Exercises in lexicology

In a free phrase the semantic correlative ties are fundamentally different. The information is additive and each element has a much greater semantic independence. Each component may be substituted without affecting the meaning of the other: cut bread, cut cheese, eat bread. Information is additive in the sense that the amount of information we had on receiving the first signal, i.e. having heard or read the word cut, is increased, the listener obtains further details and learns what is cut. The reference of cut is unchanged. Every notional word can form additional syntactic ties with other words outside the expression. In a set expression information furnished by each element is not additive: actually it does not exist before we get the whole. No substitution for either cut or figure can be made without completely ruining the following: I had an uneasy fear that he might cut a poor figure beside all these clever Russian officers (Shaw). He was not managing to cut much of a figure (Murdoch).

The only substitution admissible for the expression cut a poor figure concerns the adjective. Poor may be substituted by ridiculous, grand, much of a and a few other adjectives characterizing the way in which a person's behaviour may appear to others. The very limited character of this substitution seems to justify referring cut a poor figure to semi-fixed set expressions. In the stereotyped set expression cut no ice 'to have no influence' no substitution is possible. Pronominal substitution of constant elements is also possible. N.N. Amosova shows that it needs context to stand explained. E. g. A sullen December morning. Black frost. Such frost reminded me of my last days in Stanton (Mitford). Black frost means 'frost without ice or snow'.

In a free combination the adjective would denote colour. It receives this different meaning only in correlation with the word frost. The pronoun such when replacing it also signals this new meaning. But pronominal replacement of this kind, according to N.N. Amosova, is possible only under certain very definite circumstances, which shows how close are the semantic ties between the parts of a set expression.

Numerous intermediate types existing between free combinations on the one hand, and set expressions on the other, cause many discussions.

These are the hoary problems of the units described as stone wall, give up and take a walk types. […]. The so-called typical phrases or phrasal verbs: get a talk with, give c laugh, give a look, force a smile, make a blush, wear a grin, etc. are semantically almost equivalent to the corresponding simple verbs talk, laugh, look, smile and so on, yet they are more expressive, allowing syntactic expansion and inversion. E.g.: She only gave him one of her deep-gleaming smiles; And there was that glance she had given him.



Questions:

Why does lexicology study word-groups?

Why is it difficult to distinguish between free word-groups and phraseological units?

What is the difference between free word-group, set-phrase and phraseological unit?

What does the term word-equivalent imply?

What is understood under the term additive information?

Phraseology. Criteria of phraseological units

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §12. Criteria of Stability and Lack of Motivation (Idiomaticity), §15. Criterion of Function, §18. Criterion of Context [pp. 74-75, 79-80, 82-84]

Phraseological units are habitually defined as non-motivated word-groups that cannot be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units. This definition proceeds from the assumption that the essential features ofphraseological units are stability of the lexical components and lack of motivation. It is consequently assumed that unlike components of free word-groups which may vary according to the needs of communication, member-words of phraseological units are always reproduced as single unchangeable collocations.

Thus, for example, the constituentred in the free word-groupred flower may, if necessary, be substituted for by any other adjective denoting colour(blue, white, etc.), without essentially changing the denotational meaning of the word-group under discussion (a flower of a certain colour). In the phraseological unitred tape (bureaucratic methods) no such substitution is possible, as a change of the adjective would involve a complete change in the meaning of the whole group.A blue (black, white, etc.) tape would mean 'a tape of a certain colour'. It follows that the phraseological unitred tape is semantically non-motivated, i.e. its meaning cannot be deduced from the meaning of its components and that it exists as a ready-made linguistic unit which does not allow of any variability of its lexical components.

It is also argued that non-variability of the phraseological unit is not confined to its lexical components. Grammatical structure of phraseological units is to a certain extent also stable. Thus, though the structural formula of the word-groupsred flower andred tape is identical(A+N), the nounflower may be used in the plural(red flowers), whereas no such change is possible in the phraseological unitred tape; red tapeswould then denote 'tapes of red colour' but not 'bureaucratic methods'. This is also true of other types of phraseological units, e.g.what will Mrs. Grundy say?, where the verbal component is invariably reproduced in the same grammatical form.

Another angle from which the problem of phraseology is viewed is the so-calledfunctional approach. This approach assumes that phraseological unitsmay be defined as specific word-groups functioning as word-equivalents.The fundamental features of phraseological units thus understood aretheir semantic and grammatical inseparability which are regarded asdistinguishing features of isolated words.

It will be recalled that when we compare a free word-group, e.g.heavy weight, and a phraseological unit, e.g.heavy father, we observe that in the case of the free word-group each of the member-words has its own denotational meaning. So the lexical meaning of the word-group can be adequately described as the combined lexical meaning of its constituents. In the case of the phraseological unit, however, the denotational meaning belongs to the word-group as a single semantically inseparable unit. The individual member-words do not seem to possess any lexical meaning outside the meaning of the group. The meanings of the member-wordsheavy andfather taken in isolation are in no way connected with the meaning of the phraseheavy father--'serious or solemn part in a theatrical play'.

The same is true of the stylistic reference and emotive charge of phraseological units. In free word-groups each of the components preserves as a rule its own stylistic reference. This can be readily observed in the stylistic effect produced by free word-groups made up of words ofwidely different stylistic value, e.g.to commenceto scrub, valiant chap and the like.

A certain humorous effect is attained because one of the member-words(commence, valiant) is felt as belonging to the bookish stylistic layer, whereas the other(scrub, chap) is felt as stylistically neutral or colloquial. When we say, however, thatkick the bucket is highly colloquial or heavy father is a professional term, we do not refer to the stylistic value of the component words of these phraseological unitskick, bucket, heavyorfather, but the stylistic value of the word-group as a single whole. Taken in isolation the words are stylistically neutral. It follows that phraseological units are characterized by a single stylistic reference irrespective of the number and nature of their component words. Semantic inseparability of phraseological units is viewed as one of the aspects of idiomaticity which enables us to regard them as semantically equivalent to single word.

The term grammatical inseparability implies that the grammatical meaning or, to be more exact, the part-of-speech meaning of phraseological units is felt as belonging to the word-group as a whole irrespective of the part-of-speech meaning of the component words. Comparing the free word-group, e.g.a long day, and the phraseological unit, e.g.in the long run, we observe that in the free word-group the noundayand the adjectivelong preserve the part-of-speech meaning proper to these words taken in isolation. The whole group is viewed as composed of two independent units (adjective and noun). In the phraseological unitin the long run the part-of-speech meaning belongs to the group as a single whole.In the long run is grammatically equivalent to single adverbs, e.g.finally, ultimately, firstly, etc. In the case of the phraseological unit under discussion there is no connection between the part-of-speech meaning of the member-words(in--preposition,long--adjective, run--noun) and the part-of-speech meaning of the whole word-group. Grammatical inseparability of phraseological units viewed as one of the aspects of idiomaticity enables us to regard them as grammatically equivalent to single words.

It is argued that the final test of the semantic and grammatical inseparability of phrases is their functional unity, i.e. their aptness to function in speech as single syntactic units.

It will be observed that in the free word-groups, e.g.heavy weight, long time, the adjectivesheavy andlong function as attributes to other members of the sentence(weight, time), whereas the phraseological units heavy father andin the long run are functionally inseparable and are always viewed as making up one and only one member of the sentence (the subject or the object, etc.), i.e. they are functionally equivalent to single words.

Proceeding from the assumption that phraseological units are non- motivated word-groups functioning as word-equivalents by virtue of their semantic and grammatical inseparability, we may classify them into noun equivalents (e.g.heavy father), verb equivalents (e.g.take place, break the news), adverb equivalents (e.g.in the long run), etc.

As far as their structure is concerned these groups are not homogeneous and may be subdivided into the same groups as variable phrases. Among verb equivalents, for example, we may find verb-noun units (take place) and verb-adverb units(give up), adverb equivalents comprise preposition-noun groups (e.g.by heart, at length), adverb-conjunction-adverb groups (e.g.far and wide), etc.

Phraseological units in Modern Englishare also approached from the contextualpoint of view. Proceeding from the assumption that individual meanings of polysemantic words can be observed in certain contexts and may be viewed as dependent on those contexts, it is argued that phraseological units are to be defined through specific types of context. Free word-groups make up variable contexts whereas the essential feature of phraseological units is non-variable or fixed context.

Non-variability is understood as the stability of the word-group. In variable contexts which, include polysemantic words substitution of one of the components is possible within the limits of the lexical valency of the word under consideration. It is observed, e.g., that in such word-groups asa small town the wordtown may be substituted for by a number of other nouns, e.g.room, audience, etc., the adjectivesmall by a number of other adjectives, e.g.large, big, etc. The substitution of nouns does not change the meaning ofsmall which denotes in all word-groups 'not large'. The substitution of adjectives does not likewise affect the meaning oftown. Thus variability of the lexical components is the distinguishing feature of the so-called free word-groups. In other word-groups such assmall business, a small farmer the variable members serve as a clue to the meaning of the adjectivesmall. It may be observed that when combined with the wordstown, room, etc.a small denotes 'not large', whereas it is only in combination with the nounsbusiness, farmer, etc. thatsmall denotes 'of limited size' or 'having limited capital'. Word-groups of this type are sometimes described as traditional collocations.

Unlike word-groups with variable members phraseological units allow of no substitution. For example, in the phraseological unitsmall hours--'the early hours of the morning from about 1 a.m. to 4 a.m.'-- there is no variable member assmall denotes 'early' only in collocation withhours. In the phraseological unitsmall beersmall has the meaning 'weak' only in this fixed non-variable context. As can be seen from the above, a non-variable context is indicative of a specialized meaning of one of the member-words. The specialized meaning of one of the lexical components is understood as the meaning of the word only in the given phrase (e.g.small hours), i.e. this particular meaning cannot be found in the word taken in isolation or in any of the variable word-groups in which the word is used. It follows that specialized meaning and stability of lexical components are regarded as interdependent features of phraseological units whose semantic structure is unique, i.e. no other word-groups can be created on this semantic pattern.

The two criteria of phraseological units--specialized meaning of the components and non-variability of context--display unilateral dependence. Specialized meaning presupposes complete stability of the lexical components, as specialized meaning of the member-words or idiomatic meaning of the whole word-group is never observed outside fixed contexts.

Questions:

What are the essential features of phraseological units?

Prove that phraseological units are characterized by non-variability of their lexical and grammatical structure.

What is understood under the functional unity of phraseological units?

Prove that phraseological units possess grammatical invariability.

What is the difference between phraseological units and free word-group from the point of view of the context?

Classification of Phraseological Units

I.V. Arnold, The English Word, §9.3 Classification of Set Expressions, [pp. 169-174]

Many various lines of approach have been used, and yet the boundaries of this set, its classification and the place of phraseology in the vocabulary appear controversial issues of present-day linguistics.

The English and the Americans can be proud of a very rich set of dictionaries of word-groups and idiomatic phrases. Their object is chiefly practical: colloquial phrases are considered an important characteristic feature of natural spoken English and a stumbling block for foreigners. The choice of entries is not clear-cut: some dictionaries of this kind include among their entries not only word combinations but also separate words interesting from the point of view of their etymology, motivation, or expressiveness, and, on the other hand, also greetings, proverbs, familiar quotations. Other dictionaries include grammatical information. The most essential theoretical problems remain not only unsolved but untackled except in some works on general linguistics. A more or less detailed grouping was given in the books on English idioms by L.P. Smith and W. Ball. But even the authors themselves do not claim that their groupings should be regarded as classification. They show interest in the origin and etymology of the phrases collected and arrange them accordingly into phrases from sea life, from agriculture, from sports, from hunting, etc.

The question of classification of set expressions is mainly worked out in this country. Eminent Russian linguists, Academicians F.F. Fortunatov, A.A. Shakhmatov and others paved the way for serious syntactical analysis of set expressions. Many Soviet scholars have shown a great interest in the theoretical aspects of the problem. A special branch of linguistics termed phraseology came into being in this country. The most significant theories advanced for Russian phraseology are those by S.A. Larin and V.V. Vinogradov.

[…] The classification of V.V. Vinogradov is synchronic. He developed some points first advanced by the Swiss linguist Charles Bally and gave a strong impetus to a purely lexicological treatment of the material. Thanks to him phraseological units were rigorously defined as lexical complexes with specific semantic features and classified accordingly. His classification is based upon the motivation of the unit, i.e. the relationship existing between the meaning of the whole and the meaning of its component parts. The degree of motivation is correlated with the rigidity, indivisibility and semantic unity of the expression, i.e with the possibility of changing the form or the order of components, and of substituting the whole by a single word. The classification is naturally developed for Russian phraseology but we shall illustrate it with English examples.

According to the type of motivation and the other above-mentioned features, three types of phraseological units are suggested: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological combinations.

Phraseological fusions (e. g. tit for tat) represent as their name suggests the highest stage of blending together. The meaning of components is completely absorbed by the meaning of the whole, by its expressiveness and emotional properties. Phraseological fusions are specific for every language and do not lend themselves to literal translation into other languages.

Phraseological unities are much more numerous. They are clearly motivated. The emotional quality is based upon the image created by the whole as in to stick (to stand) to one's guns, i.e. 'refuse to change one's statements or opinions in the face of opposition', implying courage and integrity. The example reveals another characteristic of the type, namely the possibility of synonymic substitution, which can be only very limited. Some of these are easily translated and even international, e. g. to know the way the wind is blowing.

The third group in this classification, the phraseological combinations, are not only motivated but contain one component used in its direct meaning while the other is used figuratively: meet the demand, meet the necessity, meet the requirements. The mobility of this type is much greater, the substitutions are not necessarily synonymical.

It has been pointed out by N.N. Amosova and A.V. Koonin that this classification, being developed for the Russian phraseology, does not fit the specifically English features.

N.N. Amosova's approach is contextological. She defines phraseological units as units of fixed context. Fixed context is defined as a context characterized by a specific and unchanging sequence of definite lexical components, and a peculiar semantic relationship between them. Units of fixed context are subdivided into phrasemes and idioms. Phrasemes are always binary: one component has a phraseologically bound meaning, the other serves as the determining context (small talk, small hours, small change). In idioms the new meaning is created by the whole, though every element may have its original meaning weakened or even completely lost: in the nick of time 'at the exact moment'. Idioms may be motivated or demotivated. A motivated idiom is homonymous to a free phrase, but this phrase is used figuratively: take the bull by the horns 'to face dangers without fear'. In the nick of time is demotivated, because the word nick is obsolete. Both phrasemes and idioms may be movable (changeable) or immovable.

A.V. Koonin thinks that phraseology must develop as an independent linguistic science and not as a part of lexicology. His classification of phraseological units is based on the functions the units fulfil in speech. They may be nominating (a bull in a china shop), interjectional (a pretty kettle of fish!), communicative (familiarity breeds contempt), or nominating-communicative (pull somebody's leg). Further classification into subclasses depends on whether the units are changeable or unchangeable, whether the meaning of the one element remains free, and, more generally, on the interdependence between the meaning of the elements and the meaning of the set expression. Much attention is devoted to different types of variation: synonymic, pronominal, etc.

After this brief review of possible semantic classifications, we pass on to a formal and functional classification based on the fact that a set expression functioning in speech is in distribution similar to definite classes of words, whereas structurally it can be identified with various types of syntagms or with complete sentences.

We shall distinguish set expressions that are nominal phrases: the root of the trouble; verbal phrases: put one's best foot forward; adjectival phrases: as good as gold, red as a cherry; adverbial phrases: from head to foot;, prepositional phrases: in the course of; conjunctional phrases: as long as, on the other hand; interjectional phrases: Well, 1 never! A stereotyped sentence also introduced into speech as a ready-made formula may be illustrated by Never say die! 'never give up hope', take your time 'do not hurry'.

The above classification takes into consideration not only the type of component parts but also the functioning of the whole, thus, tooth and nail is not a nominal but an adverbial unit, because it serves to modify a verb (e. g. fight tooth and nail); the identically structured lord and master is a nominal phrase. Moreover, not every nominal phrase is used in all syntactic functions possible for nouns. Thus, a bed of roses or a bed of nails and forlorn hope are used only predicatively.

Within each of these classes a further subdivision is necessary. The following list is not meant to be exhaustive, but to give only the principal features of the types.

I. Set expressions functioning like nouns:

N+N: maiden name 'the surname of a woman before she was married'; brains trust 'a committee of experts' or 'a number of reputedly well informed persons chosen to answer questions of general interest without preparation', family jewels 'shameful secrets of the CIA' (Am. slang).

N's+N: cat's paw 'one who is used for the convenience of a cleverer and stronger person' (the expression comes from a fable in which a monkey wanting to eat some chestnuts that were on a hot stove, but not wishing to burn himself while getting them, seized a cat and holding its paw in his own used it to knock the chestnuts to the ground); Hobson's choice, a set expression used when there is no choice at all, when a person has to take what is offered or nothing (Thomas Hobson, a 17th century London stableman, made every person hiring horses take the next in order).

Ns'+N: ladies' man 'one who makes special effort to charm or please women'.

N+prp+N: the arm of the law, skeleton in the cupboard.

N+ A: knight errant (the phrase is today applied to any chivalrous man ready to help and protect oppressed and helpless people).

N+and+N: lord and master 'husband'; all the world and his wife (a more complicated form); rank and file 'the ordinary working members of an organization' (the origin of this expression is military life, it denotes common soldiers); ways and means 'methods of overcoming difficulties'.

A+N: green room 'the general reception room of a theatre' (it is said that formerly such rooms had their walls coloured green to relieve the strain on the actors' eyes after the stage lights); high tea 'an evening meal which combines meat or some similar extra dish with the usual tea'; forty winks 'a short nap'.

N+subordinate clause: ships that pass in the night 'chance acquaintances'.

II. Set expressions functioning like verbs:

V+N: take advantage

V+and+V: pick and choose

V+(one's)+N+(prp): snap one's fingers at

V+one-f N: give one the bird 'to fire sb'

V+subordinate clause: see how the land lies 'to discover the state of affairs'.

III. Set expressions functioning like adjectives:

A+and+A: high and mighty

(as)+A+as+N: as old as the hills, as mad as a hatter Set expressions are often used as predicatives but not attributively. In the latter function they are replaced by compounds.

IV. Set expressions functioning like adverbs:

A big group containing many different types of units, some of them with a high frequency index, neutral in style and devoid of expressiveness, others expressive. N+N: tooth and nail

prp+N: by heart, of course, against the grain

adv+prp+N: once in a blue moon

prp+N+or+N: by hook or by crook

cj+clause: before one can say Jack Robinson

V. Set expressions functioning like prepositions:

prp+N+prp: in consequence of

It should be noted that the type is often but not always characterized by the absence of article. Cf: by reason of :: on the ground of.

VI. Set expressions functioning like interjections:

These are often structured as imperative sentences: Bless (one's) soul! God bless me! Hang it (all)!

This review can only be brief and very general but it will not be difficult for the reader to supply the missing links.

The list of types gives a clear notion of the contradictory nature of set expressions: structured like phrases they function like words.

There is one more type of combinations, also rigid and introduced into discourse ready-made but differing from all the types given above in so far as it is impossible to find its equivalent among the parts of speech. These are formulas used as complete utterances and syntactically shaped like sentences, such as the well-known American maxim Keep smiling! or the British Keep Britain tidy. Take it easy.

A.I. Smirnitsky was the first among Soviet scholars who paid attention to sentences that can be treated as complete formulas, such as How do you do? or I beg your pardon, It takes all kinds to make the world, Can the leopard change his spots? They differ from all the combinations so far discussed, because they are not equivalent to words in distribution and are semantically analysable. The formulas discussed by N.N. Amosova are on the contrary semantically specific, e. g. save your breath 'shut up' or tell it to the marines. As it often happens with set expressions, there are different explanations for their origin. (One of the suggested origins is tell that to the horse marines; such a corps being nonexistent, as marines are a sea-going force, the last expression means 'tell it to someone who does not exist, because real people will not believe it'). Very often such formulas, formally identical to sentences are in reality used only as insertions into other sentences: the cap fits 'the statement is true' (e. g.: "He called me a liar." "Well, you should know if the cap fits” ) Compare also: Butter would not melt in his mouth; His bark is worse than his bite.

Questions:

Describe Vinogradov's classification of phraseological units. What is it based on?

Give examples of phraseological fusions.

Give examples of phraseological unities.

Give examples of phraseological combinations.

Describe Amosova's classification of phraseological units. Give examples.

Give Koonin's classification. What is it based on?

Describe formal classification of phraseological units.



The Ways of Forming Phraseological Units

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §21. Some Problems of the Diachronic Approach [pp. 86-88]

The diachronic aspect of phraseology has scarcelybeen investigated. Just a few points of interest may be briefly reviewed in connection with the origin of phraseological units and the ways they appear in language. It is assumedthat almost all phrases can be traced back to free word-groups which in the course of the historical development of the English language have acquired semantic and grammatical inseparability. It is observed that free word-groups may undergo the process of grammaticalization or lexicalization.

Cases ofgrammaticalization may be illustrated by the transformation of free word-groups composed of the verbhave, a noun (pronoun) and ParticipleII of some other verb […] into the grammatical form--the Present Perfect in Modern English. The degree of semantic and grammatical inseparability in this analytical word-form is so high that the componenthave seems to possess no lexical meaning of its own.

The term lexicalization implies that the word-group under discussion develops into a word-equivalent, i.e. a phraseological unit or a compound word. These two parallel lines of lexicalization of free word-groups can be illustrated by the diachronic analysis of, e.g., the compound wordinstead and the phraseological unitin spite (of). Both of them can be traced back to structurally identical free phrases.(Cf. OE. in stede andME.in despit)

There are some grounds to suppose that there exists a kind of interdependence between these two ways of lexicalization of free word-groups which makes them mutually exclusive. It is observed, for example, that compounds are more abundant in certain parts of speech, whereas phraseological units are numerically predominant in others. Thus, e.g., phraseological units are found in great numbers as verb-equivalents whereas compound verbs are comparatively few. This leads us to assume that lexicalization of free word-groups and their transformation into words or phraseological units is governed by the general line of interdependence peculiar to each individual part of speech, i.e. the more compounds we find in a certain part of speech the fewer phraseological units we are likely to encounter in this class of words.

Very little is known of the factors active in the process of lexicalization of free word-groups which results in the appearance of phraseological units. This problem may be viewed in terms of the degree of motivation. We may safely assume that a free word-group is transformed into a phraseological unit when it acquires semantic inseparability and becomes synchronically non-motivated.

The following may be perceived as the main causes accounting for the loss of motivation of free word-groups:

a) When one of the components of a word-group becomes archaic or drops out of the language altogether the whole word-group may become completely or partially non-motivated. For example, lack of motivation in the word-groupkith and kin may be accounted for by the fact that the member-wordkith(OE. cyth) dropped out of the language altogether except as the component of the phraseological unit under discussion. This is also observed in the phraseological unitto and fro, and some others.

b) When as a result of a change in the semantic structure of a polysemantic word some of its meanings disappear and can be found only in certain collocations. The nounmind, e.g., once meant 'purpose' or 'intention' and this meaning survives in the phrasesto have a mind to do smth, to change one's mind, etc.

c) When a free word-group used in professional speech penetrates into general literary usage, it is often felt as non-motivated.To pull (the) strings (wires), e.g., was originally used as a free word-group in its direct meaning by professional actors in puppet shows. In Modern English, however, it has lost all connection with puppet-shows and therefore cannot be described as metaphorically motivated. Lack of motivation can also be observed in the phraseological unitto stick to one's guns which can be traced back to military English, etc.

Sometimes extra-linguistic factors may account for the loss of motivation,to show the white feather--'to act as a coward', e.g., can be traced back to the days when cock-fighting was popular. A white feather in a gamecock's plumage denoted bad breeding and was regarded as a sign of cowardice. Now that cock-fighting is no longer a popular sport, the phrase is felt as non-motivated.

d) When a word-group making up part of a proverb or saying begins to be used as a self-contained unit it may gradually become non-motivated if its connection with the corresponding proverb or saying is not clearly perceived.A new broom, e.g., originates as a component of the sayingnew brooms sweep clean. New broom as a phraseological unit may be viewed as non-motivated because the meaning of the whole is not deducible from the meaning of the components. Moreover, it seems grammatically and functionally self-contained and inseparable too. In the saying quoted above the nounbroom is always used in the plural; as a member-word of the phraseological unit it is mostly used in the singular. The phraseological unita new broom is characterized by functional inseparability. In the sayingnew brooms sweep clean the adjectivenew functions as an attribute to the nounbrooms, in the phraseological unita new broom(e.g.Well, he is a new broom!) the whole word-group is functionally inseparable.

e) When part of a quotation from literary sources, mythology or the Bible begins to be used as a self-contained unit, it may also lose all connection with the original context and as a result of this become non- motivated. The phraseological unitthe green-eyed monster (jealousy) can be easily found as a part of the quotation from Shakespeare "It isthe green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on" (Othello,II, i. 165). In Modern English, however, it functions as a non-motivated self-contained phraseological unit and is also used to denote the T.V. set. Achilles heel--'the weak spot in a man's circumstances or character' can be traced back to mythology, but it seems that in Modern English this word-group functions as a phraseologicalunit largely because most English speakers do not connect it with the myth from which it was extracted.



Questions:

What is grammaticalization and lexicalization?

Give example of phraseological unit that lost its motivation due to some words that became archaic.

Give example of phraseological unit that lost its motivation because of the semantic change.

Give example of phraseological unit that lost its motivation because it came from the professional speech.

Give example of phraseological unit that lost its motivation because it came from proverbs and sayings.

Give example of phraseological unit that lost its motivation because it came from literary source.

Proverbs and Sayings

I.V. Arnold, The English Words, §9.6. Proverbs, Sayings, Familiar Quotations and Clichйs [pp. 179-181]

The place of proverbs, sayings and familiar quotations with respect to set expressions is a controversial issue. A proverb is a short familiar epigrammatic saying expressing popular wisdom, a truth or a moral lesson in a concise and imaginative way. Proverbs have much in common with set expressions, because their lexical components are also constant, their meaning is traditional and mostly figurative, and they are introduced into speech ready-made. That is why some scholars following V.V. Vinogradov think proverbs must be studied together with phraseological units. Others like J. Casares and N.N. Amosova think that unless they regularly form parts of other sentences it is erroneous to include them into the system of language, because they are independent units of communication. N.N. Amosova even thinks that there is no more reason to consider them as part of phraseology than, for instance, riddles and children's counts. This standpoint is hardly acceptable especially if we do not agree with the narrow limits of phraseology offered by this author. Riddles and counts are not as a rule included into utterances in the process of communication, whereas proverbs are. Whether they are included into an utterance as independent sentences or as part of sentences is immaterial. If we follow that line of reasoning, we shall have to exclude all interjections such as Hang it (all)!because they are also syntactically independent. As to the argument that in many proverbs the meaning of component parts does not show any specific changes when compared to the meaning of the same words in free combinations, it must be pointed out that in this respect they do not differ from very many set expressions, especially those which are emotionally neutral.

Another reason why proverbs must be taken into consideration together with set expressions is that they often form the basis of set expressions. E. g. the last straw breaks the camel's back : : the last straw, a drowning man will clutch at a straw : : clutch at a straw, it is useless to lock the stable door when the steed is stolen : : lock the stable door 'totake precautions when the accident they are meant to prevent has already happened'.

Both set expressions and proverbs are sometimes split and changed for humorous purposes, as in the following quotation where the proverb All is not gold that glitters combines with an allusion to the set expression golden age, e.g. It will be an age not perhaps of gold, but at least of glitter. Compare also the following, somewhat daring compliment meant to shock the sense of bourgeois propriety: Bat I laughed and said, "Don't you worry, Professor, I'm not pulling her ladyship's leg. I wouldn't do such a thing. I have too much respect for that charming limb”(Cary) Sometimes the speaker notices the lack of logic in a set expression and checks himself, as in the following: Holy terror, she is -- least not so holy, I suppose, but a terror all right (Rattigan).

Taking a familiar group of words: A living dog is better than a dead lion (from the Bible) and turning it around, a fellow critic once said that Hazlitt was unable to appreciate a writer till he was dead -- that Hazlitt thought a dead ass better than a living lion. A. Huxley is very fond of stylistical, mostly grotesque, effects achieved in this way. So, for example, paraphrasing the set expression marry into money he says about one of his characters, who prided herself on her conversation, that she had married into conversation.

Lexicology does not deal more fully with the peculiarities of proverbs: created in folklore, they are studied by folklorists, but in treating units introduced into the act of communication ready-made we cannot avoid touching upon them too.

As to familiar quotations, they are different from proverbs in their origin. They come from literature but by and by they become part and parcel of the language, so that many people using them do not even know that they are quoting, and very few could accurately name the play or passage on which they are drawing even when they are aware of using a quotation from W. Shakespeare.

The Shakespearian quotations have become and remain extremely numerous -- they have contributed enormously to the store of the language. Some of the most often used are: I know a trick worth two of that; A man more sinned against than sinning("King Lear"); Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ("Henry IV"). Very many come from "Hamlet", for example: Frailty, thy name is woman; Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Something is rotten in the state of Denmark; Brevity is the soul of wit / The rest is silence; Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy, It out-herods Herod; For to the noble mind / Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

Excepting only W. Shakespeare, no poet has given more of his lines than A. Pope to the common vocabulary of the English-speaking world. The following are only a few of the best known quotations: A little learning is a dangerous thing; To err is human; To forgive, divine; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread; At every word a reputation dies; Who shall decide when doctors disagree?

Quotations from classical sources were once a recognized feature of public speech: de te fabula narratur (Horace) 'the story is about you'; temporamutantur, et nos mutamur in illis 'times change, and we change with them'; timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (Virgil) 'I fear the Greeks, even when bringing gifts'. Now they are even regarded as bad form, because they are unintelligible to those without a classical education. So, when a speaker ventures a quotation of that kind he hastens to translate it. A number of classical tags nevertheless survive in educated speech in many countries, in Russian no less than in English. There are the well-known phrases, such as ad hoc 'for this special reason'; bona fide 'in good faith'; cum grano salis 'with a grain of salt'; mutatis mutandis 'with necessary changes'; tabularasa 'a blank tablet' andothersof the same kind. As long as they keep their Latin form they do not belong to English vocabulary. Many of them, however, show various degrees of assimilation, e.g. viva voce ['vaiva 'vousi] 'oral examination', which may be used as an adjective, an adverb and a verb. Viva voce examination is colloquially shortened into viva (noun and verb).

Some quotations are so often used that they come to be considered clichйs. The term comes from the printing trade. The clichй (the word is French) is a metal block used for printing pictures and turning them out in great numbers. The term is used to denote such phrases as have become hackneyed and stale. Being constantly and mechanically repeated they have lost their original expressiveness and so are better avoided. H.W. Fowler in a burst of eloquence in denouncing them even exclaims: "How many a time has Galileo longed to recant his recantation, as e pur si muove was once more applied or misapplied!" Opinions may vary on what is tolerable and what sounds an offence to most of the listeners or readers, as everyone may have his own likes and dislikes. The following are perhaps the most generally recognized: the acid test, ample opportunities, astronomical figures, the arms of Morpheus, to break the ice, consigned to oblivion, the irony of fate, to sleep the sleep of the just, stand shoulder to shoulder, swan song, toe the line, tender mercies, etc. Empty and worn-out but pompous phrases often become mere verbiage used as a poor compensation for a lack of thought or precision. Here are some phrases occurring in passages of literary criticism and justly branded as clichйs: to blaze a trail, consummate art, consummate skill, heights of tragedy, lofty flight of imagination. The so-called journalese has its own set of overworked phrases: to usher in a new age, to prove a boon to mankind, to pave the way to a bright new world, to spell the doom of civilization, etc.

In giving this review of English set expressions we have paid special attention to the fact that the subject is a highly complex one and that it has been treated by different scholars in very different ways. Each approach and each classification have their advantages and their drawbacks. The choice one makes depends on the particular problem one has in view, and even so there remains much to be studied in the future.

Questions:

What are proverbs? Why should lexicology study them?

What are familiar quotations?

What are the main sources of familiar quotations in English?

What are clichйs?

Tasks:

What type of word-groups do we observe here?

a blue () sky

a magnifying glass

to guess - to give a guess

Artesian well

How do you do?

to make up

What type of phraseological unit according to the functional classification do we observe here?

show the hills, take the bull by the horns

odds and adds, a bull in a China shop

side by side, in the long run

My eye!



Seminar 7. Morphological Structure of English Words and Word-Formation

Morphemes, Their Definition. Allomorphs

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §1. Segmentation of Words into Morphemes [p. 89]

Close observation and comparison ofwords clearly shows that a great many words have a composite nature and are madeup of smaller units, each possessing sound-form and meaning. These are generally referred to as morphemes defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units. For instance, words likeboiler, driller fall into the morphemesboil-, drill- and -er by virtue of the recurrence of the morpheme -er in these and other similar words and of the morphemesboil- anddrill- into boil, a boil, boiling andto drill, a drill, drilling, a drill-press, etc. Likewise, words likeflower-pot andshoe-laceare segmented into the morphemesflower-, pot-, shoe- andlace- (cf. flower-show, flowerful, etc.,shoe-brush, shoeless, etc., on the one hand; andpot-lid, pottery, etc.,lace-boots, lacing, etc., on the other).

Like aword a morpheme is a two-facet language unit, an association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern. Unlike a word a morpheme is not an autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word.

Morphemes cannot be segmented into smaller units without losing their constitutive essence, i.e. two-facetedness, association of a certain meaning with a given sound-pattern, cf. the morpheme lace- denoting 'a string or cord put through small holes in shoes', etc.; 'to draw edges together' and the constituent phonemes [1], [e?], [s] entirely without meaning.

Identification of morphemes in various texts shows that morphemes may have different phonemic shapes.

In the word-clusterplease, pleasing, pleasure, pleasant the root-morpheme is represented by phonemic shapes: [pli:z] inplease, pleasing, [ple?] inpleasure and [plez] inpleasant. In such cases we say that the phonemic shapes of the word stand in complementary distribution or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme that manifest alteration are called allomorphs of that morpheme or morpheme variants. Thus [pli:z, plez] and [ple?] are allomorphs of one and the same morpheme. The root-morphemes in the word-clusterduke, ducal, duchess, duchy orpoor, poverty may also serve as examples of the allomorphs of one morpheme.

Questions:

What is a morpheme?

What distinguished morphemes from words and phonemes?

What are allomorphs?

Classification of Morphemes

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §3. Classification of Morphemes [pp. 92-94]

Morphemes may be classified:

a) from the semantic point of view,

b) from the structural point of view.

a) Semantically morphemes fall into two classes: root-morphemes and non-root or affixational morphemes. Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of morphemes due to the different roles they play in word-structure.

Roots and affixational morphemes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, -fill are understood as the lexical centresof the words, as the basic constituent part of a word without which the word is inconceivable.

The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of a word, it has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language. Besides it may also possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots. The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster, for example the morphemeteach- in to teach, teacher, teaching, theor- intheory, theorist, theoretical,etc.

Non-root morphemes include inflectional morphemes or inflections and affixational morphemes or affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms, whereas affixes are relevant for building various types of stems--the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes.

Affixes are classified into prefixes and suffixes: a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Affixes besides the meaning proper to root-morphemes possess the part-of-speech meaning and a generalized lexical meaning.

b) Structurally morphemes fall into three types: free morphemes, bound morphemes, semi-free (semi-bound) morphemes.

A free morpheme is defined as one that coincides with the stem or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root-morphemefriend -- of the nounfriendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with oneofthe forms of the nounfriend.

A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make part of a word, e.g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ize, etc., the prefixesun-, dis-, de-, etc. (e.g. readiness, comradeship, toactivize; unnatural, to displease, to decipher).

Many root-morphemes also belong to the class of bound morphemes which always occur in morphemic sequences, i.e. in combinations with roots or affixes. All unique roots and pseudo-roots are bound morphemes. Such are the root-morphemestheor- intheory, theoretical, etc.,barbar- inbarbarism, barbarian, etc., -ceive inconceive, perceive, etc.

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

The relationship between the two classifications of morphemes discussed above can be graphically presented in the following diagram:

	structurally:	free	semi-free	bound
Morphemes
	semantically		roots		affixes

Speaking of word-structure on the morphemic level two groups of morphemes should be specially mentioned.

To the first group belong morphemes of Greek and Latin origin often called combining forms, e.g.telephone, telegraph,phonoscope, microscope, etc. The morphemestele-, graph-, scope-, micro-, phone- are characterized by a definite lexical meaning and peculiar stylistic reference:tele- means 'far',graph- means 'writing',scope--'seeing',micro- implies smallness,phone- means 'sound.' Comparing words withtele- as their first constituent, such astelegraph, telephone, telegram one may conclude thattele- is a prefix andgraph-, phone-, gram- are root-morphemes. On the other hand, words likephonograph, seismograph, autograph may create the impression that the second morpheme graph is a suffix and the first--a root-morpheme. This undoubtedly would lead to the absurd conclusion that words of this group contain no root-morpheme and are composed of a suffix and a prefix which runs counter to the fundamental principle of word-structure. Therefore, there is only one solution to this problem; these morphemes are all bound root-morphemes of a special kind and such words belong to words made up of bound roots. The fact that these morphemes do not possess the part-of-speech meaning typical of affixational morphemes evidences their status as roots.