensible by a limited number of people.

1.  Neologisms.

A neologism is a newly created word or a phrase or a new meaning developed for an existing word, or a word borrowed from another language.

New notions constantly come into being and require new words to name them or new meanings of old words, e.g. computer, isotope, tape-recorder, supermarket, black hole, feedback. It does not matter how important a new thing is, compare: nuclear war and roll-neck.

There may be different ways of coining new words:

1.  compounding, e.g. brain-drain;
2.  shortening, e.g. bionics;
3.  affixation, e.g. workaholic, bookaholic, money-mad, movie-mad, speed-mad;
4.  conversion (often+composition), e.g. fall-out, teach-in,etc.

As a general rule, neologisms are at first clearly motivated. Sometimes newly borrowed or newly created words very soon begin to function as indivisible signs.

In the course of time the new word is either accepted into the general vocabulary and is no longer considered new or may not be accepted and disappears from the language. So some neologisms are short-lived, others become durable.

1.  Archaisms.

Neologisms are contrasted to words that dropped from the language (obsolete words) or survive only in special contexts (archaisms and historisms).

Archaisms are words that were once common but are now replaced by synonyms. Old words become rarely used and are mostly associated with poetic diction and historic novels.

e.g. betwixt – between, damsel – ‘a noble girl’, hark –listen, morn- morning, woe – sorrow.

Thou and thy, aye, nay are certainly archaic and long since rejected by common usage. Dialects are usually more conservative and preserve some archaic words and structures.

Sometimes an archaic word may undergo a sudden revival, e.g. kin is now widely used in American English.

Historisms are words denoting objects and phenomena which are things of the past and no longer exist.

e.g. types of boats : caravel, galleon ; carriages : berlin, calash, gig, phaeton, diligence, landeau ; clothes : doublets, tabard, bloomers.

A great many historisms occur in historical novels.

  LECTURE  8

THE  ORIGIN  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS.  BORROWINGS.

1.  The etymological structure of English Vocabulary.
   1.  Borrowed words and their assimilation.
   2.  International words, translation loans, etymological doublets.

1.  The etymological structure of English Vocabulary.

According to their origin all the units of the English vocabulary can be divided into two big groups:  native and borrowed. The native lexical units  were not borrowed from other languages but represent the original stock of the language. The native words include the following classes:

1.  The Indo-European element: words of roots common to all or most languages of the Indo-European family. These words denote elementary notions without which no communication would be possible. Professor V.D.Arakin singled out the following groups within this class:

1) family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter;  

                  2) parts of human body: foot, nose, heart;

3) animals: swine, goose, cow;

1.  plants: tree, birch;
   1.  times of day: day, night;
   2.  heavenly bodies: sun, star, moon;
   3.  adjectives: red, new, glad
   4.  numerals: from 1 to 100;
   5.  personal pronouns (except they);
   6.  verbs: be, eat, sit, stand.

1.  The Germanic element: words common to all or most Germanic languages. They include the following semantic groups:
   1.  parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger;
      1.  animals: fox, bear;
      2.  plants: oak, grass;
      3.  natural phenomena: rain, frost;
      4.  seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer;
      5.  landscape features: sea, land;
      6.  houses and furniture: house, room, bench;
      7.  ships: ship, boat;
      8.  adjectives: colours (green, grey, blue, white), small, high, old, good;
      9.  verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, make, give, drink.
   2.  The English Proper element: words which appeared in the English vocabulary in  the 5th century or later, that is after the Germanic tribes migratwed to the British Isles. These are specifically English words: lord, lady, boy, girl, bird, woman, daisy, always, etc.

Native words constitute no more than 35% of the English vocabulary but they are extremely important for everyday communication and are used very often. Out of 5oo most frequently used words there are about 4oo native lexical units.

The borrowed words could be divided into groups depending on the source of borrowing, i.e. the language they were taken from by the English. The source of borrowing may not coincide with the origin of borrowing, i.e. the language to which a word may be traced. A classical example is the word paper, which was taken from French (Fr. papier). But its origin is Latin or Greek (Lat. papyrus , Gr. papyros).

The following classification is based on the source of borrowing and is closely connected with the history of the English people.

1.  Celtic borrowings (not very numerous): bin, bard, cradle, druid, Avon (“clear water”), Kent, London (Llyn ‘river’+ dyn ‘fortified hill’, i.e. fortress on the hill near the river);
2.  Latin borrowings further subdivided into three groups according to the time of borrowing: a) first contacts and colonization of Britain (1 century B.C.-5 century A.D.): cheese, butter, wine, wall, port, etc.; b) introduction of Christianity (7 century): priest, bishop, candle, school, etc.; c) Renaissance: major, minor, intelligent, permanent, status, fact, etc.(mostly scientific and artistic terms);
3.  Greek borrowings (Renaissance period mostly): atom, epoch, cycle, ethics, episode, epilogue, rhythm, metaphor, democracy, etc.;
4.  Scandinavian (7-11 centuries): sister, husband, window, die, want, kill, ugly, they, till, though, ski, skate, sky, skin, etc.;
5.  French: a) Norman borrowings (11-13 centuries):titles (prince, duke, count, baron), army (officer, general, division), justice (judge, jury), words connected with upper classes(palace, mansion, painter, tailor, etc); b) Parisian borrowings (Renaissance): bourgeois, regime, routine, police, machine, ballet, scene, technique; c)modern borrowings(diplomatic terms and social life): communiqué, attaché, dossier, champagne, menu, corsage, blouse, coquette, etc.
6.  Italian (Music, art, military, commercial):piano, opera, balcony, corridor, studio, sonnet, medals, alarm, colonel, million, cartridge;
7.  Spanish(colonies, foreign trade): sombrero, tomato, potato, toreador, tobacco, Negro, banana, etc.;
8.  German (war and chemistry): blitz, Gestapo, cobalt, zink, nickel, etc.;
9.  Dutch (navigation and art): freight, skipper, deck, dock, sketch, landscape, easel, etc.;
10.  Indian: curry;
11.  Russian: troika, vodka, balalaika, samovar, sarafan, Soviet, Kremlin, czar(tsar), sputrnik, intelligentsia, etc.

1.  Borrowed words and their assimilation.

All the borrowed words got mixed with the native stock in the process of historic development, so sometimes it is difficult to tell borrowed words from native, e.g. table, wall, sister, painter.  But a lot of words have preserved some peculiarities in pronunciation, spelling, morphology, which help to determine the origin of these words.

According to the degree of assimilation borrowed words are divided into:

1.  completely assimilated;
2.  partially assimilated;
3.  unassimilated, or barbarisms.

Completely assimilated borrowings are usually old: street, husband, table. They follow all morphological, phonetic and spelling standards of English. They are frequently used and stylistically neutral and usually active in word formation.

Partially assimilated borrowings are further subdivided into groups depending on the aspect which  the words are not assimilated in:

1.  not assimilated semantically: denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they came: clothes(sombrero), titles and professions (shah, bei, toreador), food and drinks (pilaw, borsch, galushky), money (rouble), etc.
   1.  not assimilated grammatically, e.g. original plural forms of Greek and Latin borrowings: crisis – crises, criterion – criteria, stimulus – stimuli, datum – data, etc.
   2.  not assimilated phonetically: with the stress on the last syllable (police, routine), sounds and combinations that are not standard in English (bourgeois, prestige, memoir), the whole phonetic pattern is different, e.g. opera, soprano, confetti, etc.
   3.  not assimilated graphically: with diactric marks (café, cliché), special digraphs (bouquet, brioche), some silent letters (ballet, corps).

Some words may have incomplete assimilation in more than one aspect.

Barbarisms are not assimilated in any way foreign words which are used by Englishmen in communication though they have native equivalents, e.g. ciao, Anno Domini, etc.

1.  International words, translation loans, etymological doublets.

Borrowing is seldom limited to one language. Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from the same source are called international.  They play an important role in scientific terminology, industry, art. E.g., Italian borrowings in music, Latin borrowings in science, etc. There exist false translator’s friends, e.g. magazine, champion, general, capital, etc.

Translation loans are formed from the material already existing in the English language but according to the pattern taken from another language by literal translation, e.g. wall newspaper (from Russian), chain-smoker (from German), swan song (German), etc.

Etymological doublets are two or more words of the same language which were derived from the same basic word but by different routes. They now differ in form, meaning and usage. Doublets appear when:

1.  words came through different dialects in O.E.: raid and road, drag and draw;
2.  words were borrowed twice in different periods: castle – chateau; catch- chase;
3.  words which developed from different grammatical forms of the same borrowed word: super-superior-supreme (degrees of comparison of the same Latin adjective).

LECTURE 9

REGIONAL VARIETIES AND DIALECTS

1.  The  national literary language. Local dialects and variants. Dialects on the territory of the British Isles.
2.  Variants of the English language .
3.  American English.

1.  The concept of norm is one of the main in linguistics since the norm embraces all language levels: phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary. It is determined socially, historically and linguistically. It is stable and compulsory for all the speakers of a certain language as well as internationally recognized as standard.

     The norm is abstract. It is realized through national, generally received variants: Br E, Can E, Am E, Au E, etc.

The national literary language in Britain was formed on the basis of the South-Eastern dialect (London dialect) which developed from a territorial dialect into socio-regional. Modern English orphoepic norm – Received Pronunciation developed from that dialect. BRP embraces only a small portion of population of Britain – about 3-5%. It enjoys a high social status, being characteristic of public school graduates. All the rest of the population uses one of the regional standards.

Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants ( the Scottish Tongue, Irish English).Varieties of the language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form are called dialects. There are 5 main groups of dialects in Britain.: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western, and Southern. They differ in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.

e.g. Northerners pronounce ‘come, love, bus’ as ‘coom, loov, boos’; they pronounce ‘ dance, chance, France’ like Americans but the word can’t is pronounced with a long a. Sometimes Northerners leave out the article ‘the’ and possessive pronouns ’my, his, your’, etc.

One of the best known and most picturesque is the dialect of Cockney whose home is East End of London. Cockneys pronounce ‘wait, late, tray’ like ‘white, light, try’, etc. ‘h’s’at the beginning of the words are often dropped; ‘ouse, ‘ere, ‘ave. Intradental sounds are replaced with labio-dental: farver (father), fing (thing).

A characteristic feature of Cockney is the so-called rhyming slang. A phrase is used instead of a word with which it is rhymed: frog and toad – road, apples and pears – stairs, pot of honey – money, strike me dead – bread, loaf of bread – head, trouble and strife – wife.

Due to people’s migration and to teaching Standard English at schools all over the country dialect differences have been slowly dying. Nowadays in Britain there are two opposite tendencies: 1) prejudices against substandard forms are still strong, British are most particular as to pronunciation norms; 2) a growing number of people, especially the young, reject BRP as associated with the Establishment and are proud of their roots. Mass culture, folk songs sung by popular singers have also contributed to lowering of standards, more regional deviations have become accepted.

1.  The status of Am e, Au E, Can E, etc. has been a disputable question for a certain periods of time. The prevailing point of view now is that they cannot be called dialects having their own literary norms. They cannot be called separate languages either since the bulk of phonemes, words and grammar forms used in them are the same. So the term ‘national variants’ is preferably used.

There are certain factors, which predetermined common features and differences in the national variants of the English Language. Common features are connected with the following:

1.  one and the same language source (English of Britain of the 17-18th cent.);
   1.  common dialectal basis (immigrants brought local dialects with them);
   2.  orientation to British literary norm due to its high social status;
   3.  analogous stages passed by all national variants in their development (transplantation, adaptation to functioning in new conditions, formation of national variants and functioning as separate variants).

     Factors which caused differences are as follows:

1.  local geographic, ethnic, social conditions;
   1.  great distances between the colonies and the metropoly;
   2.  regularity of contacts;
   3.  other languages influence.

1.  American English.

Vocabulary differences between British English and American English fall under four major categories.

1.  Same word, different denotative meaning.

Br E    Am E

 homely  down to earth, domestic  ugly (of people)

nervy  nervous    bold, full of nerve

pants   underpants    trousers

pavement  footpath, sidewalk   road surface

to tick off  to scold    to make angry

1.  Same word, additional meaning in one variety

Common meaning  Additional in Am E

bathroom   room with bath/shower and room with toilet only

   sink

dumb   mute     stupid

good    fine, nice    valid (as of tickets, offers)

school  educational institution           all institutions of any level

                                      (primary, secondary)

to ship  to transport by ship  to transport by train,

plane, or trunk

Common meaning  Additional in Br E

leader   one who commands, guides  an editorial

smart    intelligent    well-groomed

surgery   a medical operation,   an office of any doctor

   or an operating room

1.  Same word, difference in style, connotation, frequency of use

Br E usage    Am E usage

autumn   common, all styles   poetic or formal

clever    common, positive   less common, negative

fortnight   common, all styles   uncommon, archaic

quite    negative or neutral   positive

1.  Same concept or item, different word

Am E     Br E

 faucet     tap

 muffler (on a car)   silencer

 sophomore    second-year student

 washcloth    face flannel

 zero     nought

 line     queue

 can     tin

 gas     petrol

 couch     sofa

GLOSSARY OF BASIC LEXICOLOGICAL NOTIONS AND TERMS

1. 
   General overview of Lexicology as a science.
   

Lexicology is a branch of Linguistics which studies the vocabulary of the language. The term Lexicology is composed of two Greek morphemes: ‘lexis’ meaning ‘word, phrase’ and ‘logos’ which denotes ‘learning, science’. Thus, the literal meaning of the term Lexicology is ‘the science of the word’. Lexicology deals with words, word-forming morphemes (derivational affixes) and word-groups or phrases.

The word is the basic unit of language system used for the purpose of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity. The word is the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis. The word as well as any linguistic sign is a two-facet unit possessing both form and content or, to be more exact, sound-form and meaning. Neither can exist without the other.

Types of Lexicology:

General Lexicology is part of General Linguistics; it is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language.

Special Lexicology is the Lexicology of a particular language (e.g. English, Russian, etc.), i.e. the study and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units, primarily words as the main units of the language.

Desсriptive Lexicology deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time.

Historical Lexicology deals with evolution of the vocabulary units of a language as time goes by.

Contrastive and Comparative Lexicology deal with the study of the correlation between the vocabularies of two or more languages, finding out the correspondences and differences between the vocabulary units of the languages under comparison.

Morphology is the branch of Lexicology studying the structure of a word, types of morphemes

and stems.

Semasiology is the branch of Lexicology that is devoted to the study of meaning of lexical

units.

Phraseology is the branch of Lexicology specializing in the phraseological subsystem of

1. 
   Morphological structure of the word
   

Morpheme is the smallest two-facet unit (it has sound form and meaning) to be found within the word which is studied on the morphological level of analysis.

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: root (free) morphemes and non-root (bound) morphemes. Bound morphemes are represented by grammatical (inflections) and derivational (affixes) morphemes. Affixes include suffixes, prefixes, infixes and semi-affixes.

Semantic features – root morphemes (have individual lexical meaning) and non-root morphemes (have generalized meaning).

Root-morphemes are the semantic centre of the words and the basic constituent part without which the word is inconceivable.

Non-root morphemes include grammatical morphemes (inflections) and derivational morphemes (affixes).

Inflections carry only grammatical meaning reflecting grammatical categories (tense, number, person, degree, etc.).

Affixes are relevant for building various types of stems – the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes, but not with inflectional ones, unless they are important for word building.

Affixes are classified into prefixes and suffixes: a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Besides, we also distinguish infixes (a few) and semi-affixes.

A free morpheme coincides with the stem or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root-morpheme friend of the noun

friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with the noun friend.

A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make a part of a word, e.g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ise (-ize), etc., the prefixes un-, dis-, de-, etc. (e.g. readiness, comradeship, to activise; unnatural, to displease) and can not be used separately.

Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes are morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme (a word). For example, the morpheme well and half, on the one hand, occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and the word-form in utterances like sleep well, half an hour, on the other hand, they occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, half-done.

The procedure generally employed for the purposes of segmenting words into the constituent morphemes is the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. During breaking a word into its constituents at each stage of the procedure we segment the word into immediately broken morphemes, and they are termed as the Immediate Constituents (ICs). We finish the process of segmentation when we arrive at constituents which cannot be further broken, and these indivisible morphemes are referred to as the Ultimate Constituents (UCs).

The nature, type and arrangement of the ICs of the word is known as its derivative structure.

According to the derivative structure all words fall into such classes: simplexes (simple), non-derived words and complexes (derivatives).

Simple words are words which derivationally cannot be segmented into ICs, e.g. hand, come, blue, etc.

Derivatives are words which are made up of two ICs, i.e. binary units, e.g. friendly+ness, un+wifely, school-master+ish, etc. All derivatives are marked by the fixed order of their ICs.

Stem is the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Structurally the stems may be: a) simple, which consist of only one, semantically non-motivated constituent. It is phonetically and graphically identical with the root-morpheme and the word-form that habitually represents the word as a whole; b) derived, which are the results of the application of word-formation rules; c) compound, which are always binary, but unlike the derived stems both ICs of compound stems are stems themselves. The derivative structure and morphemic composition of each IC may be of different degree of complexity, for example, the compound stem of the noun match-box consists of two simple stems, the stem of the noun letter-writer — of one simple and one derived stem, and the stem aircraft-carrier — of a compound and derived stem.

Paradigm is a system of forms of one word it reveals the differences and relationships between them; in abstraction from concrete words it is treated as a pattern on which every word of one part of speech models its forms, thus serving to distinguish one part of speech from another. Cf. the noun paradigm – boy (_), boy (-s), boy (-‘s), boy (-s’) as distinct from that of the regular verb – to work (_), work (-s), work (-ed), work (-ing), etc.

1. 
   Word formation and its types and patterns
   

Word formation is the branch of Lexicology which studies the derivative structure of the words and the structural and semantic formulas and patterns after which the new words are created in a language.

Productive ways of forming words are such types of word-formation which are frequently used to create new words.

Those types of word-formation which cannot or seldom produce new words are commonly termed non-productive or unproductive.

Productivity of word-building ways is their ability of making new words (neologisms) which all who speak English find no difficulty in understanding.

Neologism is a word that is formed according to productive word formation pattern or borrowed from another language in recent times and felt as new. Terms ‘occasionalism’ , ‘nonce-word’ and ‘ad hoc word’ are used to describe words made for special occasion and not necessarily entering the dictionary

Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to different types of bases. Affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation.

Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes.

Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes.

In terms of productivity distinction is usually made between dead and living affixes. Dead affixes are described as those which are no longer felt in Modern English as component parts of words (as in health, admit, etc). Living affixes may be easily singled out from a word, e.g. the noun-forming suffixes -ness, -dom, -hood, -age, -ance, as in darkness, freedom, childhood, marriage, assistance, etc. or the adjective-forming suffixes -en, -ous, -ive, -ful, -y as in wooden, poisonous, active, hopeful, stony, etc.

Compounding or word-composition is one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English which creates new words by means of joining two derivational bases (stems). Compounds may be subordinative (second element is semantic nucleus) or coordinative (both components semantically relevant). Reduplicative compounds are based on onomatopoeic repetition: hush-hush, blah-blah.

Conversion is a highly productive way of word-formation by means of transferring one part of speech to another by changing its paradigm, but without altering its initial form (neither phonetic nor graphical changes within the paradigm), e.g. cf. my work— I work; (the) dog’s bark — he dogs his girlfriend, etc.

Shortening is the process of word-formation by means of dropping some part of the words. It includes abbreviation and clipping.

(Letter) abbreviation is the process of replacement of longer phrases (names of well-known organisations, agencies and institutions, political parties, famous people, official offices) to the initial letters the whole group stands for. They are normally pronounced letter by letter, e.g. JFK = John Fitzgerald Kennedy; CBW = chemical and biological warfare, DOD = Department of Defence (of the USA), SST = supersonic transport, etc.

Acronyms are the vocabulary units spoken as words and made by means of abbreviation, e.g. NATO [‘neitou] = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; laser [‘leizə] = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation; radar [‘reidə] = radio detection and ranging; Interpol = international police.

Clipping refers to the creation of new words by shortening a word of two or more syllables (usually nouns and adjectives) without changing its class membership.

Clippings are traditionally classified according to the part of the word that is clipped:

1) Apocope – when words have been shortened at the end, e.g. ad (from advertisement), lab (from laboratory), mike (from microphone), etc.

2) Aphaeresis – when words have been shortened at the beginning, e.g. car (from motor-car), phone (from telephone), copter (from helicopter), etc.

3) Syncope – when some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle, e.g. maths (from mathematics), pants (from pantaloons), specs (from spectacles), etc.

4) Combined clipping also occur –words that have been clipped both at the beginning and at the end, e.g. flu (from ‘influenza’), tec (from ‘detective’), fridge (from ‘refrigerator’).

Blending is the process of creating words by means of merging irregular fragments of several words together, e.g. medicare (from ‘medical care’), polutician (from ‘pollute’ and ‘politician’), brunch (from ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’), smog (from ‘smoke’ and ‘fog’), etc.

Blending (or fusion, or portmanteau) is a specific type of shortenings, which implies “packing” of two meanings into one word. The process is also called telescoping because the words slide into one another like sections of a telescope.

Sound- interchange is a non-productive type of word formation when two words usually connected semantically and etymologically have different sounds (vowels or consonants or both) in their phonetic structure, like speak-speech, blood-bleed, food-feed, etc.

Stress- interchange is one of the ways of word-building, based on a shift of stress, e.g. ‘object – to ob’ject; ‘present – to pre’sent, etc.

Lexicalisation is the process of the vocabulary replenishment when the plural form of nouns (grammatical inflection) loses its grammatical meaning and becomes isolated from the paradigm, as e.g. arm+s = arms= ‘weapons’, custom+s= customs=‘institution controllong import duties’.

Adjectivisation is the process of the vocabulary replenishment by means of the process of transition of nouns and participles into adjectives.

Substantivisation (or lexical ellipsis) consists in dropping of the final nominal member of a frequently used attributive word-group, the remaining adjective takes on the meaning and all the syntactic functions of the noun and thus develops into a new word changing its class membership and becoming homonymous to the existing adjective. e.g. ‘documentary (adj.)’ – ‘a documentary film’ – ‘a documentary (n.)’; ‘final (adj.)’ – ‘a final examination’ – ‘a final (n.)’. Substantivisation is often accompanied by productive suffixation: e.g., ‘one-wing (adj.)’ – ‘a one-wing plane’ – ‘a one-winger’; ‘two-deck (adj.)’ – ‘two-deck bus or ship’ – ‘a two-decker’. Substantivisation may be accompanied by clipping and productive suffixation: e.g. flickers (coll.) from ‘flicking pictures’, ‘a smoker’ from ‘smoking carriage’, etc. Also, some adjectives can be substantivised, e.g. the poor, the black, a patient.

1. 
   Semasiology and its basic notions.
   

Semasiology is a branch of Lexicology which studies the meaning and the semantic structure of lexical units, primarily of the word.

Seme is an elementary semantic feature, a minimal unit of meaning recoverable through componential analysis of the semantic structure of the word.

Sememe is a set of semes recognizable in in the semantic structure of the given word.

Two main types of word meaning are the grammatical and the lexical meanings can be distinguished in words and word-forms.

The grammatical meaning is the formal meaning of the word and may be defined as the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words, as, e.g., the tense meaning in the word-forms of verbs (asked, thought, walked, etc.) or the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns (girl’s, boy’s, night’s, etc.).

The lexical meaning of the word may be described as the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this word and reflecting features and characteristics of objects and phenomena.

The lexical meaning is a complex phenomenon and may be analysed as including denotational and connotational components.

The denotational meaning is the component of the lexical meaning which makes communication possible because the knowledge people have about things is ultimately embodied in words which have essentially the same meaning for all speakers of that language.

The connotational meaning reflects the stylistic reference and the emotive and/or evaluative charge proper to the word.

Emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as linguistic units and forms part of the connotational component of lexical meaning, cf. large, big, tremendous.

Stylistic reference is the belonging of any word to a particular functional style. Stylistically words can be roughly subdivided into literary, neutral and colloquial layers, but not only.

Pragmatc meaning is a component of connotational meaning bound to the circumstances of the communication and reflecting the choice of the word depending on the conditions and participants of the intercourse.

Changes of lexical meaning occur in the course of the historical development of language.

Semantic structure is the arranged set of all the meanings of a word, represented by lexico-semantic variants.

There are two kinds of association involved in semantic changes, namely: a) similarity of meanings, and b) contiguity of meanings.

Similarity of meanings or metaphor may be described as a semantic process of associating two referents, one of which in some way resembles the other, e.g. hand of a clock, warm voice, soft look.

Contiguity of meanings or metonymy may be described as the semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely connected with it, e.g. hand of a master (рабочий), the audience (spectators, students, etc.), to eat the late of a soup.

Restriction of meaning is the process of change of meaning when a word which before represented broader meaning, now has more restricted one, e.g. hound (OE. hund) which used to denote ‘a dog of any breed’ now denotes only ‘a dog used in the chase’; fowl (OE. fuzol, fuzel) which in old English denoted ‘any bird’, in Modern English denotes ‘a domestic hen or cock’.

Specialisation of meaning is the process of change of meaning when the word with the new meaning comes to be used in the specialised vocabulary of some limited group. For example, we can observe restriction and specialisation of meaning in the case of the verb to glide (OE. glidan) which had the meaning ‘to move gently and smoothly’ and has now acquired a restricted and specialised meaning ‘to fly with no engine’ (cf. a glider).

Extension of meaning is the process of change of meaning when the word is applied to a wider variety of referents, e.g. ‘target” which originally meant ‘a small round shield’ (a diminutive of targe, сf. ON. targa) but now means ‘anything that is fired at’ and also figuratively ‘any result aimed at’.

Generalisation of meaning is the process of change of meaning when the word with the extended meaning passes from the specialised vocabulary into common use, e.g. ‘camp’ originally was used only as a military term and meant ‘the place where troops are lodged in tents’ (cf. L. campus — ‘exercising ground for the army’) extended and generalised its meaning and now denotes ‘temporary quarters’ (of travellers, nomads, etc.).

Pejorative development of the meaning is the acquisition by the word of some derogatory emotive charge, e.g. ‘boor’ originally denoted ‘a villager, a peasant’ and then acquired a derogatory, contemptuous meaning ‘a clumsy or ill-bred fellow’.

Ameliorative development of the meaning is the improvement of the connotational component of meaning, e.g. ‘minister’ originally denoted ‘a servant, an attendant’, but now – ‘a civil servant of higher rank, a person administering a department of state’.

Polysemy is the linguistic phenomenon when a word has more than one meaning, resulting in semantic structure consisting of a number of lexico-semantic variants.

Lexico-semantic variant of the word is every meaning of a polysemantic word with reference to what it denotes in the extra-linguistic world (referential meaning) and with respect to the other meanings with which it is contrasted in the semantic structure (differential meaning).

Homonyms are words identical in sound-form or spelling but different in meaning.

Cases of full homonymy are generally observed in words belonging to the same part of speech, where we observe the coincidences in their paradigms, e .g. ‘a seal¹ (n.)’ and ‘a seal² (n.)’.

Partial homonymy is usually to be found in word-forms of different parts of speech, e.g. ‘a seal¹ (n.)’ and ‘to seal (v.)’

Homographs are words identical in spelling, but different both in their sound-form and meaning, e.g. bow (n) [bou] — ‘a piece of wood curved by a string and used for shooting arrows’ and bow (n) [bau] — ‘the bending of the head or body’; tear (n) [tia] — ‘a drop of water that comes from the eye’ and tear (v) [tea] — ‘to pull apart by force’.

Homophones are words identical in sound-form but different both in spelling and in meaning, e.g. sea (n) and see (v); son (n) and sun (n).

Perfect homonyms are words identical both in spelling and in sound-form but different in meaning, e.g. case¹ (n) — ’something that has happened’ and case² (n) — ‘a box, a container’.

Hyponymy is a semantic relationship of inclusion. Thus, e.g. vehicle includes car, bus, taxi and so on; oak implies tree; horse entails animal; table entails furniture. The more general term is called the hyperonym or the classifier, the more specific term is called the hyponym of the more general term.

Synonymy is the semantic phenomenon of closeness in the meanings and the same part-of-speech reference of two or more lexical units.

Synonyms are words different in sound-form but similar in their denotational meaning or meanings and interchangeable at least in some contexts. Synonyms are classified as stylistic, contextual, occasional, etc.

Synonymic dominant is the most frequently used neutral word within a synonymic group (as look in the row look, watch, gaze, stare, glance).

Antonyms are two words belonging to the same part of speech and their denotational meanings express contrary or contradictory notions (opposite meanings).

Contradictories are antonyms that represent the type of semantic relations that exist between pairs like ‘dead’ and ‘alive’, ‘single’ and ‘married’, ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’, etc. We can easily distinguish this group of antonyms from the other groups by means of using ‘not’ before one of the member of the pair to make them semantically equivalent to each other, e.g. cf. not dead = alive, not single = married. ‘

Contraries are antonyms which admit such possibilities. This may be observed in ‘cold — hot’, because we have ‘cool’ and ‘warm’ as intermediate members.

Obsolete words are words which drop out of the language due to disappearance of the objects of phenomena they denote, e.g. ‘yeoman’ – ‘a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate; a freeholder’.

Archaisms are words felt as out-dated and replaced by newer forms and lexemes.

Antroponymes — proper names of people: Ann, Mary, John Smith, the Browns.

Toponymes — proper names of places, e.g. countries, cities, rivers, seas, etc: England, New York, the Volga, the Atlantic ocean, the Elbrus.

1. 
   Set expressions, phraseological units and their classification
   

Set expressions, et-phrases, word-equivalents and phraseological units are functionally and semantically inseparable word groups, e.g. at least, point of view, by means of, to take place.

Lexical motivation is the relationship within the components of a word-group when the meaning of the whole group can be easily deduced from the meanings of its components.

Idiomaticity is the lack of motivation within the components of word-groups when the meaning of the whole cannot be deduced from the meaning of its components.

Motivation is an interrelationship between the form (or structure) of the lexical unit and its meaning. According to the degree of motivation, we distinguish:

Fully motivated word-groups – word-groups where the combined lexical meaning is deducible from the meaning of their components, e.g. red flower, heavy weight, take lessons.

Partially motivated word-groups – where the meaning of at least one component helps to distinguish the meaning of the whole, e.g. to shrug one’s shoulders, to fall in love.

Non-motivated word-groups – where the meaning of the whole cannot be guessed (drawn) from the meanings of their components, e.g. red tape – ‘official bureaucratic methods’, heavy father – ‘serious or solemn part in a theatrical play’, and take place — ‘occur’.

A phraseological unit is a stable word-group characterized by a completely or partially transferred meaning and structural and functional inseparability. They can not be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units, characterized by stability of the lexical components and lack of motivation.

Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated phraseological units, such as red tape – ‘bureaucratic methods’; heavy father – ‘serious or solemn part in a theatrical play’; kick the bucket – ‘die’; and the like. The meaning of the components has no connections whatsoever, at least synchronically, with the meaning of the whole group.

Idiom is a set expression which is fully non-motivated as its meaning can not be deduced from the meanings of the words which are its structural components.

Idiomaticity, or lack of motivation, is complete or partial inconsistence with the form or structure of a lexical unit and its meaning.

Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. For example, to show one’s teeth, to wash one’s dirty linen in public.

Phraseological collocations are motivated word-groups with a certain degree of stability possessing a certain degree of semantic inseparability. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For instance, ‘bear a grudge’ may be changed into ‘bear malice’, but not into ‘bear a fancy’ or ‘liking’. We can say ‘take a liking’ (fancy) but not ‘take hatred’ (disgust).

1. 
   Etymology and its notions and terms
   

Native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock (Anglo-Saxon) as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the old English period.

Borrowed word is a word taken from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of English.

Borrowing is the process of adopting words (or word-building affixes) from other languages and also the result of this process, the language material itself, e.g. -able, -ment, -ity, coup d’état, vis-á-vis.

The English proper element – words that don’t have similar representatives in other Indo-European or Germanic languages. E.g. bird, boy, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.

Assimilation of borrowings is a partial or complete adaptation to the phonetic(al), grammatical, semantic, morphological and graphical systems of the receiving language. The degree of assimilation depends on the importance, frequency and length of use of borrowings.

Translation-loans (or loan-translations) are words and expressions formed after the patterns characteristic of the receiving language, but under the influence of the foreign words and expressions. E. g. mother tongue < L. lingua maternal; it goes without saying < Fr. Cela va sans dire; wall newspaper < Russ. стенгазета.

Semantic borrowing is the appearance of a new meaning due to the influence of a related word in another language (pioneer- member of the teenagers’ organization in USSR).

Source of borrowing is the language from which this or that particular word was taken into English.

Origin of the word is the language where the borrowed word was born.

Etymological doublets are words originating from the same etymological source, but differing in phonemic shape and in meaning (shade-shadow, cask-cask, etc.).

Etymological hybrids are words created from both native and borrowed elements, like ‘short-age’ – English adjective ‘short’ and French suffix ‘-age’.

1. 
   Stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary
   

and Variants of English

Variants of English are regional varieties having normalized literary vocabulary and used as the language of mass media, education and communication.

Dialects are local varieties of a language used as a means of oral communication in small localities, they are set off (more or less sharply) from other varieties by some distinctive features of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.

Americanism — a word or a word combination peculiar to the English language spoken in the USA. E.g. cookie, elevator, truck, apartment, etc.

Slang words are those which are often regarded as a violation of the norms of Standard English, e.g. ‘governor’ for ‘father’, ‘missus’ for ‘wife’, ‘a gag’ for ‘a joke’, ‘dotty’ for ‘insane’. They are made in different social circles and often enter the general vocabulary making it more colourful and expressive, though sometimes cynical and harsh.

Professionalisms are words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation, such as lab for ‘laboratory’, hypo for ‘hypodermic syringe’, a buster for ‘a bomb’, etc.

Jargonisms are words marked by their use within a particular social group and bearing a secret and cryptic character, e.g. ‘a sucker’ — ‘a person who is easily deceived’.

Vulgarisms, i.e. coarse words that are not generally used in public, e.g. bloody, hell, damn, shut up, etc.

VIII. Lexicography as a science of dictionary compiling

Dictionary is a book listing words of a language with their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage and origin. They are divided into encyclopaedic (thing-books) and linguistic (word-books).

Dictionaries may be unilingual (explanatory), bilingual (translation) and multilingual (comparative).

Dictionaries may be general (describing the whole vocabulary) and special (specialised) describing a subsystem of the vocabulary (pronunciation, idioms, synonyms, proverbs, professional terms, etc.).

Glossary is an alphabetical list of terms or words found in or relating to a specific subject, text, or dialect, with explanations; a brief dictionary

The most important problems in dictionary compiling are as follows: 1) selection of lexical units; 2) their arrangement; 3) setting of the entries; 4) selection and arrangement of word -meanings; 5) definition of meanings; 6) illustrative material, etc.

IX. Some methods of lexicological research

Diachronic approach to the vocabulary study is based on the analysis of the changes a word undergoes from the moment of its appearance throughout its historical development.

Synchronic approach is based on the analysis of lexical units at a given period of time, usually coinciding with the period of the research.

Immediate constituents (IC) method is used to identify two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unity. The ICs of ‘bluish’ are ‘blue-‘ and ‘ –ish’.

Ultimate constituents method is applied to the analysis of the morphological structure of the word to identify the number and character of the morphemes in its structure. The UCs of the word ‘carefully’ are ‘care’, ‘-ful’ and ‘-ly’, while its ICs are ‘careful’ and ‘–ly’.

Statistical methods are used to provide quantitative data for justification of the research results to ensure that they are statistically reliable.

Componential analysis is applied to the study of the semantic structure of the word, resulting in distinguishing such semantic components as sememes, semes and their types.

Contextual analysis concentrates on determining the minimal stretch of speech and the conditions necessary to find out in which of its individual meanings the given word is used.

Contrastive (comparative) analysis is used to reveal the similarities and differences in linguistic features of two or more languages.

Transformational analysis is changing of a sentence, phrase or pattern according to a prescribed model and following certain rules in order that to discover differences in usage and meaning.

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