Basics of Lexicology

TYPES OF BORROWINGS

international words are words borrowed by several lges and convey a notion, which is significant in the field of communication. Many of them are of Latin and Greek origin. Most names of sciences (philosophy, mathematics, lexicology) and terms of art (theatre, drama, tragedy, comedy) are international. Political terms also occur in the international group of borrowings. 20th c. scientific and technological advances brought a great number of words as well (atomic, antibiotic, radio, television, sputnik). The English lge also contributed a considerable number of international words to other languages, first of all sports terms (football, volleyball, baseball, cricket, rugby, tennis). Fruit and foodstuffs imported from exotic countries became international (coffee, cocoa, chocolate, banana, mango, avocado, grapefruit).

etymological doublets - “shirt” and “skirt” etymologically descend from the same root. “Shirt” is a native word, “skirt” is a Scandinavian borrowing. Their phonemic shape is different, yet, there is some resemblance, which reflects their common origin. Their meanings are also different but easily associated: both denote articles of clothing. Such words originating from the same etymological source but different in phonemic shape and in meaning are called etymological doublets. They may enter the vocabulary by different ways. Some of these pairs consist of a native word and a borrowing (shrew, Eng., native - screw, Scand., borr.). Others are represented by two borrowed words from different languages, which historically descend from the same root (senior, Lat. - sir, Fr.; canal, Lat. - channel, Fr.; captain, Lat. - chieftain, Fr.). Others were borrowed from the same lge twice but in different periods (corpse [ko:ps], Norman Fr. - corps [ko:], Parisian Fr.; travel, Norman Fr. - travail, Par. Fr.; cavalry, Norm. Fr. - chivalry, Par. Fr.; goal, Norm. Fr. - jail, Par. Fr.). There exist also etymological triplets (groups of three words of common origin) but they are very rare (hospital, Lat. - hostel, Norm. Fr. - hotel, Par. Fr.; to capture, Lat. - to catch, Norm. Fr. - to chase, Par. Fr.). A doublet may consist of a shortened word and the one derived from (history - story, fantasy - fancy, fanatic - fan, defence - fence, courtesy - curtsey, shadow - shade).

translation - loans are borrowings taken from another language more or less in the same phonemic shape, in which they have been functioning in their own language, but undergo the process of translation (masterpiece < Meister -stuck, Germ; wonder child < Wunderkind, Germ.; first dance < prima - ballerina, Ital.; collective farm < kolkhoz, Rus.; 5 - year - plan < ïÿòèëåòêà, Rus.).

foreign words are borrowed from another language without any changes of sound and spelling (tet - a - tete, rouge, deje vu, kaput).

xenizms are borrowings, which denote objects and realities of the lge of the source country. They have no corresponding words in the English lge (kung fu, camorra, Gestapo, kolkhoz).

INTERRACTION OF ETYMOLOGICAL AND STYLISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF WORDS

The centre of gravity of borrowed words in the stylistic classification is represented by two groups: learned words and terminology. In these strata the foreign element dominates over the native; on the contrary, the informal strata, especially slang and dialect, abound in native words. If we compare the expressive and stylistic value of the French and the English words in such synonymic pairs as “to begin - to commence, to wish - to desire, happiness - felicity”, we can notice that the French word is usually more formal, more refined and has a less strong hold on the emotional side of life. The truth of this observation becomes more obvious in a pair of a native word and its Latin synonym: motherly - maternal, childish - infantile. “Motherly love” seems much warmer than “maternal feelings”, which sounds dutiful but cold. One may speak about “childish games” but “infantile diseases”, which sounds dry. But some pairs of words cannot be regarded as synonyms, though semantically they refer to the same word. If we analyse the pair “sunny - solar”, we'll see that if a fine day can be described as “sunny”, it certainly can't be characterized as “solar”, which is used in highly formal technological senses. The same is true about “handy - manual, toothy - dental, nosy - nasal).

Lecture 4. MEANS OF WORD - BUILDING

lexicology linguistic neologism

If viewed structurally, words appear to be divisible into smaller units, which are called morphemes. Morphemes do not occur as free forms but only as constituents of words. Yet, they possess meanings of their own.

All morphemes are subdivided into 2 large classes:

Words, which consist of a root and an affix (affixes) are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the means of word - building known as affixation or derivation. Derived words are extremely numerous in the English vocabulary.

Successfully competing with this structural type are the so - called root words, which have only one morpheme in its structure. This type is widely presented by a great number of words belonging to the original English stock or to earlier borrowings (house, room, book, work, port, street) and in Modern English has been enlarged by the means of word - building called conversion (=derivation achieved by bringing a stem into a different paradigm: pale - to pale).

The 4th wide - spread word structure is a compound word, consisting of two or more stems. Words of this structural type are produced by the word - building means called composition.

The somewhat odd - looking words like “flu, pram, lab, M.P., V - day, H - bomb” are called shortenings or contractions and are produced by the 5th means of word - building known as shortening or contraction.

The 4 types (root words, derived words, compounds, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition are the most productive ways of word - building.

There are some borderline cases which present difficulties. Some elements of the English vocabulary occurring as independent nouns (man, berry, land) have been very frequent as second elements of words for a long time. They seem to have acquired valency similar to that of affixes. They are unstressed, and the vowel sound has been reduced. As these elements seem to come somewhere in between the stems and affixes, the term semi-affix has been offered to name them.

Such elements are considerably generalized semantically and approaches in meaning a mere suffix -er.

Words that are made up of elements derived from two or more different languages are called hybrids. English contains thousands of hybrid words, the vast majority of which show various combinations of morphemes coming from Latin, French and Greek and those of native origin.

Thus, readable has an English root and a suffix that is derived from the Latin abilis and borrowed through French. Moreover, it is not an isolated case, but rather an established pattern that could be represented as English stem + -able: answerable, eatable, likeable, usable. Its variant with the native negative prefix un- is also worthy of note: un- + English stem + -able. The examples for this are: unanswerable, unbearable, unsayable, unforeseeable, unbelievable. An even more frequent pattern is un- + Romantic stem + -able, which is also a hybrid: unallowable, uncontrollable, unmoveable, unquestionable, unreasonable and many others. A curious example is the word unmistakable, the ultimate constituents of which are: un-(Engl) + mis-(Engl) + -tak-(Scand) + -able (Fr). The very high valency of the suffix -able seems to be accounted for by the presence of the homographic adjective able with the same meaning.

AFFIXATION

The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to a root morpheme. The role of the affix in this procedure is very important. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. (e.g. «educate» is a verb, «educatee» is a noun, and «music» is a noun, «musicdom» is also a noun).

There are different classifications of suffixes:

1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes, which can form different parts of speech are:

a) noun-forming suffixes, such as: -er (criticizer), -dom (officialdom), -ism (ageism),

b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as: -able (breathable), less (symptomless), -ous (prestigious),

c) verb-forming suffixes, such as -ize (computerize), -ify (micrify),

d) adverb-forming suffixes, such as: -ly (singly), -ward (tableward),

e) numeral-forming suffixes, such as: -teen (sixteen), -ty (seventy).

2. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can denote:

a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent (student),

b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English),

c) collectivity, e.g. -dom (moviedom), -ry (peasantry, -ship (readership), -ati ( literati),

d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -ling (gooseling), -ette (kitchenette),

e) quality, e.g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability).

3. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes, which can be added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into:

a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as : -er (commuter), -ing (suffering), - able (flyable), -ment (involvement), -ation (computerization),

b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as : -less (smogless), ful (roomful), -ism (adventurism), -ster (pollster), -nik (filmnik), -ish (childish),

c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as : -en (weaken), -ly (pinkly), -ish (longish), -ness (clannishness).

4. Origin of suffixes. Here we can point out the following groups:

a) native (Germanic), such as -er,-ful, -less, -ly.

b) Romanic, such as: -tion, -ment, -able, -eer.

c) Greek, such as: -ist, -ism, -ize.

d) Russian, such as: -nik.

5. Productivity. Here we can point out the following groups:

a) productive, such as : -er, -ize, --ly, -ness.

b) semi-productive, such as : -eer, -ette, -ward.

c) non-productive, such as : -ard (drunkard), -th (length).

Suffixes can be polysemantic, such as: -er can form nouns with the following meanings: agent, doer of the action expressed by the stem (speaker), profession, occupation (teacher), a device, a tool (transmitter). While speaking about suffixes we should also mention compound suffixes which are added to the stem at the same time, such as -ably, -ibly, (terribly, reasonably), -ation (adaptation from adapt).

There are also disputable cases whether we have a suffix or a root morpheme in the structure of a word, in such cases we call such morphemes semi-suffixes, and words with such suffixes can be classified either as derived words or as compound words, e.g. -gate (Irangate), -burger (cheeseburger), -aholic (workaholic) etc.

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English it is characteristic for forming verbs. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead).

The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. But the recent research showed that about twenty-five prefixes in Modern English form one part of speech from another (bebutton, interfamily, postcollege etc).

Prefixes can be classified according to different principles:

1. Semantic classification:

a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as : in- (invaluable), non- (nonformals), un- (unfree) etc,

b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: de- (decolonize), re- (revegetation), dis- (disconnect),

c) prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as : inter- (interplanetary) , hyper- (hypertension), ex- (ex-student), pre- (pre-election), over- (overdrugging) etc.

2. Origin of prefixes:

a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under- etc.

b) Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, re- etc.

c) Greek, such as: sym-, hyper- etc.

When we analyze such words as `'adverb'', `'accompany'' where we can find the root of the word (verb, company) we may treat ad-, ac- as prefixes though they were never used as prefixes to form new words in English and were borrowed from Romanic languages together with words. In such cases we can treat them as derived words. But some scientists treat them as simple words. Another group of words with a disputable structure are such as: contain, retain, detain and conceive, receive, deceive where we can see that re-, de-, con- act as prefixes and -tain, -ceive can be understood as roots. But in English these combinations of sounds have no lexical meaning and are called pseudo-morphemes. Some scientists treat such words as simple words, others as derived ones.

There are some prefixes, which can be treated as root morphemes by some scientists, e.g. after- in the word afternoon. American lexicographers working on Webster dictionaries treat such words as compound words. British lexicographers treat such words as derived ones.

CONVERSION

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation.

Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings because of that:

a) verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of a human body e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to shoulder etc. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to machine-gun, to rifle, to nail,

b) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf, to ape,

c) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to paper,

d) verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to corner, to pocket,

e) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end .

Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote the change of the state, e.g. to tame (to become or make tame), to clean, to slim etc.

Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs. Converted nouns can denote:

a) instant of an action e.g. a jump, a move,

b) process or state e.g. sleep, walk,

c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a help, a flirt, a scold ,

d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase,

e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk.

Many nouns converted from verbs can be used only in the singular form and denote momentaneous actions. In such cases we have partial conversion. Such deverbal nouns are often used with such verbs as: to have, to get, to take etc., e.g. to have a try, to give a push, to take a swim.

In cases of conversion the problem of criteria of semantic derivation arises: which of the converted pair is primary and which is converted from it. The problem was first analized by prof. A.I. Smirnitsky. Later on P.A. Soboleva developed his idea and worked out the following criteria:

1. If the lexical meaning of the root morpheme and the lexico-grammatical meaning of the stem coincide the word is primary, e.g. in cases pen - to pen, father - to father the nouns are names of an object and a living being. Therefore in the nouns «pen» and «father» the lexical meaning of the root and the lexico-grammatical meaning of the stem coincide. The verbs «to pen» and «to father» denote an action, a process therefore the lexico-grammatical meanings of the stems do not coincide with the lexical meanings of the roots. The verbs have a complex semantic structure and they were converted from nouns.

2. If we compare a converted pair with a synonymic word pair which was formed by means of suffixation we can find out which of the pair is primary. This criterion can be applied only to nouns converted from verbs, e.g. «chat» n. and «chat» v. can be compared with «conversation» - «converse».

3. The criterion based on derivational relations is of more universal character. In this case we must take a word-cluster of relative words to which the converted pair belongs. If the root stem of the word-cluster has suffixes added to a noun stem the noun is primary in the converted pair and vica versa, e.g. in the word-cluster: hand n., hand v., handy, handful the derived words have suffixes added to a noun stem, that is why the noun is primary and the verb is converted from it. In the word-cluster: dance n., dance v., dancer, dancing we see that the primary word is a verb and the noun is converted from it.

COMPOSITION

Composition is a means of wordbuilding when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends upon:

a) the unity of stress,

b) solid or hyphonated spelling,

c) semantic unity,

d) unity of morphological and syntactical functioning.

These are charachteristic features of compound words in all languages. For English compounds some of these factors are not very reliable. As a rule English compounds have one uniting stress (usually on the first component), e.g. hard-cover, best-seller. We can also have a double stress in an English compound, with the main stress on the first component and with a secondary stress on the second component, e.g. blood-vessel. The third pattern of stresses is two level stresses, e.g. snow-white, sky-blue. The third pattern is easily mixed up with word-groups unless they have solid or hyphonated spelling.

Spelling in English compounds is not very reliable as well because they can have different spelling even in the same text, e.g. war-ship, blood-vessel can be spelt through a hyphen and also with a break, iinsofar, underfoot can be spelt solidly and with a break. All the more so that there has appeared in Modern English a special type of compound words which are called block compounds, they have one uniting stress but are spelt with a break, e.g. air piracy, cargo module, coin change, pinguin suit etc.

The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. In such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain-drain etc. In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. g., airbus, to bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics etc.

English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in a sentence as one part of it and only onecomponent changes grammatically, e.g. These girls are chatter-boxes. «Chatter-boxes» is a predicative in the sentence and only the second component changes grammatically.

There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

a) both components in an English compound are free stems, i.e. they can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The sound pattern will be the same except for the stresses, e.g. «a green-house» and «a green house

b) English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of compound words, which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g. middle-of-the-road, off-the-record, up-and-doing etc. The two-stem pattern distinguishes English compounds from German ones.

Compounds in English can be formed not only by means of composition but also by means of:

a) reduplication, e.g. too-too, and also by means of reduplicatin combined with sound interchange , e.g. rope-ripe,

b) conversion from word-groups, e.g. to micky-mouse, can-do, makeup etc,

c) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups, e.g. to bloodtransfuse, to fingerprint etc ,

d) analogy, e.g. lie-in ( on the analogy with sit-in) and also phone-in, brawn-drain (on the analogy with brain-drain).

CLASSIFICATIONS OF ENGLISH COMPOUNDS

1. According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into:

a) nouns, such as: baby-moon, globe-trotter,

b) adjectives, such as: free-for-all, power-happy,

c) verbs, such as: to honey-moon, to baby-sit, to henpeck,

d) adverbs, such as: downdeep, headfirst,

e) prepositions, such as: into, within,

f) numerals, such as: fifty-five.

2. According to the way components are joined together compounds are divided into:

a) neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any joining morpheme, e.g. ball-point, to windowshop,

b) morphological where components are joined by a linking element: vowels «o» or «i» or the consonant «s», e.g. astrospace, handicraft, sportsman,

c) syntactical where the components are joined by means of form-word stems, e.g. here-and-now, free-for-all., do-or-die .

3. According to their structure compounds are subdivided into:

a) compound words proper which consist of two stems, e.g. to job-hunt, train-sick, go-go, tip-top,

b) derivational compounds, where besides the stems there are affixes, e.g. ear-minded, hydro-skimmer,

c) compound words consisting of three or more stems, e.g. cornflower-blue, eggshell-thin, singer-songwriter,

d) compound-shortened words, e.g. boatel, tourmobile, VJ-day, motocross, intervision, Eurodollar, Camford.

4. According to the relations between the components compound words are subdivided into:

a) subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic and the structural centre and the second component is subordinate; these subordinative relations can be different:

- with comparative relations, e.g. honey-sweet, eggshell-thin,

- with limiting relations, e.g. breast-high, knee-deep,

- with emphatic relations, e.g. dog-cheap,

- with objective relations, e.g. gold-rich,

- with cause relations, e.g. love-sick,

- with space relations, e.g. top-heavy,

- with time relations, e.g. spring-fresh,

- with subjective relations, e.g. foot-sore

b) coordinative compounds where both components are semantically independent. Here belong such compounds when one person (object) has two functions, e.g. secretary-stenographer, woman-doctor, Oxbridge. Such compounds are called additive. This group includes also compounds formed by means of reduplication, e.g. fifty-fifty, no-no, and also compounds formed with the help of rhythmic stems (reduplication combined with sound interchange) e.g. criss-cross, walkie-talkie.

5. According to the order of the components compounds are divided into compounds with direct order, e.g. kill-joy, and compounds with indirect order, e.g. nuclear-free, rope-ripe.

SECONDARY WAYS OF WORDBUILDING

SOUND INTERCHANGE

Sound interchange is the way of word-building when some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English, it was productive in Old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages.

The causes of sound interchange can be different. It can be the result of Ancient Ablaut which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the period of the language development known to scientists, e.g. to strike - stroke, to sing - song etc. It can be also the result of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front vowel in the syllable coming after the root (regressive assimilation), e.g. hot - to heat (hotian), blood - to bleed (blodian) etc.

In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the word and in verbs in the intervocal position, e.g. bath - to bathe, life - to live, breath - to breathe etc.

STRESS INTERCHANGE

Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin : nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent - to ac`cent. This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when they were borrowed into English, verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second from the end). Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same as in native verbs) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable. As a result of it we have such pairs in English as : to af`fix -`affix, to con`flict- `conflict, to ex`port -`export, to ex`tract - `extract etc. As a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions.

SOUND IMITATION

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. There are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation

a) sounds produced by human beings, such as: to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle.

b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as: to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter.

c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as: to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle.

The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of a bell), chatter (of children).

BLENDS

Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) and the beginning of the second component (apheresis). As a result we have a compound-shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word «smog» from two synonyms: smoke and fog, which means smoke mixed with fog. From the first component the beginning is taken, from the second one the end, «o» is common for both of them.

Blends formed from two synonyms are: slanguange, to hustle, gasohol etc. Mostly blends are formed from a word-group, such as: acromania (acronym mania), cinemadict (cinema adict), chunnel (channel, canal), dramedy (drama comedy), detectifiction (detective fiction), faction (fact fiction) (fiction based on real facts), informecial (information commercial), Medicare (medical care), magalog ( magazine catalogue) slimnastics (slimming gymnastics), sociolite (social elite), slanguist ( slang linguist).

BACK FORMATION

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word. It is opposite to suffixation, that is why it is called back formation. At first it appeared in the languauge as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word. Prof. Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the whole system of the language on separate words. E.g. it is typical of English to form nouns denoting the agent of the action by adding the suffix -er to a verb stem (speak- speaker). So when the French word «beggar» was borrowed into English the final syllable «ar» was pronounced in the same way as the English -er and Englishmen formed the verb «to beg» by dropping the end of the noun. Other examples of back formation are: to accreditate (from accreditation), to bach (from bachelor), to collocate (from collocation), to enthuse (from enthusiasm), to compute (from computer), to emote (from emotion) to reminisce ( from reminiscence) , to televise (from television) etc.

As we can notice in cases of back formation the part-of-speech meaning of the primary word is changed, verbs are formed from nouns.

Lecture 5. SEMASIOLOGY. THE MEANING OF THE WORD

The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents is called semasiology. If treated diachronically, semasiology studies the change in meaning which words undergo. Descriptive synchronic approach demands a study not of individual words but of semantic structures typical of the language studied, and of its general semantic system.

The main objects of semasiological study are semantic development of words, its causes and classification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of words, semantic grouping and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, terminological systems.

The word may be defined as the basic unit of language. Uniting meaning and form, it is composed of one or more morphemes, each consisiting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation.

The definition of a word is one of the most difficult in linguistics bacause the simplest word has many different aspects:

it has a sound form as it is a certain arrangement of phonemes;

it has its morphological structure, being an arrangement of morphemes;

when used in actual speech it may occur in different word forms, syntactic functions and signal various meanings.

Thus, being the central element of any language system, the word is a sort of focus for the problems of phonology, lexicology, syntax, morphology and etc.

Within the scope of linguistics the word has veen defined syntactically, semantically, phonologically and by combining various approaches.

Syntactically it is defined as the minimum sentence by H.Sweet ans as a minimum free form by L.Bloomfield.

E.Sapir takes in consideration the syntactic amd semantic aspects and defines the word as one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolatd meaning, into which the sentence resolves itself. He also points out the word indivisibility.

Discussing the internal cohesion of the word John Lyons points out that it should be treated in terms of two criteria: positional mobility and uninteruptability. The word is internally stable but positionally mobile.

The semantic-phonological approach defines the word as an articulate sound-symbol in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken about.

A.Meillet combines the semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria and defines the word by the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment.

The very function of the word as a unit of communication is made possible by its possessing a meaning. Therefore, among the various characteristics of the word, meaning is the most important. It can be described as a component of the word through which a concept is communicated, thus endowing the word with the ability to denote real objects, qualities, actions and abstract notions. The complete relationships between referent (object denoted by the word), concept and word are traditionally represented by the triangle:



There is a hypothesis that concepts can only find their realization through words. It seems that thought is dominant till the word wakens it up. It is only when we hear a spoken word or read a printed word that the corresponding concept springs into mind.

The mechanism, by which concepts (mental phenomena) are converted into words (linguistic phenomena) and the reversed process, by which a heard or a printed word is converted into a kind of mental picture are not yet understood and described.

The branch of linguistics, which specializes in the study of meaning is called semantics. “Semantics is “language” in its broadest, most inclusive aspect. Sounds, words, grammatical forms, syntactical constructions are the tools of language. Semantics is language's avowed purpose” (Mario Pei). The modern approach to semantics is based on the assumption that the inner form of the word (its meaning) presents a structure, which is called the semantic structure of the word.

The term motivation is used to denote the relationship existing between the phonemic or morphemic composition and structural pattern of the word, on the one hand, and its meaning, on the other. There are three main types of motivation: phonetical, morphological, semantic.

When there is a certain similarity between the sounds that make up a word and those referred to by the sense, the motivation is phonetical.

e.g.: bang, buzz, cuckoo, gigle, gurgle, hiss, purr, wistle - the sounds of a word are imitative of sound of nature

Morphological motivation is quite regular. The prefix ex- means `former' when added to human nouns: ex-filmstar, ex-president, ex-wife. Alongside with these cases there is a more general use of ex-: in borrowed words it is unstressed and motivation is faded (expect, export).

Semantic motivation is based on the co-existance of direct and figurative meanings of the same word within the same synchronous system

e.g.: mouth - 1) a part of the human face; 2) any opening or outlet

When the connection between the meaning of the word and its form is conventional, i.e. there is no perceptible reason for the word having this particular phonemic and morphemic composition, the word is said to be non-motivated.

When some people recognize the motivation, whereas others do not, motivation is called faded.

Sometimes in an attempt to fing motivation for a borrowed word the speaker changes its form so as to give it a connectionwith some other well-known word. These cases of mistaken motivation receive the name of folk etymology.

e.g.: nightmare - is not a she-horse that appears at nights, but a terrifying dream

Some linguists considere one more type of motivation closely akin to the imitative forms, sound symbolism.

e.g.: flap, flop, flip, flitter, flimmer, flicker, flutter, flash, flush, flare

glare, glitter, glow, gloat, glimmer

sleet, slime, slush

The word has several meanings: lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical.

The definition of lexical meaning has been attempted many times with the main principles of different linguistic schools.

Meaning is the relation between the object or notion named and the name itself (the disciples of F. de Saussure).

Meaning is the situation in which the word is uttered (Bloomfieldian trend).

Lexical meaning is the realization of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system. It stresses that semantics studies only such meanings that can be expressed, that is concepts bound by signs.

Thus, the complexity of the word meaning is manifold. The four most important types of semantic complexity are:

Every word combines lexical and grammatical meanings.

Many words not only refer to some object but have an aura of associations expressing the attitude of the speaker. They have not only denotational but connotational meaning as well.

The denotational meaning is segmented into semantic components or semes.

A word may be polysemantic, i.e. may have several meanings, all interconnected and forming its semantic structure.

The grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationships between words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur. The grammatical meaning is more abstract and more generalized than the lexical meaning, it unites words into big groups such as parts of speech or lexico-grammatical classes. It is recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words.

The lexico-grammatical meaning is the common denominator of all the meanings of words belonging to a lexico-grammatical class of words, it is the feature according to which they are grouped together.

Words belonging to one lexico-grammatical class are characterized by a common system of forms in which the grammatical categories inherent in them are expressed. They are also substituted by the same propwords and possess some characteristic formulas of semantic and morphological structure and a characteristic set of derivational affixes.

The degree and character of abstraction and generalization in lexico-grammatical meanings and the generic terms that represent them are intermediate between those characteristic of grammatical categories and those observed on the lexical level (lexico-grammatical).

The conceptual content of a word is expressed in its denotative meaning. To denote is to serve as a linguistic expression for a concept or as a name for an individual object. The denotative meaning may be significative, if the referent is a concept, or demonstrative, if it is an individual object. The term referent is used in both cases.

The information communicated by virtue of what the word refers to is often subject to complex associations originating in habitual contexts, verbal or situational, of which the speaker and the listener are aware, they give the word its connotational meaning. The interaction of denotative meaning and connotation is complicated. The connotative component is optional.

Connotation is what the word conveys about the speaker's attitude to the social circumstances and the appropriate functional style (slay vs group), about the speaker's emotions (mummy vs mother), or the degree of intensity (adore vs love).

When associations concern the situation in which the word is uttered, the social circumstances, the social relationships between the interlocutors, the type and purpose of communication, the connotation is stylistic.

An emotional or affective connotation is acquired by the word as a result of its frequent use in contexts corresponding to emotional situations or because the referent conceptualized and named in the denotative meaning is associated with emotions.

Evaluative connotation expresses approval or disapproval.

THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE OF MEANING

There are two groups of causes, which result in development of new meanings:

historical/extralinguistic causes - different kinds of changes in a nation's social life, in its culture, knowledge, technology, art lead to gaps appearing in the vocabulary, which begins to be fulfilled. Newly created objects, new notions and phenomena must be named. There are 2 ways for providing new names for newly created notions: making new words (word - building) and borrowing foreign ones. One more way of filling such vocabulary gaps is by applying some old words to a new object or notion:

e.g.: mill - a Latin borrowing of the 1st c. B.C. was applied to the 1st textile factories adding a new meaning to its former meaning “a building, in which corn is ground into flour”, the new meaning was “textile factory”.

linguistic factors - the development of new meanings and also a complete change of meaning may be caused through the influence of other words, mostly synonyms:

e.g.: the OE verb “steorfan” meant “to perish”. When “to die” was borrowed from Scandinavian, these 2 synonyms collided and as a result, “to starve” gradually changed into its present meaning “to die/suffer from hunger”.

The process of development of a new meaning or a change of meaning is termed “transference”. In all cases of semantic change it is not the meaning but the word that is being transferred from one referent into another. The result of such a transference is the appearance of a new meaning. Two types of transference are distinguished depending on the two types of logical associations underlying the semantic process:

transference based on resemblance (similarity) - this type is also referred to as linguistic metaphor. A new meaning appears as a result of associating 2 objects due to their outward similarity:

e.g.: star - on the basis of the meaning “heavenly body” developed the meaning “famous actor/actress. Nowadays the meaning has considerably widened. But the 1st use of the word must have been humorous or ironic: the mental picture created by the use of the new word in this new meaning was a kind of semi - god surrounded by the bright rays of glory. Yet, the ironical colouring was lost and the association with the original meaning weakened and gradually erased.

The meanings formed by this type of transference are frequently in the informal strata of the vocabulary, especially in slang. A red - haired boy is almost certain to be nicknamed “carrot” or “ginger” by his schoolmates, which are metaphorical meanings.

transference based on contiguity - this type is also referred to as linguistic metonymy. The association is based upon subtle psychological links between object and phenomena, sometimes traced and identified with much difficulty. The two objects may be associated because they often appear in common associations, and so the image of one is easily accompanied by the image of the other; or they may be associated on the principle of cause and effect, of common function, of some material and an object, which is made of it:

e.g.: leg (of a man or animal) - the leg of a bed (the part, which serves to support). The association is the common function: a piece of furniture is supported by its legs just as a living being is supported by his.

The other ways to change the meaning of the word are:

broadening of meaning - the process of transference may result in a considerable change in range of meaning, in widening of its combinability:

e.g.: “to arrive” (a French borrowing) was “to come to shore, to land. In ME it had widened its meaning and developed the general meaning “to come” through transference based on contiguity (the concept of coming somewhere is the same for both meanings).

“pipe” - a musical instrument. Nowadays it denotes any hollow oblong cylindrical body (=water pipe), the meaning developed on the transference based on the similarity of shape, which led to the broadening of the meaning.

narrowing of meaning - the narrowing of the combinability of a word:

e.g.: “lady” denoted the mistress of the house, any married woman. Later, a new meaning developed, narrower in range: “the wife or daughter of a baronet”.

degradation of meaning and elevation of meaning:

e.g.: knave: boy > swindler, scoundrel

villain: farm - servant, serf > vile person

gossip: god parent > the one, who talks scandal

The 2nd meaning in contrast with the one, from which it developed, denotes a person of bad reputation or character; it developed a negative evaluative connotation, which was absent in the 1st meaning.

e.g.: fond: foolish > loving, affectionate

silly: happy > foolish

In these cases the situation is reversed: the 1st meaning has negative connotation and the 2nd hasn't.

POLYSEMY. SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF THE WORD

The semantic structure of the word doesn't present an indissoluble unity, nor does it necessarily stand for one concept. It's known that most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. A word having several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term “polysemy”.

Most English words are polysemantic. It should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of a language depends on the degree, to which polysemy has developed in the language. Sometimes people, who are not very well informed in linguistic matters, claim that a language is lacking in words if the need arises for the same word to be applied to several different phenomena. In fact, it's exactly the opposite, if each word is found to be capable of conveying at least two notions instead of one, the expressive potential of the whole vocabulary increases twofold. Hence, a well - developed polysemy isn't a drawback, but a great advantage in a lge.

But it should be also pointed out that the number of sound combinations, that human speech organs can produce, is limited. Therefore, at a certain stage of language development the production of new words by morphological means becomes limited and polysemy becomes increasingly important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary.

The system of meanings of any polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries by adding or ousting some of them. So the complicated process of polysemy development involves both the appearance of new meanings and the loss of old ones. Yet, the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is to increase the total number of its meanings and in this way to provide for a quantitative and qualitative growth of the language's expressive resources.

The semantic structure of a polysemantic word is analyzed on two levels:

the semantic structure of a word is treated as a system of meanings:

e.g.: the semantic structure of the word “fire” can be presented by:

The scheme suggests that meaning I holds a sort of dominance over the other meaning, conveying the concept in the most general way, while II - V are associated with special circumstances, aspects and instances of the same phenomena. Meaning I (called the main meaning) presents the centre of the semantic structure of the word. It is through it that meanings II - V (secondary meanings) can be associated with one another.

not every polysemantic word has a centre. Some semantic structures are arranged on a different principle.

e.g.: dull

uninteresting, monotonous, boring (deficient of interest) - a dull book;

slow in understanding (deficient in intellect) - a dull student;

not clear or bright (deficient in colour) - a dull day;

not loud or distinct (deficient in sound) - a dull sound;

not sharp (deficient in sharpness) - a dull knife;

not active (deficient in activity) - trade is dull;

seeing badly (deficient in eyesight) - dull eyes;

hearing badly (deficient in hearing) - dull ears.

There is something that all these seemingly miscellaneous meanings have in common and that is the implication of deficiency. Thus, the semantic structure of “dull” shows that the centre holding together the complex semantic structure of this word is not one of the meanings but a certain component, that can be singled out within each separate meaning. So the meaning of a word can be defined as a set of elements of meanings, which are not part of vocabulary of the language itself, but elements postulated in order to describe the semantic relations between the lexical elements of a given language.

Thus, the semantic structure of a word should be investigated at two levels: a) of different meanings, b) of semantic components within each separate meaning. For a monosemantic word (a word with one meaning) the first level is naturally excluded.

TYPES OF SEMANTIC COMPONENTS

The leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a word is usually termed “denotative component/denotation”. The denotative component expresses the conceptual (notional) content of a word:

e.g.: to shiver = to tremble (denotative component)

to shudder = to tremble (denotative component)

to glare, to glance = to look (denotative component)

The denotative component describes the meaning of the corresponding word only partially and completely. To give a more or less full picture of the meaning of a word, it's necessary to include additional semantic components, which are termed “connotative components/connotations”.

e.g. denotations connotations

Thus, by singling out denotative and connotative components one can get a sufficiently clear picture of what the word really means.

Lecture 6. SYNONYMY

Synonyms are words different in their outer aspects, but identical or similar in their inner aspects. In English there are a lot of synonyms, because there are many borrowings, e.g. hearty / native/ - cordial /borrowing/. After a word is borrowed it undergoes desynonymization, because absolute synonyms are unnecessary for a language. However, there are some absolute synonyms in the language, which have exactly the same meaning and belong to the same style, e.g. to moan, to groan; homeland, motherland. In cases of desynonymization one of the absolute synonyms can specialize in its meaning and we get semantic synonyms, e.g. «city» /borrowed/, «town» /native/. The French borrowing «city» is specialized. In other cases native words can be specialized in their meanings, e.g. «stool» /native/, «chair» /French/.

Sometimes one of the absolute synonyms is specialized in its usage and we get stylistic synonyms, e.g. «to begin»/ native/, «to commence» /borrowing/. Here the French word is specialized. In some cases the native word is specialized, e.g. «welkin» /bookish/, «sky» /neutral/.

Stylistic synonyms can also appear by means of abbreviation. In most cases the abbreviated form belongs to the colloquial style, and the full form to the neutral style, e.g. «examination», «exam».

Among stylistic synonyms we can point out a special group of words which are called euphemisms. These are words used to substitute some unpleasant or offensive words, e.g «the late» instead of «dead», «to perspire» instead of «to sweat».

There are also phraseological synonyms, these words are identical in their meanings and styles but different in their combining with other words in the sentence, e.g. «to be late for a lecture» but «to miss the train», «to visit museums» but «to attend lectures» etc.

In each group of synonyms there is a word with the most general meaning, which can substitute any word in the group, e.g. «piece» is the synonymic dominant in the group «slice», «lump», «morsel». The verb « to look at» is the synonymic dominant in the group «to stare», «to glance», «to peep». The adjective «red' is the synonymic dominant in the group «purple», «scarlet», «crimson».

When speaking about the sources of synonyms, besides desynonymization and abbreviation, we can also mention the formation of phrasal verbs, e.g. «to give up» - «to abandon», «to cut down» - «to diminish».

CRITERIA OF SYNONYMY

Synonymy is associated with some theoretical problems, which are still an object of controversy, and the most controversial among these is the problem of criteria of synonymy: