Which word has the same meaning as the word work

The word “work” can be a verb or noun or even an adjective. This entry looks at “work” and “works” as nouns.

“Work” has several different meanings, but one of the most common is “exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labour; toil” [dictionary.com]. In this sense it is an uncountable noun and has no plural form.

E.g.:
We have a lot of work.
We will start the work as soon as we have received the signed Power of Attorney.
The work involved 17 hours of lawyer’s work and 5 hours of translator’s work.

I find people commonly make the mistake of using “works” in this context – especially in sentences like the second and third examples above.

“Works” has a different meaning. It is used to describe construction or engineering projects.

E.g.:
There are traffic jams all over the city due to the road works in the centre.
Works on the bridge were delayed by 4 weeks due to bad weather.
The Works were signed off 6 months after the Completion Date.

So you should never use “works” to describe the work you do when you’re sitting at a desk.

“Works” can also be used to mean an industrial plant, e.g. Over two hundred people are employed at the works. It may be used in combination with other words, e.g. “ironworks”, “steelworks”, “gasworks”. In this sense the word has no singular form. However, you may say, e.g. “one gasworks”.

“Earthworks” (uncountable) means excavation works in connection with a construction or engineering project. But an “earthwork” (countable) is a defensive fortification built into the ground, often of archaeological interest.

We also talk about e.g. “the works of a watch”, “the washing machine’s works” to describe a machine’s internal mechanism.

“Work” as a countable noun

“Work” is used as a countable noun when referring to works of art or literature.

E.g.:
A work of art.
Numerous new works of Picasso have been revealed by the artist’s electrician.
Pan Tadeusz by Mickiewicz is the most famous work of Polish literature.

Idioms with “works”

in the works – (informal) in preparation, e.g. Various amendments to the Act are in the works.
a spanner in the works – (informal) a problem, e.g. The appearance of new evidence has thrown a spanner in the works.
with the works – (slang) with the full range, with everything, e.g. Give me a hot dog with the works.
give somebody the works – (slang) beat somebody up, give somebody severe treatment, e.g. We took him out the back door of the bar and gave him the works.

a
relax

b
queues
of cars and lorries unable to move forward

c
benefits
not included in your salary

d
people who can’t stop working

e
out
of date and no longer useful

f
informal
exchange of news and information

g
start

h
trying
got make people work harder

b)
Complete the sentences with the words from a).

1
As
I have to travel so much I miss out on all the office _______.

2
When
I get home, I like to ______ by listening by some classical music
with a glass of wine.

3
My
boss is a complete ______. She just doesn’t know how to relax and
turn off.

4
It’s
better to have a higher salary than _____ like a company car or free
meals.

5
The
problem with buying a computer is that in a couple of years it’s
______.

6
I
find it difficult to ______ the accounts and usually leave them
until the last minute.

7
I leave home very early to avoid getting caught in _______ on the
way to work.

8
_______ is part of any manager’s job.

c)
Are the sentences in b) true for you? If not, change them so that
they are.

Pay

Vocabulary through the context

Wages,
salary and benefits

Compensation
1

Compensation
2

Compensation
is also used to talk about money and other benefits that a senior
manager (or any employee) receives if they are forced to leave the
organization, perhaps after a boardroom
row.
This money is in the form of a compensation
payment,
or severance
payment.
If the manager also receives benefits, the payment and the benefits
form a severance
package.

In
Britain, executives with very high pay and good benefits may be
referred to as fat
cats,
implying that they do not deserve this level of remuneration.

1. Xavier and Yvonne are talking about Xavier’s new job as a photocopier salesman. Complete the conversation, using words from a opposite.

1 X: I get paid every
month.

Y:
I see. You get a salary
,
not wages.

2 X: 1 usually have to work
late: I don’t get paid for it, but I get a percentage for every
photocopier I sell.

Y
So you don’t get……………………….but you do
get……………………….That’s good.

3 X: The people in
production get a………………………if they reach their
targets.

Y:
Oh right. They get an extra payment for producing a certain amount.

4 X: The company pays for
medical treatment too. and the company restaurant is fantastic.

Y:
Wow! The………………………………………………sound
very nice.

5 X: And they’ve given me a
………………………………………………to go and
visit clients.

Y:
So you don’t have to buy a car, then.

6 X: What’s more, the
company pays in money for us to get when we don’t work any more.

Y:
Yes, it’s important to get a good……………………….

7 X: The
total………………………………………………is
brilliant.

Y:
Yes, all that extra stuff is really worth having.

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STATE BUDGET EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

OF HIGHER EDUCATION

OF THE REPUBLIC OF CRIMEA

“CRIMEAN ENGINEERING PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY”

Philology department

English philology

REPORT

on the discipline “Lexicology, phraseology”

on the theme “Meaning and Polysemy”

Prepared:
Ayshe Kurtmullaeva

III-d year student

EU-1-13

Supervisor:

Emirilyasova S.S.

Simferopol, 2016

Contents

·       
Dictionary

·       
Introduction

1.    
 Meaning
and its types.

2.    
 Polysemy

3.    
 Semantic Structure of Polysemantic Words.

4.    
Meaning
and polysemy.

5.    
 Conclusion.

6.    
 References.

·       
Dictionary

1.    
Meaning
—   /ˈmiːnɪŋ/ — значение.

2.    
 Polysemy
— /
ˈpɒlɪsi(ː)mi/ — многозначность, полисемия.

3.    
 Indivisibility — /ˌ ɪndɪˌvɪzɪˈbɪlɪti/ — неделимость.

4.    
 Semasiology
—  /sɪˌmeɪsɪˈɒləʤi/ — семасиология.

5.    
 Concept
— /ˈkɒnsɛpt/ — концепт, понятие.

6.    
Distinction
—   /dɪsˈtɪŋkʃən/ — различие.

7.    
Interrelation
— /ˌɪntə(ː)rɪˈleɪʃən/ — взаимоотношение.

8.    
Distributionally
 — /ˌdɪstrɪˈbjuːʃən(ə)li/  — дистрибутивно, распределительно.

9.    
Underlying
 —  /ˌʌndəˈlaɪɪŋ/  — в основе.

10.
Irrespective
— /ˌɪrɪsˈpɛktɪv/ — независимо от того.

11. Not
to be sought — /nɒt tuː biː sɔːt/— не следует искать.

12. Designate
—  /ˈdɛzɪgnɪt/ — обозначить.

13. Distinguishing
—
/dɪsˈtɪŋgwɪʃɪŋ/ — отличительный.

14. Homogenous
 — /həˈmɒdʒɪnəs/  — однородный.

15. Denotational
 —
/ˌdiːnəʊˈteɪʃən(ə)l/  — денотативный.

16. Connotational
—  /ˌkɒnəʊˈteɪʃən(ə)l/ — коннотативный.

17. Polysemantic
—  /ˌpɒlɪsɪˈmæntɪk/ — многозначный.

18. Concatenation
—
/kɒnˌkætɪˈneɪʃən/ — сцепление, соединение.

19. Bulk
—   /bʌlk/ — основной.

20. Coincide
–  /ˌkəʊɪnˈsaɪd/ — совпадать.

·       
Introduction

The word is one of the
fundamental units of language. It is a dialectal unity of form and content. Its
content or meaning is not identical to notion, but it may reflect human notion
and is considered as the form of their existence. So the definition of a word
is one of the most difficult in linguistics, because the simplest word has many
different aspects: a sound form, its morphological structure, it may occur in
different word-forms and have various meanings.

E. Sapir takes into
consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects when he calls the word “one of
the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated “meaning”, into which the
sentence resolves itself.” Sapir also points out one more, very important
characteristic of the word, its indivisibility : “It cannot be
cut into without a disturbance of meaning, one or two other or both of the
several parts remaining as a helpless waif on our hands.”

Word meaning is not
homogeneous, but it is made up of various components, which are described as
types of meaning. There are 2 types of meaning to be found in words and word
forms:

1) the grammatical meaning;

2) the lexical meaning.

As the world’s global
language, English has played a very important role in bringing people from
different countries closer and closer, thus yielding great mutual
understanding. The author argues that the mastering of the grammatical features
of English words together with that of their semantic structures helps to make
the communication in English successful. The study on English words in terms of
grammar and semantics is, therefore, hoped to be of great value to teachers and
learners of English as well as translators into and out of English. In this
essay, English words are discussed in terms of their meaning, which poses
several problems for the teachers, learners and translators [2].

1.    
Meaning and its types

·       
What is meaning?

The branch of Lexicology that is devoted
to the study of meaning is known as Semasiology. Meaning
is one of the most controversial terms in the theory of language. At first
sight the understanding of this term seems to present no difficulty at all — it
is freely used in teaching, interpreting and translation
[1, p. 13].

When we examine a word we see that its
meaning though closely connected with the underlying concept or concepts is not
identical with them. To begin with, concept is a category of human cognition.
Concept is the thought of the object that singles out its essential features.
Our concepts abstract and reflect the most common and typical features of the
different objects and phenomena of the world. Being the result of abstraction
and generalization all “concepts are thus intrinsically almost the same for the
whole of humanity in one and the same period of its historical development. The
meanings of words however are different in different languages. That is to say,
words expressing identical concepts may have different meanings and different
semantic structures in different languages.

The difference between meaning and concept
can also be observed by comparing synonymous words and word-groups expressing
essentially the same concepts but possessing linguistic meaning which is felt
as different in each of the units under consideration, e.g. big, large;
to, die, to pass away, to kick the bucket, to join the majority; child, baby,
babe, infant [1, p. 15].

There are a few main types of meaning [1,
p. 18-20]:

·       
Grammatical
meaning

We notice, e.g., that word-forms,
such as girls, winters, joys,
tables, etc. though denoting
widely different objects of reality have something in common. This common
element is the grammatical meaning of plurality which can be found in all of
them.

Thus grammatical meaning 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.).

In a broad sense it may be argued that
linguists who make a distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning are,
in fact, making a distinction between the functional (linguistic) meaning which
operates at various levels as the interrelation of various linguistic units and
referential (conceptual) meaning as the interrelation of linguistic units and
referents (or concepts).

In modern linguistic science it is
commonly held that some elements of grammatical meaning can be identified by
the position of the linguistic unit in relation to other linguistic units, i.e.
by its distribution. Word-forms speaks,
reads, writes have one and
the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in identical
distribution, e.g. only after the pronouns he,
she, it and before adverbs like well, badly, today, etc.

It follows that a certain component
of the meaning of a word is described when you identify it as a part of speech,
since different parts of speech are distributionally different (cf. my work and
I work).

·       
Lexical
meaning

Comparing word-forms of one and the
same word we observe that besides grammatical meaning, there is another
component of meaning to be found in them. Unlike the grammatical meaning this
component is identical in all the forms of the word. Thus, e.g. the word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone possess different grammatical
meanings of tense, person and so on, but in each of these forms we find one and
the same semantic component denoting the process of movement. This is the
lexical meaning of the word which 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.

The difference between the lexical
and the grammatical components of meaning is not to be sought in the difference
of the concepts underlying the two types of meaning, but rather in the way they
are conveyed. The concept of plurality, e.g., may be expressed by the lexical
meaning of the world plurality; it may also be expressed in the
forms of various words irrespective of their lexical meaning, e.g. boys, girls, joys, etc. The concept of relation may be
expressed by the lexical meaning of the word relation and also by any of the prepositions, e.g. in, on,
behind, etc. (cf. the book
is in/on, behind the table).

It follows that by lexical meaning we
designate the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and
distributions, while by grammatical meaning we designate the meaning proper to
sets of word-forms common to all words of a certain class. Both the lexical and
the grammatical meaning make up the word-meaning as neither can exist without
the other. That can be also observed in the semantic analysis of correlated words
in different languages. E.g. the Russian word сведения is not semantically identical with
the English equivalent information because unlike the Russian сведения the English word does not possess the grammatical
meaning of plurality which is part of the semantic structure of the Russian
word.

·       
Parf-of-Speech
Meaning

It is usual to classify lexical items
into major word-classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) and minor
word-classes (articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc.).

All members of a major word-class
share a distinguishing semantic component which though very abstract may be
viewed as the lexical component of part-of-speech meaning. For example, the
meaning of ‘thingness’ or substantiality may be found in all the nouns e.g. table, love, sugar, though they possess different
grammatical meanings of number, case, etc. It should be noted, however, that
the grammatical aspect of the part-of-speech meanings is conveyed as a rule by
a set of forms. If we describe the word as a noun we mean to say that it is
bound to possess a set of forms expressing the grammatical meaning of number
(cf. table — tables), case (cf. boy, boy’s) and so on. A verb is understood to
possess sets of forms expressing, e.g., tense meaning (worked — works), mood meaning (work! — (I) work), etc. The part-of-speech meaning of
the words that possess only one form, e.g. prepositions, some adverbs, etc., is
observed only in their distribution (cf. to
come in (here, there) and in
(on, under) the table).

One of the levels at which
grammatical meaning operates is that of minor word classes like articles,
pronouns, etc.

Members of these word classes are
generally listed in dictionaries just as other vocabulary items, that belong to
major word-classes of lexical items proper (e.g. nouns, verbs, etc.).

One criterion for distinguishing
these grammatical items from lexical items is in terms of closed and open sets.
Grammatical items form closed sets of units usually of small membership (e.g.
the set of modern English pronouns, articles, etc.). New items are practically
never added.

Lexical items proper belong to open
sets which have indeterminately large membership; new lexical items which are
constantly coined to fulfil the needs of the speech community are added to
these open sets.

The interrelation of the lexical and
the grammatical meaning and the role played by each varies in different
word-classes and even in different groups of words within one and the same
class. In some parts of speech the prevailing component is the grammatical type
of meaning. The lexical meaning of prepositions for example is, as a rule,
relatively vague (independent
of smb, one of the students, the roof of the house). The lexical meaning of some
prepositions, however, may be comparatively distinct (cf.in/on, under the
table). In verbs the lexical
meaning usually comes to the fore although in some of them, the verb to be, e.g., the grammatical meaning of a
linking element prevails (cf. he works as a teacher and he is a teacher) [1, p.
13].

·       
Denotational
meaning

Proceeding with the semantic analysis
we observe that lexical meaning is not homogenous either and may be analysed as
including denotational and connotational components.

As was mentioned above one of the
functions of words is to denote things, concepts and so on. Users of a language
cannot have any knowledge or thought of the objects or phenomena of the real
world around them unless this knowledge is ultimately embodied in words which
have essentially the same meaning for all speakers of that language. This is
the denotational meaning, i.e. that component of the lexical meaning which
makes communication possible. There is no doubt that a physicist
knows more about the atom than a singer does, or that an arctic explorer possesses
a much deeper knowledge of what arctic ice is like than a man who has never
been in the North. Nevertheless they use the words atom, Arctic, etc. and understand each other.

·       
Connotational
meaning

The second component of the lexical
meaning is the connotational component, i.e. the emotive charge and the
stylistic value of the word.

2.    
Polysemy

      The
word polysemy means plurality of meanings. It exists only in the language, not
in speech. A word which has more than one meaning is called polysemantic.

      There
are two processes of the semantic development of a word: radiation and
concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the centre
and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Each secondary meaning
can be traced to the primary meaning, e.g. face (the front part of the human
head — the primary meaning; the front part of a building, the front part of a
watch, the front part of a playing card; expression of the face, outward
appearance — secondary meanings).

       In cases
of concatenation secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain, e.g. crust
– 1. hard outer part of bread, 2. hard part of anything (a pie, a cake), 3.
harder layer over soft snow, 4. sullen gloomy person, 5. impudence. Here the
last meanings have nothing to do with primary ones. In such cases homonyms
appear in the language. This phenomenon is called the split of polysemy.

3.    
Semantic Structure of Polysemantic Words

     
Synchronically, the problem of polysemy is the problem of interrelation and interdependence
of different meanings of the same word. The semantic structure of a
polysemantic word is the sum total of relations between its lexico-semantic
variants.

      The
analysis of the semantic structure of a polysemantic word is based on the following
set of oppositions:

      1.
Direct-derived meaning: rat – animal like, but larger than a mouse; rat –
cowardly person; strike-breaker.

      2.
Extended-restricted meaning: to knock – strike, hit; to knock – of a petrol
engine – make a tapping or thumping noise.

      3.
Free-bound meaning: hat – cover for the head; hat – nonsense (to speak through
one’s hat).

      4.
General-specialized meaning: case – instance or example of the occurence of
smth; case – (med.) person suffering from a disease.

      5.
Neutral-emotional meaning: nut – fruit consisting of a hard shell enclosing a
kernel that can be eaten; nut – (slang) head of a human being.

4.    
Meaning
and polysemy [1, p. 33-34]

So far we have been discussing the
concept of meaning, different types of word-meanings and the changes they
undergo in the course of the historical development of the English language.
When analysing the word-meaning we observe, however, that words as a rule are
not units of a single meaning. Monosemantic words, i.e. words having only one
meaning are comparatively few in number, these are mainly scientific terms,
such – as hydrogen, molecule and the like. The bulk of English
words are polysemantic, that is to say possess more than one meaning. The
actual number of meanings of the commonly used words ranges from five to about
a hundred. In fact, the commoner the word the more meanings it has.

The word table, e.g., has at least nine meanings
in Modern English:

1. a piece of furniture;

2. the persons seated at a table;

3. sing. the food put on a table, meals;

4. a thin flat piece of stone, metal,
wood, etc.;

5. pl. slabs of stone;

6. words cut into them or written on
them (the ten tables); 

 7. an orderly arrangement of facts,
figures, etc.;

8. part of a machine-tool on which
the work is put to be operated on;

 9. a level area, a plateau.

Each of the individual meanings can
be described in terms of the types of meanings discussed above. We may, e.g.,
analyse the eighth meaning of the word table into the part-of-speech meaning — that of the noun
(which presupposes the grammatical meanings of number and case) combined with
the lexical meaning made up of two components. The denotational semantic
component which can be interpreted as the dictionary definition (part of a
machine-tool on which the work is put) and the connotational component which
can be identified as a specific stylistic reference of this particular meaning
of the word table (technical terminology). Cf. the Russian планшайба, стол станка.

In polysemantic words, however, we
are faced not with the problem of analysis of individual meanings, but
primarily with the problem of the interrelation and interdependence of the
various meanings in the semantic structure of one and the same word.

The problem of polysemy is mainly the
problem of interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings of the
same word. Polysemy viewed diachronically is a historical change in the
semantic structure of the word resulting in disappearance of some meanings (or)
and in new meanings being added to the ones already existing and also in the
rearrangement of these meanings in its semantic structure. Polysemy viewed
synchronically is understood as coexistence of the various meanings of the same
word at a certain historical period and the arrangement of these meanings in
the semantic structure of the word.

5.    
Conclusion

The two main types of word-meaning are the
grammatical and the lexical meanings found in all words. The interrelation of
these two types of meaning may be different in different groups of words.
Lexical meaning is viewed as possessing denotational and connotational
components.The denotational component is actually what makes communication
possible. The connotational component comprises the stylistic reference and the
emotive charge proper to the word as a linguistic unit in the given language
system.

The semantic
structure of polysemantic words is not homogeneous as far as the status of
individual meanings is concerned. Some meaning (or meanings) is representative
of the word in isolation, others are perceived only in certain contexts.

The
whole of the semantic structure of correlated polysemantic words of different
languages can never be identical. Words are felt as correlated if their basic
(central) meanings coincide.

6.    
References

1.    
Лексикология
английского языка: Учебник для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз./Р. 3. Гинзбург, С. С. Хидекель, Г. Ю.
Князева и А. А. Санкин. — 2-е изд., испр. и доп. — М.: Высш. школа, 1979.

2.    
Курс лекций по теоретической грамматике
английского языка. [Electronic resource] —Access mode: 
 http://window.edu.ru/catalog/pdf2txt/740/67740/41104.