What is the common word for the group of words below

Colloquial
vocabulary embraces common colloquial vocabulary and special
colloquial vocabulary: slang, jargonisms, professionalisms, dialectal
words, slangy
and vulgar words.

Common
colloquial vocabulary is
part of Standard English word-stock. It borders both on neutral
vocabulary and on special colloquial vocabulary. Colloquialisms are
familiar words and idioms used in informal speech and writing, but
unacceptable in polite conversation or business correspondence.
Compare standard speech sentence «Sir,
you speak clearly and to the point» and
its colloquial equivalent «Friend,
you talk plain and hit the nail right on the head». These
are informal words that are used in everyday conversational speech
both by educated and uneducated people of all age groups, e. g. pal
and chum
are colloquial equivalents of “friend”; bite
and snack
for”
meal”.

Literary
colloquial words are to be distinguished from familiar colloquial and
low colloquial. The borderline between the literary and familiar
colloquial is not always clearly marked. Yet the circle of speakers
using familiar colloquial is more limited. This vocabulary group
closely verges on slang and has something of its flavour, e.g. doc
= doctor, hi
=
how do you do. Low colloquial group is stocked with words of
illiterate English.

There
are some specific ways of forming colloquial words and grammatical
fusions. The most typical of them are contraction (demo
=
demonstration,
comp =
comprehensive
school, disco =
discotheque,
pub =
public
house, ad =
advertisement),
amalgamation
of two words in a single one (s’long
—
so
long, c’mon =
come
on, gimme =
give
me, wanna =
want
to, gonna =
going
to, don’t =
do
not, he’s =
he
has/is), affixation
(missy
=
miss,
girlie =
girl,
Scotty =
Scotchman),
compounding,
composing and blending (legman
—
reporter,
hanky-panky =
children’s
tricks, yellow-belly =
coward,
motel =
a
hotel for people who are travelling by car).

The
most productive way of building colloquial words in Russian and
Ukrainian is derivation. Lots of suffixes and prefixes convert
neutral words into conversational: мама
— мамочка,
мамуля,
мамуся,
мамка,
мамаша,
маман,
мамища;
книга
= книжка,
книжица,
книжонка,
книжища.

Many
of colloquial words are extremely emotional and image-bearing. For
example, the interjections oops,
oh, gee, wow, alas are
capable of rendering dozens of contextual subjective modal meanings,
such as gladness, rapture, disappointment, resentment, admiration,
etc. Not less expressive are Russian and Ukrainian colloquial words.
Compare: пустомеля,
скупердяй,
одурелый,
чумной,
орать,
проныра.
Expressive
colloquial words form long chains of synonyms: лицо
= физиономия,
портрет,
морда,
рожа,
харя,
рыло,
будка.

Jargonisms
may
be grouped into two large subdivisions: social jargonisms and
professional jargonisms.

Social
jargonisms are
non-standard words used by people of a certain social group to
conceal the meaning of words and to keep their intercourse secret. It
is a sort of secret code made up either of ordinary words invested
with a special meaning or distorted words, e.g., How
long did they cook you? (=investigate). There
are jargons of criminals, convicts, gamblers, vagabonds (бродяга),
souteneurs, prostitutes, drug addicts and the like. The use of jargon
conveys the suggestion that the speaker and the listener enjoy a
special «fraternity» which is closed for outsiders, because
outsiders do not understand the secret language. Here are some words
from American and Russian drug takers’ jargon: white
stuff =
cocaine
or morphine; candy =
cocaine;
snifter =
a
cocaine addict; boxed, spaced out, bombed, junked up or charged up =
being
affected by drugs; candy man =
drug
seller; cap =
a
capsule with a narcotic; jab-off =
an
injection of a narcotic; pin-shot —
an
injection of a drug made with a safety pin and an eye-dropper instead
of a hypodermic needle; mainliner =
a
drug addict who takes his narcotics by intravenous injection;
ширнуться
= ввести
наркотик
внутривенно;
раскумаритъся
= принять
наркотик
в
период
ломки,
ломка
= постнаркотическое
состояние
у
наркоманов,
которое
характеризуется
физическими
страданиями.
Social
contradictions of our life gave rise to such word combinations as
«отмазать
от
суда«,
«закосить
от
армии«.
Eventually,
some Jargonisms pass into standard speech. This is the case with the
Russian word «беспредел»
which
penetrated into Standard Russian from prison jargon due to its
expressiveness and topicality of meaning.

Eric
Partridge, an authority on the subject, identifies a number of
reasons for the creation and use of jargon. In his opinion, people
resort to jargon to be different, startling, or original; to display
one’s membership of a group; to be secretive or to exclude others; to
enrich the stock of language; to establish a friendly rapport with
others; to be irreverent or humorous.

Professionalisms
are
term-like words. They are used and understood by members of a certain
trade or profession. Their function is to rationalize professional
communication and make it economical. This is achieved due to a broad
semantic structure of professional terms, which makes them economical
substitutes for lengthy Standard English vocabulary equivalents.
Compare: scalpel
—
a
small sharp knife used by a doctor for doing an operation; round
pliers — a metal tool with round ends that looks like a strong pair
of scissors, used for holding small objects or for bending and
cutting wire; зачистить
населенный
пункт
(военный
арго);
отработать
подозреваемого
(милицейский
арго),
прозвонить
линию
(арго
телефонистов).
The
foreman in a garage does not need to write on a mechanic’s worksheet:
«Please
regulate the device which provides a constant supply of petrol to the
inlet manifold of the engine». He
writes: «Adjust
the carburetor». Soldiers
say: put
in a bag = to
be killed; picture
show =
battle; sewing
machine = machine
gun.

Dialecticisms
are
words used by people of a certain community living in a certain
territory. They are peculiar to some district and have no normalized
form. In US Southern dialect one might say: «Cousin,
у‘all
talk mighty fine» which
means «Sir,
you speak English well». In
ethnic-immigrant dialects the same sentence will sound as «Paisano,
you speek good the English» or
«Landsman,
your English is plenty all right already».
Many former dialectal words have entered the stratum of commonly used
colloquial words, e.g., lass
= girl
(Scottish), lad
= a young man; car,
trolley, tram –
began as dialect words. The Irish English gave, e.g., blarney
“flattery”, bog
“a
spongy, usually peaty ground of marsh”, whiskey.

The
contribution of the Scottish variant is very considerable. Some of
the most frequently used Scotticisms are: bairn
“child”, billy
“chum”, bonny
“handsome”, brogue
“a
stout shoe”, glamour
“charm”, laddie,
lassie, kilt, raid, slogan, tartan, wee
etc.

Writers
never write their books in dialect exclusively — the reader would not
understand such books. They only insert dialectal words, expressions,
grammar forms with a definite stylistic purpose: either to
characterize a personage through his speech or to create a local
colouring.

Slang
is
non-standard vocabulary understood and used by the whole nation.

According
to the Oxford English dictionary slang is “the language of a highly
colloquial style, considered as below the level of standard educated
speech and consisting either of new or of current words employed in
some special sense”.

People
use slang to be picturesque, arresting, striking above all, different
from others, to avoid the tedium of outmoded hackneyed “common”
words, to sound “modern” and “up-to-date”, e.g., mug
= face, blinkers
=
eyes, dogs
= feet, to
leg
= to walk. The
main feature of slang is its brightly expressed emotional, evaluative
and expressive character, e.g.,

to
go crazy or become silly
(neut.) – to
go bananas
(slang)

dollar
(neut.)
– fish
(slang)

to
have a chat with close friends
(neut.) – to
chew the fat
(slang)

to
know nothing about smth.
(neut.) – not
to know beans about
(slang)

Slang
can be classified into general and special. General slang consists of
words which are not specific for any social or professional group.
Special slang is divided into:

—
teenager slang, e.g., kiddo
= чувак,
buzzard
= кореш,
dumdum
= тормоз,
goof-off
= сачёк,
lame-brain
= сдвинутый;

universal
slang, e.g., mug
= экзамен,
that’s
a cockamamie
= фиговый
экзамен,
I’ll
make a boo-boo
= я
провалюсь,
real
mug
= зубрила,
I
couldn’t tumble to it
= я
не
врубился
в
эту
тему;
military
slang, e.g., expendables
= солдатня,
conscript
=
дух,
to
finagle oneself out of army, to swing the lead
= закосить
армию,
clink
= губа;
slang
of criminals, e.g., cops
= полицейские,
narks
= менты,
don,
mob
= главарь
банды,
to
burn rubber
= делать
ноги,
lagger
= бывший
зэк;
air
force slang.
football
slang
sea
slang, etc.

Thus
slang-words are clearly motivated. For example, window-shopping
— “feasting one’s eyes on the goods displayed in the shops,
without buying anything”; belly-robber
– “the head of a military canteen”.

Slang
is sometimes described as the language of sub-cultures or the
language of the streets. It
is mainly used by the young and uneducated. Linguistically,
slang can be viewed as a sub-dialect. It is hardly used in writing —
except
for stylistic effect. People resort to slang because it is more
forceful, vivid and expressive than standard usages. Slangy words are
rough, often scornful (презрительный,
пренебрежительный;
насмешливый),
estimative and humorous. They are completely devoid of intelligence,
moral virtue, hospitality, sentimentality and other human values.
Slang prefers short words, especially monosyllables. Younger
generation is fond of slang, e.g., crazy, foolish = balmy,
batty, dippy, dotty, daffy, goofy, wacky, loony.

Language
as a system of signs reflects any changes in social and cultural life
of the nation. And slangy words as the most movable creative layer of
the lexis of colloquial style reflect, e.g., the appearing of slang
lexis in the culture of jazz, hippy, rock.

Vulgar
or obscene (непристойный,
неприличный;
вульгарный,
грубый)
words
may
be viewed as part of slang. They are always words with a strong
emotive colouring and sound insulting to the ear, e.g., a
smeller = a
nose, pay
dirt = money,
a
rotten party = morally
corrupt. Incorrect grammatical and phonetic forms of illiterate
speech cannot be regarded as vulgarisms.

The
most popular images of slang are food, money, sex and sexual
attraction, people’s appearances and characters. Because it is not
standard, formal or acceptable under all conditions, slang is usually
considered vulgar, impolite, or boorish (грубый,
невежливый,
невоспитанный,
неучтивый).
However, the vast majority of slangy words and expressions are
neither taboo, vulgar, derogatory, nor offensive in meaning,
sound, or image. Picturesque metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole and
irony make slangy words spicy (колкий,
язвительный).
Look how long, diverse and expressive the chain of slangy
synonyms denoting «money»
is:
ackers,
cly, cole, gelt, moo, moolah, mopus, oof, spondulicks, queer, boot,
chuck, hardstujf, lettuce, lolly, boodle, sea-coal, green goods, hay,
shoestring, ante, bread, ducats, dumps, swag, bean, blunt, crap,
dough, haddock, ochre, rubbish, salad, soap, splosh, sugar, chink,
gob, poke, iron, balsam, jack, loot, pile, wad, dust, tin, brass,
fat, rocks, chips, corn, red, sand, bundle, oil, shells.

For
the most part they sound somewhat vulgar, cynical and harsh: beans,
brass, dibs, oof
(money), attic,
brain-pan, nut, hat peg
(head).

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Источник

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Studies that estimate and rank the most common words in English examine texts written in English. Perhaps the most comprehensive such analysis is one that was conducted against the Oxford English Corpus (OEC), a massive text corpus that is written in the English language.

In total, the texts in the Oxford English Corpus contain more than 2 billion words.^[1] The OEC includes a wide variety of writing samples, such as literary works, novels, academic journals, newspapers, magazines, Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, blogs, chat logs, and emails.^[2]

Another English corpus that has been used to study word frequency is the Brown Corpus, which was compiled by researchers at Brown University in the 1960s. The researchers published their analysis of the Brown Corpus in 1967. Their findings were similar, but not identical, to the findings of the OEC analysis.

According to The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, the first 25 words in the OEC make up about one-third of all printed material in English, and the first 100 words make up about half of all written English.^[3] According to a study cited by Robert McCrum in The Story of English, all of the first hundred of the most common words in English are of Old English origin,^[4] except for «people», ultimately from Latin «populus», and «because», in part from Latin «causa».

Some lists of common words distinguish between word forms, while others rank all forms of a word as a single lexeme (the form of the word as it would appear in a dictionary). For example, the lexeme be (as in to be) comprises all its conjugations (is, was, am, are, were, etc.), and contractions of those conjugations.^[5] These top 100 lemmas listed below account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.^[1]

100 most common words

A list of 100 words that occur most frequently in written English is given below, based on an analysis of the Oxford English Corpus (a collection of texts in the English language, comprising over 2 billion words).^[1] A part of speech is provided for most of the words, but part-of-speech categories vary between analyses, and not all possibilities are listed. For example, «I» may be a pronoun or a Roman numeral; «to» may be a preposition or an infinitive marker; «time» may be a noun or a verb. Also, a single spelling can represent more than one root word. For example, «singer» may be a form of either «sing» or «singe». Different corpora may treat such difference differently.

The number of distinct senses that are listed in Wiktionary is shown in the polysemy column. For example, «out» can refer to an escape, a removal from play in baseball, or any of 36 other concepts. On average, each word in the list has 15.38 senses. The sense count does not include the use of terms in phrasal verbs such as «put out» (as in «inconvenienced») and other multiword expressions such as the interjection «get out!», where the word «out» does not have an individual meaning.^[6] As an example, «out» occurs in at least 560 phrasal verbs^[7] and appears in nearly 1700 multiword expressions.^[8]

The table also includes frequencies from other corpora. Note that as well as usage differences, lemmatisation may differ from corpus to corpus – for example splitting the prepositional use of «to» from the use as a particle. Also the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) list includes dispersion as well as frequency to calculate rank.

Word	Parts of speech	OEC rank	COCA rank^[9]	Dolch level	Polysemy
the	Article	1	1	Pre-primer	12
be	Verb	2	2	Primer	21
to	Preposition	3	7, 9	Pre-primer	17
of	Preposition	4	4	Grade 1	12
and	Conjunction	5	3	Pre-primer	16
a	Article	6	5	Pre-primer	20
in	Preposition	7	6, 128, 3038	Pre-primer	23
that	Conjunction et al.	8	12, 27, 903	Primer	17
have	Verb	9	8	Primer	25
I	Pronoun	10	11	Pre-primer	7
it	Pronoun	11	10	Pre-primer	18
for	Preposition	12	13, 2339	Pre-primer	19
not	Adverb et al.	13	28, 2929	Pre-primer	5
on	Preposition	14	17, 155	Primer	43
with	Preposition	15	16	Primer	11
he	Pronoun	16	15	Primer	7
as	Adverb, conjunction, et al.	17	33, 49, 129	Grade 1	17
you	Pronoun	18	14	Pre-primer	9
do	Verb, noun	19	18	Primer	38
at	Preposition	20	22	Primer	14
this	Determiner, adverb, noun	21	20, 4665	Primer	9
but	Preposition, adverb, conjunction	22	23, 1715	Primer	17
his	Possessive pronoun	23	25, 1887	Grade 1	6
by	Preposition	24	30, 1190	Grade 1	19
from	Preposition	25	26	Grade 1	4
they	Pronoun	26	21	Primer	6
we	Pronoun	27	24	Pre-primer	6
say	Verb et al.	28	19	Primer	17
her	Possessive pronoun	29, 106	42	Grade 1	3
she	Pronoun	30	31	Primer	7
or	Conjunction	31	32	Grade 2	11
an	Article	32	(a)	Grade 1	6
will	Verb, noun	33	48, 1506	Primer	16
my	Possessive pronoun	34	44	Pre-primer	5
one	Noun, adjective, et al.	35	51, 104, 839	Pre-primer	24
all	Adjective	36	43, 222	Primer	15
would	Verb	37	41	Grade 2	13
there	Adverb, pronoun, et al.	38	53, 116	Primer	14
their	Possessive pronoun	39	36	Grade 2	2
what	Pronoun, adverb, et al.	40	34	Primer	19
so	Conjunction, adverb, et al.	41	55, 196	Primer	18
up	Adverb, preposition, et al.	42	50, 456	Pre-primer	50
out	Preposition	43	64, 149	Primer	38
if	Conjunction	44	40	Grade 3	9
about	Preposition, adverb, et al.	45	46, 179	Grade 3	18
who	Pronoun, noun	46	38	Primer	5
get	Verb	47	39	Primer	37
which	Pronoun	48	58	Grade 2	7
go	Verb, noun	49	35	Pre-primer	54
me	Pronoun	50	61	Pre-primer	10
when	Adverb	51	57, 136	Grade 1	11
make	Verb, noun	52	45	Grade 2 [as «made»]	48
can	Verb, noun	53	37, 2973	Pre-primer	18
like	Preposition, verb	54	74, 208, 1123, 1684, 2702	Primer	26
time	Noun	55	52	Dolch list of 95 nouns	14
no	Determiner, adverb	56	93, 699, 916, 1111, 4555	Primer	10
just	Adjective	57	66, 1823		14
him	Pronoun	58	68		5
know	Verb, noun	59	47		13
take	Verb, noun	60	63		66
people	Noun	61	62		9
into	Preposition	62	65		10
year	Noun	63	54		7
your	Possessive pronoun	64	69		4
good	Adjective	65	110, 2280		32
some	Determiner, pronoun	66	60		10
could	Verb	67	71		6
them	Pronoun	68	59		3
see	Verb	69	67		25
other	Adjective, pronoun	70	75, 715, 2355		12
than	Conjunction, preposition	71	73, 712		4
then	Adverb	72	77		10
now	Preposition	73	72, 1906		13
look	Verb	74	85, 604		17
only	Adverb	75	101, 329		11
come	Verb	76	70		20
its	Possessive pronoun	77	78		2
over	Preposition	78	124, 182		19
think	Verb	79	56		10
also	Adverb	80	87		2
back	Noun, adverb	81	108, 323, 1877		36
after	Preposition	82	120, 260		14
use	Verb, noun	83	92, 429		17
two	Noun	84	80		6
how	Adverb	85	76		11
our	Possessive pronoun	86	79		3
work	Verb, noun	87	117, 199		28
first	Adjective	88	86, 2064		10
well	Adverb	89	100, 644		30
way	Noun, adverb	90	84, 4090		16
even	Adjective	91	107, 484		23
new	Adjective et al.	92	88		18
want	Verb	93	83		10
because	Conjunction	94	89, 509		7
any	Pronoun	95	109, 4720		4
these	Pronoun	96	82		2
give	Verb	97	98		19
day	Noun	98	90		9
most	Adverb	99	144, 187		12
us	Pronoun	100	113		6

Parts of speech

The following is a very similar list, subdivided by part of speech.^[1] The list labeled «Others» includes pronouns, possessives, articles, modal verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions.

Rank	Nouns	Verbs	Adjectives	Prepositions	Others
1	time	be	good	to	the
2	person	have	new	of	and
3	year	do	first	in	a
4	way	say	last	for	that
5	day	get	long	on	I
6	thing	make	great	with	it
7	man	go	little	at	not
8	world	know	own	by	he
9	life	take	other	from	as
10	hand	see	old	up	you
11	part	come	right	about	this
12	child	think	big	into	but
13	eye	look	high	over	his
14	woman	want	different	after	they
15	place	give	small		her
16	work	use	large		she
17	week	find	next		or
18	case	tell	early		an
19	point	ask	young		will
20	government	work	important		my
21	company	seem	few		one
22	number	feel	public		all
23	group	try	bad		would
24	problem	leave	same		there
25	fact	call	able		their

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d «The Oxford English Corpus: Facts about the language». OxfordDictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. What is the commonest word?. Archived from the original on December 26, 2011. Retrieved June 22, 2011.
^ «The Oxford English Corpus». AskOxford.com. Archived from the original on May 4, 2006. Retrieved June 22, 2006.
^ The First 100 Most Commonly Used English Words Archived 2013-06-16 at the Wayback Machine.
^ Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, Harper Perennial, 2001, page 58
^ Benjamin Zimmer. June 22, 2006. Time after time after time…. Language Log. Retrieved June 22, 2006.
^ Benjamin, Martin (2019). «Polysemy in top 100 Oxford English Corpus words within Wiktionary». Teach You Backwards. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
^ Garcia-Vega, M (2010). «Teasing out the meaning of «out»«. 29th International Conference on Lexis and Grammar.
^ «out — English-French Dictionary». www.wordreference.com. Retrieved November 22, 2022.
^ «Word frequency: based on 450 million word COCA corpus». www.wordfrequency.info. Retrieved April 11, 2018.

External links

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WORD-GROUPS Lecture

Word-groups vs. phraseological units Words put together to form lexical units make phrases or word-groups. The largest two-facet lexical unit comprising more than one word is the word-group observed on the syntagmatic level of analysis. The degree of structural and semantic cohesion of word-groups may vary. Functionally and semantically inseparable word-groups like at least, point of view, by means of, take place are phraseological units. Semantically and structurally more independent word-groups a week ago, man of wisdom, take lessons, kind to people are defined as free or variable word-groups or phrases

Valency of words The two main linguistic factors to be considered in uniting words into word-groups are: 1) the lexical valency of words 2) the syntactic valency of words.

Lexical valency Words are used in certain lexical contexts, i. e. in combination with other words. The noun question is often combined with such adjectives as vital, pressing, urgent, disputable, delicate , etc. This noun is a component of a number of other word-groups, e. g. to raise a question, a question of great importance, a question of the agenda, a question of the day , and many others. Lexical valency is the possibility of lexical-semantic connections of a word with other words. Lexical collocability is the realisation in speech of the potential connections of a word with other words.

Lexical valency acquires special importance in case of polysemy as through the lexical valency different meanings of a polysemantic word can be distinguished, e. g. 1. heavy weight (safe, table , etc. ), 2. heavy snow (storm, rain , etc. ), 3. heavy drinker (eater , etc. ), 4. heavy sleep (disappointment, sorrow , etc. ), 5. heavy industry (tanks , etc. ), and so on. These word-groups are called collocations or such combinations of words which condition the realization of a certain meaning

The range of the lexical valency of words is linguistically restricted by the inner structure of the English word-stock. Though the verbs lift and raise are treated as synonyms, only raise is collocated with the noun question. The verb take may be interpreted as ‘grasp’, ’seize’, ‘catch’, etc. but only take is found in collocations with the nouns examination, measures, precautions , etc. , only catch in catch smb. napping and grasp in grasp the truth.

The restrictions of lexical valency of words may manifest themselves in the lexical meanings of the polysemantic members of word-groups. The adjective heavy , e. g. , is combined with the words food, meals, supper , etc. in the meaning ‘rich and difficult to digest’. But not all the words with the same component of meaning can be combined with this adjective *heavy cheese or *heavy sausage. The lexical valency of correlated words in different languages is different: pot flowers – комнатные цветы

Syntactic valency — the aptness of a word to appear in different syntactic structures. The minimal syntactic context in which words are used when brought together to form word-groups is described as the pattern of the word-groups. E. g. , the verb to offer can be followed by the infinitive ( to offer to do smth ) and the noun ( to offer a cup of tea ). The verb to suggest can be followed by the gerund ( to suggest doing smth ) and the noun ( to suggest an idea ). The syntactic valency of these verbs is different.

The adjectives clever and intelligent are seen to possess different syntactic valency as clever can be used in word-groups having the pattern: Adjective-Preposition at+Noun : clever at mathematics , whereas intelligent can never be found in exactly the same word-group pattern. The syntactic valency of correlated words in different languages is not identical, in English to influence a person, a decision, a choice ( verb +noun ) — in Russian влиять на человека, на решение, на выбор ( verb+ preposition+noun ).

T he individual meanings of a polysemantic word may be described through its syntactic valency: Keen + N: keen sight, hearing, etc. Keen + on + N : keen on sports, tennis, etc. Keen + V(inf): keen to know, to find out, etc. Thus word-groups may be regarded as minimal syntactic (or syntagmatic) structures that operate as distinguishing clues for different meanings of a polysemantic word.

INTERDEPENDENCE OF STRUCTURE AND MEANING IN WORD-GROUPS Syntactic structure and pattern of word-groups is the description of the order and arrangement of member-words in word-groups as parts of speech. The syntactic structure of the word-group an old woman, a blue dress, clever man, red flower is an adjective and a noun, i. e. A+N ; The syntactic structure of the word-groups wash a car, read books, take books, build houses – as a verb and a noun, i. e. V+N. The syntactic structure of the word-groups a touch of the sun, a matter of importance — as a preposition and a noun, i. e. N+prp+N.

Structural formulas: 1. V+N: ( to build houses ), 2. V+prp+N: ( to rely on somebody ), 3. V+N+prp+N: ( to hold something against somebody ), 4. V+N+V(inf. ): ( to make somebody work ), 5. V+ V(inf. ): ( to get to know ), and so on.

Syntactic structure of word-groups Word-groups may be described through the order and arrangement of the component members: To see sth – verbal-nominal group; To see to sth – (If you see to something that needs attention, you deal with it) verbal-prepositional-nominal, etc.

Word-groups may be classified according to their headwords into: 1. Nominal: red flower ; 2. Adjectival: kind to people ; 3. Verbal: to speak well , etc. The head is not necessarily the component that occurs first in the word-group: great bravery, bravery in the struggle the noun bravery is the head whether followed or preceded by other words.

Thus the structure of word-groups may also be described in relation to the head-word. In this case it is usual to speak of the pattern but not of formulas. E. g. , the patterns of the verbal groups to read a book, to wash a car are to read + N, to wash + N ; to rely on somebod y – to rely+on+N. Syntactic pattern implies the description of the structure of the word-group in which a given word is used as its head.

The interdependence of the pattern and meaning of head-words can be easily perceived by comparing word-groups of different patterns in which the same head-word is used. Three patterns with the verb ‘get’ as the head-word represent three different meanings of this verb: 1. get+ N ( get a letter, information, money , etc. ); 2. get+ to +N ( get to Moscow, to the Institute , etc. ); 3. get+N+V(inf. ) ( get somebody to come, to do the work, etc. ).

Notional member-words are habitually represented in conventional symbols whereas prepositions and other form-words are given in their usual graphic form. This is accounted for by the fact that individual form-words may modify or change the meaning of the word with which it is combined, as in, e. g. : 1. anxious+for+ N ( anxious for news ), anxious+about+ N ( anxious about his health ). the difference in the meaning of the head-word is conditioned by a difference in the pattern of the word-group in which this word is used

Syntactic patterns are classified into: 1. predicative word-groups have a syntactic structure similar to that of a sentence, they comprise the subject and the predicate, e. g. he went, John works. 2. non-predicative word-groups do not comprise the subject and the predicate and may be subdivided into a) subordinative (e. g. red flower, a man of wisdom ); b) coordinative (e. g. women and children, do or die ).

Classification of word-groups 1. ENDOCENTRIC WORD-GROUPS have one central member functionally equivalent to the whole word-group. In the word-group blue dress, friendly to people , the head-words are the noun dress and the adjective friendly correspondingly. According to their central members word-groups may be classified into: a) nominal groups or phrases ( blue dress ), b) adjectival groups ( friendly to people ), c) verbal groups ( to sing well ), etc.

2. EXOCENTRIC WORD-GROUPS have no central component and the distribution of the whole word-group is different from either of its members. For instance, the distribution of the word-groups side by side, at first, grow smaller is not identical with the distribution of their component-members, i. e. the component-members are not syntactically substitutable for the whole word-group.

TYPES OF MEANING OF WORD-GROUPS The lexical meaning – the combined lexical meaning of the component words, e. g. a blind man may be described denotationally as the combined meaning of the words blind and man. In most cases the lexical meanings of the word-group predominates over the lexical meanings of its components, e. g. blind alley, blind date. Polysemantic words are used in word-groups only in one of their meanings. These meanings of the component words in such word-groups are mutually interdependent and inseparable. Semantic inseparability of word-groups treats them as self-contained lexical units.

The structural meaning of the word-group is the meaning conveyed mainly by the pattern of arrangement of its components, e. g. , such word-groups as school grammar and grammar school are semantically different because of the difference in the pattern of arrangement of the component words. The structural meaning is the meaning expressed by the pattern of the word-group.

Interrelation of lexical and structural meaning in word-groups The lexical and structural components of meaning in word-groups are interdependent and inseparable. The structural pattern in all the day long, all the night long, all the week long in ordinary usage and the word-group all the sun long is identical. The generalised meaning of the pattern ‘a unit of time’. Replacing day, night, week by another noun the sun structural meaning of the pattern does not change. The group all the sun long functions semantically as a unit of time. But the noun sun included in the group continues to carry the semantic value or the lexical meaning that it has in word-groups of other structural patterns (cf. the sun rays, African sun , etc. ).

It follows that the meaning of the word-group is derived from the combined lexical meanings of its constituents and is inseparable from the meaning of the pattern of their arrangement. a factory hand − ‘a factory worker’ a hand bag − ‘a bag carried in the hand’. Though the word hand makes part of both its lexical meaning and the role it plays in the structure of word-groups is different which accounts for the difference in the lexical and structural meaning of the word-groups under discussion. Thus, the meaning of the word-group is derived from the combined lexical meanings of its constituents and is inseparable from the meaning of the pattern of their arrangement.

Polysemantic and monosemantic patterns Word-groups represented by different structural formulas are as a rule semantically different because of the difference in the grammatical component of meaning. Structurally identical patterns, e. g. heavy+ N , may be representative of different meanings of the adjective heavy which is perceived in the word-groups heavy rain (snow, storm), heavy smoker (drinker), heavy weight (table), etc. all of which have the same pattern — heavy +N.

Structurally simple patterns are as a rule polysemantic, i. e. representative of several meanings of a polysemantic head-word, whereas structurally complex patterns are monosemantic and condition just one meaning of the head-member. The simplest verbal structure V+N and the corresponding pattern are as a rule polysemantic (compare, e. g. take +N (take tea, coffee); take the bus, the tram, take measures, precautions, etc. ), whereas a more complex pattern, e. g. take+to+ N is monosemantic (e. g. take to sports ).

MOTIVATION IN WORD-GROUPS A word-group is lexically-motivated if the combined lexical meaning of the group is deducible from the meaning of its components, e. g. red flower, heavy weight, take lessons. If the combined lexical meaning of a word-group is not deducible from the lexical meanings of its constituent components, such a word-group is lexically non-motivated , e. g. red tape (official bureaucratic methods) take place (occur).

The degree of motivation can be different. Between the extremes of complete motivation and lack of motivation there are innumerable intermediate cases. E. g. , the degree of lexical motivation in the nominal group black market is higher than in black death , but lower than in black dress , though none of the groups can be considered completely non-motivated.

Completely motivated word-groups are correlated with certain structural types of compound words. Verbal groups having the structure V+N , e. g. to read books, to love music , etc. , are habitually correlated with the compounds of the pattern N+(V+er) (book-reader, music-lover); adjectival groups such as A+prp+N (e. g. rich in oil, shy before girls ) are correlated with the compounds of the pattern N+A , e. g. oil-rich, girl-shy.

Seemingly identical word-groups are sometimes found to be motivated or non-motivated depending on their semantic interrelation. Thus, apple sauce is lexically motivated when it means ‘a sauce made of apples’ but when used to denote ‘nonsense’ it is clearly non-motivated. Completely non-motivated or partially motivated word-groups are called phraseological units or idioms.

Summary and Conclusions 1. Words put together to form lexical units make up phrases or word-groups. The main factors active in bringing words together are lexical and syntactic valency of the components of word-groups.

2. Lexical valency is the aptness of a word to appear in various collocations. All the words of the language possess a certain norm of lexical valency. Restrictions of lexical valency are to be accounted for by the inner structure of the vocabulary of the English language.

3. Lexical valency of polysemantic words is observed in various collocations in which these words are used. Different meanings of a polysemantic word may be described through its lexical valency.

4. Syntactic valency is the aptness of a word to appear in various syntactic structures. All words possess a certain norm of syntactic valency. Restrictions of syntactic valency are to be accounted for by the grammatical structure of the language. The range of syntactic valency of each individual word is essentially delimited by the part of speech the word belongs to and also by the specific norm of syntactic valency peculiar to individual words of Modern English.

5. The syntactic valency of a polysemantic word may be observed in the different structures in which the word is used. Individual meanings of a polysemantic word may be described through its syntactic valency.

6. Structurally, word-groups may be classified by the criterion of distribution into endocentric and exocentric. Endocentric word-groups can be classified according to the head-word into nominal, adjectival, verbal and adverbial groups or phrases.

8. Semantically all word-groups may be classified into motivated and non-motivated. Non-motivated word-groups are usually described as phraseological units.

References 1. Зыкова И. В. Практический курс английской лексикологии. М. : Академия, 2006. – С. 121 -124. 2. Гинзбург Р. З. Лексикология английского языка. М. : Высшая школа, 1979. – С. 64 -74. 3. Антрушина Г. Б. , Афанасьева О. В. , Морозова Н. Н. Лексикология английского языка. М. : Дрофа, 2006. – С. 225 — 256.

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