TOMSK POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY N.I. Marugina ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY Recommended for publishing as a study aid by the Editorial Board of the Tomsk Polytechnic University Tomsk Polytechnic University Publishing House 2011 МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение высшего профессионального образования «НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКИЙ ТОМСКИЙ ПОЛИТЕХНИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ» Н.И. Маругина ЛЕКСИКОЛОГИЯ АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА Рекомендовано в качестве учебного пособия Редакционно-издательским советом Томского политехнического университета Издательство Томского политехнического университета 2011 УДК 811.111:81'373(075.8) ББК Ш143.21-923.3 М29 М29 Маругина Н.И. Лексикология английского языка: учебное пособие / Н.И. Маругина; Томский политехнический университет. – Томск: Изд-во Томского политехнического университета, 2011. – 120 с. В пособии представлен теоретический материал, характеризующий основные принципы и закономерности развития словарного состава английского языка. Предназначено для студентов, обучающихся по специальностям 035701 «Перевод и переводоведение» и 035700 «Лингвистика». Может быть использовано в рамках проведения лекционных и семинарских занятий по лексикологии английского языка, а также для самостоятельной работы студентов. УДК 811.111:81'373(075.8) ББК Ш143.21-923.3 Рецензенты Кандидат филологических наук, доцент ТГУ И.Г. Темникова Кандидат филологических наук, доцент ТГУ И.А. Черепанова © ФГБОУ ВПО НИ ТПУ, 2011 © Маругина Н.И., 2011 © Оформление. Издательство Томского политехнического университета, 2011 CONTENTS ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ............................................................................................................... 6 PART I................................................................................................................................. 7 CHAPTER 1. FUNDAMENTALS OF LEXICOLOGY ................................................ 7 CHAPTER 2. WHAT’S IN A WORD? MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORD ............................................................ 15 CHAPTER 3. THE WORD-BUILDING SYSTEM OF ENGLISH ............................. 24 PART 2 .............................................................................................................................. 37 CHAPTER 1. THE MEANING OF WORDS............................................................... 37 CHAPTER 2. SYNONYMY. ANTONYMY. HOMONYMY. HYPONYMY ............ 50 PART 3 .............................................................................................................................. 57 CHAPTER 1. STYLISTIC STRATIFICATION OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY ...... 57 PART 4 .............................................................................................................................. 65 CHAPTER 1. ETYMOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY ............................................................ 65 CHAPTER 2. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY ............................................................ 73 PART 5 .............................................................................................................................. 78 CHAPTER 1. PHRASEOLOGY .................................................................................. 78 PART 6 .............................................................................................................................. 84 CHAPTER 1. REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY ............................................................ 84 PART 7 .............................................................................................................................. 92 CHAPTER 1. LEXICOGRAPHY................................................................................. 92 LIST OF SIMILES ......................................................................................................... 106 GLOSSARY OF TERMS .............................................................................................. 111 СПИСОК ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ .......................................................................................... 117 5 106 ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ Предлагаемое учебное пособие представляет собой курс лекций по лексикологии английского языка и предназначено для студентов, обучающихся по специальности 035701 «Перевод и переводоведение» и 035700 «Лингвистика». Пособие может быть использовано на лекционных и практических занятиях, для самостоятельной работы студентов, а также при написании курсовых работ. В пособии осуществлен единый подход к изложению теоретического материала. Соблюдение общего принципа организации материала способствует более эффективному усвоению всех включенных в пособие тем. Характер и объем теоретического материала определен практической необходимостью. Знание теоретических основ лингвистических дисциплин способствует достижению хороших результатов в ходе изучения иностранного языка. Теоретический материал во многих случаях сопровождается примерами, что делает материал легким для усвоения и запоминания. Каждый раздел имеет вопросы для самоконтроля. Учебное пособие по Лексикологии английского языка имеет рабочую тетрадь студента, что позволяет осуществлять работу на лекциях и семинарах более плодотворно. Практический материал рабочей тетради значительно расширяет и углубляет представление о том или ином лингвистическом явлении. Это также позволяет облегчить понимание сути этого явления, формируя прочные навыки распознавания языковых явлений и проведения собственно научного анализа лингвистических явлений. При выполнении упражнений предполагается работа по изучению семантической структуры слов, их ситуативного и контекстного употребления, работа студентов со словарями. Упражнения на подстановку лексических единиц в контекстный отрезок тщательным образом отобраны из современных словарей тезаурусного типа, а также статей энциклопедического характера, предназначенных для стилистического и переводческого анализа текста. Следует подчеркнуть, что упражнения и задания носят творческий характер и рассчитаны на значительную долю мыслительной самостоятельности студента. 6 PART I CHAPTER 1 FUNDAMENTALS OF LEXICOLOGY 1. 2. 3. 4. The Object of Lexicology and its Connection with Other Branches of Linguistics Two Approaches to Language Study Methods of Linguistic Analysis The Perspectives of Modern English Lexicology 1. The Object of Lexicology and its Connection with Other Branches of Linguistics Lexicology derives from two Greek words lexis “word” and logos “learning”. It is a branch of Linguistics dealing with the vocabulary system of the language. The literal meaning of the term Lexicology is connected with the studies of the sum total of all the words that the language possesses. Thus, this science studies the properties of the words as the basic units of the language. The word can be defined as a structural and semantic entity of the language system. The word is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit. Lexicology studies various lexical units. It is concerned with words, variable word-groups, phraseological units, and morphemes which make up words. The word as well as any linguistic sign is a two-faced unit possessing both form and content or in other words sound-form and meaning. The term vocabulary means the total sum of words that there are in the language. The size of the vocabulary of any language is huge. No person can learn or know all the words of the language. Individual people possess their own total vocabulary consisting of all the words they know. Another word used to denote vocabulary is the term lexicon. In modern Linguistics three main meanings of the term lexicon are distinguished: 1) the vocabulary which a speaker of a language has in his or her head, that is, mental lexicon; 2) the set of lexemes of a language and the processes which are related to them; 3) the set of lexical items of a language. Distinction is made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology. General lexicology is a part of General linguistics. It is concerned with the study of vocabulary and its basic units, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. It works out basic notions and methods of vocabulary study. Within the frames of General Lexicology many notions, such as the notion of the word, the notion of the meaning, the notion of the 7 context, the notion of system relations are investigated. Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (English, Russian, German, French, etc.). It describes words and vocabulary of one particular language. Every Special Lexicology is based on the principles of General Lexicology. Special Lexicology is further subdivided into Diachronic/Historical and Synchronic/Descriptive. Historical Lexicology deals with the evolution of any vocabulary, the origin of words, their change and development. The subject matter of Descriptive Lexicology is the vocabulary of a particular language at a given stage of its development. It studies mainly the structure and specific functions of words. There are different aspects or branches of Lexicology. Any language is the unity of different aspects: grammar, vocabulary, and sound system. As Lexicology is the science that deals with vocabulary systems, it is definitely connected with all the rest of the aspects. Lexicology is linked with phonetics since the latter is concerned with the study of the sound-form of the word. There is a close relationship between Lexicology and Grammar. Grammar is concerned with various means of expressing grammatical relations between words as well as with patterns according to which words are combined into word-groups and sentences. Lexicology is bound up with Stylistics since there are problems of meaning, vocabulary stratification, style treated in the frames of both the branches. The structure of words is studied by morphology. Ways of coining new words is the object of word-building, meaning of words, their relations in vocabulary became the object of semasiology. Setexpressions and idioms are studied by phraseology, the origin of words, their development in the language are dealt with etymology and the behaviour of words in speech is considered by contextology. 2. Two Approaches to Language Study There are two principle approaches in linguistic science to the study of language material: synchronic and diachronic. With regard to Special lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time. It’s Special Descriptive lexicology that deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time. The diachronic approach in terms of Special lexicology deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time. It is Special Historical lexicology that deals with the evaluation of the vocabulary units of a language as the time goes by. The two approaches shouldn’t be set one against the other. In fact, they are interconnected and interrelated because every linguistic structure and 8 system exists in a state of constant development, so that the synchronic state of a language system is a result of a long process of linguistic evaluation, of its historical development. Closely connected with the Historical lexicology is Contrastive and Comparative lexicology whose aims are to study the correlation between the vocabularies of two or more languages and find out the correspondences between the vocabulary units of the languages under comparison. 3. Methods of Linguistic Analysis Every science has certain methods of investigation at its disposal. The process of scientific investigation may be subdivided into several phases: Observation is the basic phase of all modern scientific investigations including linguistics. In other words, we deal with the inductive method of inquiry. The key role of the opening phase of linguistic analysis is that the statements of fact must be based on observation, not on unsupported authority, logical conclusions or personal preferences. Classification is the second phase that comes after observation. Every lexicological research is based on collecting linguistic examples. At this stage of linguistic analysis the stored facts, the collected data, and empirical material undergo some grouping. Generalization is the third stage of the linguistic analysis at which the collection of data and their classification must eventually lead to the formulation of a hypotheses, rule, or law. Verification is the phase of linguistic analysis that leads to the results of the scientific investigation. While doing research, any linguist encounters all the phases of investigation. To accomplish his goal the linguist uses different methods and procedures. They are contrastive analyses, statistical analyses, method of immediate constituents, distributional analyses, transformational analyses, componential analyses, and method of semantic differentiation. Contrastive analysis is aimed at finding out similarities and differences in both related and non-related languages. For instance, contrastive analysis is applied in language teaching when we deal with such a phenomenon as linguistic interference. It was empirically shown that the mistakes which are made by foreign language students can be often the result of differences in structural patterns between the target language and the language of the learner. This naturally implies the necessity of a detailed comparison of the structure of a mother tongue and a foreign language. Contrastive analysis can be carried out at three linguistic levels: phonology, grammar and lexis. 9 Statistical analysis is generally referred to as one of the principal branches of linguistics. Insights derived from statistical accounts of the vocabulary can be useful to the solution and clarification of specific problems connected with the qualitative and quantitative language use. Statistical inquiries have considerable importance because of their relevance to certain problems of the selection of vocabulary items for the purposes of language usage and language teaching. For instance, very few people know more than 10 % of the words in their mother tongue. During the day we usually pronounce about 48 000 words. We can survive in the alien environment using only 500 different words of the foreign language. It means that if we do not wish to waste time on committing to memorize vocabulary items, which are never likely to be useful to the learner, we have to select only lexical units that are commonly used by a native speaker. In Modern Linguistics the issue of Basic/Nuclear English was investigated. Basic English was a project designed to provide a basic minimum vocabulary for the learning of general English. The project involved a word list of 850 words, the description of their functions and the relationships between them. Statistical regularities can be observed only if the phenomena under analysis are sufficiently numerous. Thus, the first requirement of any statistic investigation is the size of the sample material. Method of Immediate Constituents was attempted to determine the ways in which lexical units are relevantly related to one another. It was discovered and illustrated that linguistic units have a hierarchical organization of binary constructions. The fundamental task of the method is to segment a set of lexical units into two maximally independent meaningful sequences. These independent meaningful sequences are called immediate constituents. The further segmentation of immediate constituents results in ultimate constituents, which means that no further semantic segmentation is possible for no meaning can be found. This method is extremely fruitful in discovering the derivational structure of words. Distributional analysis is based on the assumption that “the distribution of an element is the total of all environments in which it occurs, that is the sum of all the (different) positions of an element relative to the occurrence of other elements” (For further reading see Z.S. Harris, Methods in Structural Linguistics, pp.15–16). It is established that a certain component of the wordmeaning is described when the word is identified distributionally. For example, in the sentence The boy______ home the form which is missing is easily identified as a verb but not a noun, an adjective or an adverb. Thus, contextually only several verbs or rather word-forms can be inserted in the space: goes, comes, runs, went, came, ran. 10 Transformational analysis in lexicological investigations may be defined as repatterning of various distributional structures in order to discover difference or sameness of meaning of practically identical distributional patterns. Transformational analysis can be applied to reveal the difference in meaning in the example: He made the boy a pipe → He made a pipe for the boy. He made the girl a star → He made a star for the girl. In the first example the transformation is possible and the meaning of the transformed sentence has not been changed. In the second case the transformation is impossible because it completely changes the meaning of the utterance. Types of transformation differ according to purposes for which transformations are used: Permutation – the repatterning on condition that the basic subordinative relationships between words and word-stems of the lexical units are not changed. For example, “His work is excellent“ may be transformed into “his excellent work , the excellence of his work, he works excellently“. Replacement – the substitution of a component of the distributional structure by a member of a certain strictly defined set of lexical units (replacement of a notional verb by an auxiliary or link verb). Addition (or expansion) may be illustrated by the application of the procedure of addition to the classification of adjectives into two groupsadjectives denoting inherent and non-inherent qualities: John is happy. John is tall .We add a phrase in Moscow to the first sentence and get John is happy in Moscow. If we add the same phrase to the second sentence, it will become senseless. That is accounted by the difference in the meaning of adjectives denoting inherent (tall) and non-inherent (happy) qualities. Deletion is a procedure which shows whether one of the words is semantically subordinated to the other. For instance, the word-group yellow tulips may be further segmented and transformed into tulips without making the sentence senseless I like yellow tulips or I like tulips. The other wordgroup red tape can’t be transformed either into I hate tape or I hate red because we won’t convey the meaning of the expression red tape (bureaucracy) in both transformed sentences because it functions as an inseparable phrase in the language. Componential analysis Componential analysis refers to a technique for describing relations of meaning by breaking down each word into the smallest units of meaning which are known as sememes or semes. The componential analysis is central to the conceptual area of semantics. The semantic features in lexical items are universal and they underlie our basic cognitive process for the ordering of 11 meaning. The central part of componential analysis is the concept of binarism. Semantic features are marked on the basis of semantic opposition or contrast. For example, in the lexical item woman several sememes may be singled out, such as human, adult, female. The analysis of the word man will show the following sememes: human, adult, male. Componential analysis is concerned with the sense relations between lexical items covered by such traditional terms as synonymy, antonymy. Componential analysis is practically always combined with transformational procedures or statistical analysis. Method of semantic differential was worked out by a group of American psycholinguists. Words may have more than one meaning. Even one word usually implies some additional information which differentiates one word from another, that is the connotational aspect of the word. The technique of the semantic differential requires the subjects to judge – a series of concepts with respect to a set of antonymic adjective scale. e. g., A horse can be: good – bad fast – slow strong – weak hard – soft happy – sad The meaning of the divisions is that each of the quality may be gradated representing extremely good, very good, neither good nor bad, slightly bad, extremely bad, and these grades can be marked by a plus. And the horse may be very good, not bad, etc. The combination of different methods of analysis helps to classify the vocabulary as a whole and each lexical unit taken separately. It should be noted that one cannot investigate one side of the item paying no attention to the other one. 4. The Perspectives of Modern English Lexicology Lexicology has its own main aims and tasks. Modern English lexicology investigates the problem of word structure and word formation, the classification of vocabulary units, description of the relations between different lexical layers of English vocabulary. As a science it has both theoretical and practical use. The theoretical value of Lexicology stems from the theory of meaning which was originally developed within the philosophical science. The relationship between the name and the thing constitutes one of the key questions of Gnostic theories. The research carried out in the frames of Lexicology meets the needs of many different sciences, such as lexicography, literary criticism, and foreign languages teaching. 12 Modern English Lexicology aims at giving a systematic description of the Modern English word-stock. Modern English Lexicology investigates the problems of word-structure and word formation in Modern English, the semantic structure of English words, the main principles underlying the classification of vocabulary units into various groupings, the laws governing the replenishment of the vocabulary with new vocabulary units. Modern English Lexicology as a subject of study forms part of the Theoretical Course of Modern English. It is inseparable from its other component parts, i.e., Grammar, Phonetics, Stylistics, the Course of History of the English Language. Moreover, the Course of Modern English Lexicology is of great practical importance because it is aimed both at summarising the practical material already familiar to the students from foreign language classes and at helping the students to develop the skills and habits of generalising the linguistic phenomena. This textbook treats the following basic problems: 1. Fundamentals of English Lexicography; 2. Word-structure; 3. Methods and Procedures of Lexicological Analysis; 4. Word-formation; 5. Various aspects of vocabulary units and replenishment of Modern English word-stock; 6. Etymological survey of the English word-stock; 7. Semasiology and semantic classifications of words; 8. Word-groups and phraseological units; 9. Variants and dialects of Modern English; 10. Lexicography; 11. Methods of learning new words. QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. What is the definition of the term ‘Lexicology’? What is the subject matter of Lexicology? What does the term ‘word’ denote? What is the term ‘vocabulary’ used to denote? What are the definitions of the term ‘lexicon’? What do General Lexicology and Special Lexicology study? What branches of Linguistics is Lexicology closely connected with? What are the general approaches to the study of language material? What are the principal methods of scientific investigation? What is the contrastive analysis aimed at? 13 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. What is the statistical analysis generally referred to? What is Basic English Project? What can be illustrated through the method of immediate constituents? What is the purpose of the distributional analysis? What types of transformations are possible through the transformational analysis? 16. What is the purpose of the componential analysis? 17. What does the method of semantic differential imply? 18. What problems does Modern English Lexicology investigate? 14 CHAPTER 2 WHAT’S IN A WORD? MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORD 1. 2. 3. 4. The Problems of the Definition of the Word Lexemes and Words Lexical and Grammatical Words Morphological Structure of the Word 1. The Problems of the Definition of the Word The definition of the word is one of the most formidable tasks in linguistics because the simplest word has many different aspects. It has a sound form because it is a certain arrangement of phonemes; it has its morphological structure, being also a certain arrangements of morphemes; when used in actual speech, it may occur in different word forms and signal different meanings. Being the central element of any language system, the word is a sort of focus for the problems of phonology, syntax, morphology, philosophy, psychology. In defining the word, one must distinguish it from linguistic units, such as the phoneme, the morpheme, or the word group. Many scholars attempted to define the word. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), one of the greatest English philosophers, revealed a materialistic approach to the problem of nomination when he wrote that words are not mere sounds but names of matter. The Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov (1849–1936) examined the word in connection with his studies of the second signal system and defined it as a universal signal that can substitute any other signal from the environment in evoking a response in a human organism. Within the scope of linguistics the word has been defined syntactically, semantically, phonologically, and by combining different approaches. H. Sweet put forward a syntactical approach defining the word as the minimum sentence. L. Bloomfield defined the word structurally as a minimum free form. E. Sapir takes into consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects when he calls the word one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated meaning, into which the sentence resolves itself. E. Sapir also points out one more, very important characteristic of the word, its indivisibility. For example, a lion will be a word-group, alive is a word which is indivisible. A purely semantic treatment is found in Stephen Ullmann’s explanation which runs that words are meaningful units. The eminent French linguist A. Meillet (1866–1936) combines the three approaches and gives the following definition: A word is defined by the association of a given meaning with a given group of sounds susceptible of a given grammatical employment. The word is a fundamental unit of language. It is a dialectical unity of form and content. Summing our review of different 15 definitions, we come to the conclusion that they are bound to be strongly dependent upon the line of approach, the aim the scholar has in view. For a comprehensive word theory a description seems more appropriate than a definition. The problems to define a word still exist: Orthographic, free-form or stress-based definitions of a word make sense, but there are many words that do not fit these categories, e.g., will not – two words; cannot – one word; postbox, post box, post-box – different variants of spelling; Words are units of meaning, but the definition of a word having a clear-cut meaning creates numerous exceptions and emerges as vague and asymmetrical Stability of a word is stressed. A word is a word if it can stand on its own as a reply to a question or as a statement or exclamation, e.g., Shoot! Goal! Yes. There. Up. Taxi! If we reduce the word Shoot to Sh, it would depend on the other word for its sense. We have different forms but different forms do not necessarily count as different words, e.g., bring, brings, brought, bringing – are not separate words, otherwise we would expect to find each word separately in a dictionary. Words can have the same forms but also different and, in some cases, completely unrelated meanings, e.g., mug. The existence of idioms seems to upset attempts to define words in any neat formal way, e.g., to rain cats and dogs; to kick the bucket. – Is it raining hard? – Cats and dogs. They involve several orthographic letters but cannot be further reduced without the loss of meaning. A word is an autonomous unit of the language in which a particular meaning is associated with a particular sound complex capable of a particular grammatical employment and able to form a sentence by itself. 2. Lexemes and Words A lexeme is the abstract unit which underlies some of the variants we have observed in connection with ‘words’. Thus, bring is the lexeme which underlies some of the variants bring, brings, brought, bringing which are the word-forms. Lexemes are the basic, contrasting units of vocabulary in a language. When we flick through words in a dictionary we are looking up lexemes rather than words. The lexeme bring is an abstraction. It doesn’t occur in texts in this particular form, but realizes different forms. The term lexeme is also connected with more than one word-form expressed by such lexical items as: Multi-word verbs, e.g., to catch up with; Phrasal verbs, e.g., to clear up, to switch off; Idioms, e.g., kick the bucket. 16 Lexemes help to represent polysemantic words through individual words, e.g., fair (n), fair (adj. in good, acceptable), fair (adj. light in colour, especially of hair). Lexical items or vocabulary items are terms which help to avoid ambiguity in the term word, especially when it becomes limited to by orthography. 3. Lexical and Grammatical Words There is a distinction between lexical words and grammatical words. Lexical words known as full words or content words include nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs. They carry a higher information content and are syntactically structured by the grammatical words. Lexical words form an open class of words because they are subject to diachronic change, changes in form and meaning over a period of time. Nouns A noun is a naming word (the name of a person, place, or thing). Most nouns inflect for the morphosyntactic category of number and, as such, have a plural form like -s or -es, e.g., bee – bees, bush – bushes, video – videos, tomato – tomatoes, match – matches. Some words make their plural forms the other way, e.g., foot – feet, goose – geese, mouse – mice, child – children. Other nouns never change their singular forms to make their plurals, e.g., deer – deer, sheep – sheep. Some nouns never occur without the plural marker, e.g., scissors, trousers, jeans, shorts. Most nouns appear with either an indefinite article a, or a definite article the. Consider the following list of nouns and divide them into the following groups: nouns that can take a (an), nouns that can take the, nouns that have a plural form, and nouns that can refer to things that can be counted. Some nouns will appear in more than one category. a (an ) the butter video fame anger worker Peter mouse London 17 plural countable All nouns fall into three groups: those which appear in all four groups, those which appear in only one group, those which appear in some groups. The nouns which appear in all four groups are called countable, those which appear in only one are called uncountable. Adjectives Adjectives denote a property or quality of an object. They may take grammatical forms and represent degrees of comparison: positive, comparative, superlative, e.g., big – bigger – the biggest; difficult – more difficult – the most difficult. Consider the following list of adjectives and divide them into three groups: those which take the -er and -est endings, those which take more or most, and those which take neither of the above. -er, -est more, most neither narrow ugly absolute high painful The adjectives that have comparative and superlative degrees are called gradable. Those that do not have comparative and superlative degrees are called non-gradable. Adjectives in English may appear either before a noun or after a form of the verb to be, e.g., the ripe peach, the peach is ripe. Not all adjectives appear in both positions. Some may only appear before nouns, while others appear only after the verb to be. Consider the following list of adjectives. Which may appear only before a noun, which may appear only after the verb to be, and which may appear in both positions? after the verb before nouns both to be older elder red incredible ill hungry afraid 18 Verbs There are two classes of verbs – lexical and auxiliary verbs. Verbs denote actions or states. Each verb has five associated grammatical words, e.g., ask – asks – asked – asking – asked go – goes – went – going – gone Verbs like ask are regular, they form the majority of verbs in English. Irregular verbs, like go have different forms. There are about 200 irregular verbs in English. Adverbs There are two classes of adverbs: degree and general. Degree adverbs are a small group of words like very, more, and most. They always appear with either an adjective or a general adverb, e.g., She cooks very well. She cooks very. This picture is more beautiful. This picture is more. General adverbs constitute a large class and may appear without a degree adverb, e.g., She cooks well. Adverbs denote degree, manner, place, time. Adverbs have no inflected forms, they take comparisons like adjectives. Grammatical words known as functional words, functors, empty words comprise a small class of words that includes pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions. Grammatical words constitute a closed class, because these words remain generally immutable. Prepositions Prepositions are words such as in, out, on, by, which often indicate locations in time or space, or direction. While nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs are members of open classes because the classes they belong to are very large, and while it is possible to add new items to any one of these open classes, prepositions are members of a closed class. Other closed classes of words are conjunctions, for example, and, but, because, or; determiners, for example, a, an, the, these, those; and the class of auxiliary verbs. It is not possible to add new members to the closed classes. 4. Morphological Structure of the Word The term morphology, which literally means “the study of forms”, was originally used in biology, but, since the middle of the nineteenth century, has also been used to describe the type of investigation that analyzes all those basic elements used in the language known as morphemes. A morpheme is an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. But unlike a word it is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech 19 as constituent parts of words, not independently. A word may consist of a single morpheme or contain several, e.g., cat – cats; inexpensive; in– distinguish–able; antidisestablishmentarianism. Morphologically, according to the number of morphemes words are classified into monomorphic and polymorphic. Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g., small, dog, make, give, etc. All polymorphic words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into two subgroups: monoradica1 or oneroot words and polyradical words, i.e., words which consist of two or more roots. Monoradical words fall into two subtypes: 1) radical-suffixa1 words, i.e., words that consist of one root-morpheme and one or more suffixal morphemes, e.g., acceptable, acceptability, blackish; 2) radical-prefixal words, i.e., words that consist of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme, e.g., outdo, rearrange, unbutton; and 3) prefixo-radical-suffixal, i.e., words which consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal morphemes, e.g., disagreeable, misinterpretation. Polyradical words fall into two types: 1) po1yradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes, e.g., book-stand, eye-ball, lamp-shade; and 2) words which contain at least two roots and one or more affixational morphemes, e.g., safety-pin, wedding-pie, classconsciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of speech. According to the role they play in constructing words, morphemes are subdivided into roots and affixes. Affixes according to their position are subdivided into suffixes and prefixes, and according to their meaning and function into derivational and functional affixes. Roots are the main morphemic vehicles. It is the ultimate constituent element which remains after the removal of all functional and derivational affixes and doesn’t admit any further analysis. It is the common element of words on a word-family, e.g., heart – hearten, heartify, heartless, sweetheart, heart-broken, kind-hearted, whole-heartedly. Functional affixes serve to convey grammatical meaning. They build different forms of one and the same word. A word-form is defined as one of the different aspects a word may take as a result of inflections, e.g., near, nearer, nearest. Derivational affixes serve to supply the stem with components of lexical and lexico-grammatical meaning, and thus form words, e.g., to hearten – to dishearten. An affix should not be confused with a combining form. A combining form is a bound form which is always borrowed from another language (Latin or Greek) in which it existed as a free form, e.g., cyclo/cycle. 20 An allomorph is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and characterized by complementary distribution. Complementary distribution is said to take place when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment, e.g., ation – liberation; tion – corruption. Allomorphs also occur among prefixes. Their form may depend on the initial letters with which they will assimilate, e.g. in: im occurs before bilabials – impossible; ir occurs before r – irregular; il occurs before l – illegal; in occurs before other consonants and vowels – inability, indirect. Semantically morphemes fall into root-morphemes and non-root morphemes. Root and non-root morphemes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill. The root-morphemes help, hand, black, London, fill are understood as the lexical centers of the words, as the basic constituent part of a word without which the word is inconceivable. The rootmorpheme is the lexical nucleus of a word, has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language. The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster, e.g., teach in to teach, teacher, teaching. Non-root morphemes include inflectional 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. Affixes are classified into prefixes and suffixes. A suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or a different word class, e.g., -en, -y, -less in hearten, hearty, heartless. A prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning, e.g., to hearten – to dishearten. Structurally morphemes fall into 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, e.g., friend in the noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun friend. 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., -ness, -ship, -ize, un-, dis-, de- in the words like readiness, comradeship, to activize, to displease, to decipher. Many root morphemes belong to the class of bound morphemes which always occur in morphemic sequences, i.e., in combinations with roots or affixes. Semi-free or semi-bound morphemes can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme, e.g., seaman, womanlike. 21 As far as the complexity of the morphemic structure of the word is concerned all English words fall into two large classes. To class 1 belong segmentable words, those allowing of further morphemic segmentation, e.g., quickly, fearless, agreement. To class 2 belong non-segmentable words, e.g., house, girl, cat, woman. Morphemic analysis deals with segmentable words. The main aim of the morphemic analysis is to split a word into its constituent morphemes, determine their number and type. It’s called the method of immediate and ultimate constituents. This method is based on a binary principle, i.e., each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the immediate constituents. Each immediate constituent at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into two smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e., morphemes. In terms of the method employed these are referred to as the ultimate constituents. The noun friendliness, for example, is first segmented into the immediate constituents friendly recurring in the adjectives friendlylooking and friendly and the -ness found in a countless number of nouns, such as happiness, darkness, unselfishness. The immediate constituent -ness is at the same time an ultimate constituent of the noun, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. The immediate constituent friendly is next broken into the immediate constituents friendand -ly recurring in friendship, unfriendly, etc., on the one hand, and wifely, brotherly, etc., on the other. The morphemic analysis according to the immediate constituents and ultimate constituents may be carried out on the basis of 2 principles: the root principle and the affix principle. According to the affix principle the segmentation of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of an affixational morpheme within a set of words, for example, the identification of the suffixational morpheme -less leads to the segmentation of words like useless, hopeless, merciless. The application of one of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words. There are three types of morphemic segmentability: Complete segmentability is the characteristic feature of many words. The morphemic structure of the words with complete segmentability is transparent. The individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word lending themselves easily to isolation. Conditional segmentability characterizes words whose segmentation into the constituent morphemes is doubtful for some semantic reasons, e.g., retain, contain, detain, receive. The morphemes making up words of conditional segmentability differ from morphemes making up words of complete segmentability in that the former do not rise to the full status of morphemes for 22 semantic reasons and that is why a special term is applied to them in linguistic literature: such morphemes are called pseudo-morphemes or quasimorphemes. It should be mentioned that there is no unanimity on the question and there are two different approaches to the problem. Those linguists who recognize pseudo-morphemes, i.e., consider it sufficient for a morpheme to have only a differential and distributional meaning to be isolated from a word regard words like retain, deceive as segmentable; those who think it necessary for a morpheme to have some denotational meaning qualify them as non-segmentable. Defective segmentability is the property of words whose component morphemes seldom or never recur in other words. One of the component morphemes is a unique morpheme. A unique morpheme is isolated and understood as meaningful because the constituent morphemes display a more or less clear denotational meaning. Thus, on the level of morphemic analysis the linguist has to operate with two types of elementary units, namely full morphemes and pseudomorphemes. It is only full morphemes that are genuine structural elements of the language system, so that the linguist must primarily focus his attention on words of complete morphemic segmentability. On the other hand, a considerable percentage of words of conditional and defective segmentability signals a relatively complex character of the morphological system of the language in question, reveals the existence of various heterogeneous layers in its vocabulary. QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. What attempts were made to give the definition of the word? What problems to define a word still exist? What is a lexeme? What groups are the words classified into? What is a morpheme? What is meant by the term allomorph? What types of morphemes can be singled out structurally? What types of morphemes can be singled out semantically? What is a suffix? What is a prefix? What are the principles of morphemic analysis? Characterize words according to the type of segmentability. What is a unique morpheme? 23 CHAPTER 3 THE WORD-BUILDING SYSTEM OF ENGLISH 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Word Formation Compounding Derivational Affixation Conversion Shortening Blending Backformation Reduplication 1. Word Formation Word-formation is that branch of Lexicology which studies the derivative structure of existing words and patterns according to which a language builds new words. It is evident that word-formation proper can deal only with words which can be analyzed both structurally and semantically. Simple words are very closely connected with word-formation because they serve as the foundation, the basic source of the parent units motivating all types of derived and compound words. Therefore, words like writer, displease, atomfree, etc. make the subject matter of study in word-formation, but words like to write, to please, atom, free are not irrelevant to it. Like any other linguistic phenomenon word-formation may be studied synchronically and diachronically. It is necessary to distinguish between these two approaches: synchronically the linguist investigates the existing system of the types of word-formation, while diachronically he is concerned with the history of word-building. To illustrate the difference of approach we shall consider affixation. Diachronically it is the chronological order of formation of one word from some other word that is relevant. On the synchronic plane a derived word is regarded as having a more complex structure than its correlated word. Word-formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns. For instance, the noun driver is formed after the pattern v + -er, i.e., a verbal stem + the nounforming suffix -er. The meaning of the derived noun driver is related to the meaning of the stem drive- ‘to direct the course of a vehicle’ and the suffix -er meaning ‘an active agent’: a driver is ‘one who drives’ (a carriage, motorcar, railway engine, etc.). Likewise compounds resulting from two or more stems joined together to form a new word are also built on quite definite 24 structural and semantic patterns and formulas, for instance, adjectives of the snow-white type are built according to the formula п+а, etc. It can easily be observed that the meaning of the whole compound is also related to the meanings of the component parts. The structural patterns with the semantic relations they signal give rise to regular new creations of derivatives, e.g., sleeper, giver, smiler or soat-blасk, tax-free, etc. There are two ways in which English lexemes can be used to coin new words: word-derivation and word-composition. Two lexemes may be put together to make a compound lexeme, e.g., sunbeam. The lexeme sunbeam consists of the lexeme sun and the lexeme beam. A lexeme can also have as constituents a single lexeme plus an ending. These endings are generally known as affixes. Affixes which are constituents of complex lexemes are called derivational affixes since they derive one lexeme from another, e.g., greatness. The lexeme consists of the lexeme great followed by the affix -ness. Within word-derivation and word-composition further distinction is made between the various ways and means of word-formation. There is every reason to exclude the shortening of words, lexicalisation, blending, acronymy from the system of word-formation and regard them and other word-forming processes as specific means of vocabulary replenishment. Sound- and stressinterchange in Modern English are a means of distinguishing between different words, primarily between words of different parts of speech. Productivity is the ability to form new words according to the existing patterns. Synchronically the most important and the most productive ways of word-formation are affixation, conversion, word-composition, and abbreviation (contraction). In the course of time the productivity of this or that way of word-formation may change. Sound interchange or gradation (blood – to bleed, to abide – abode, to strike – stroke) was a productive way of word building in old English and is important for a diachronic study of the English language. It has lost its productivity in Modern English and no new word can be coined by means of sound gradation. Derivational Base The nature, type and arrangement of the immediate constituents of the word is known as its derivative structure. The derivative structure of the word is closely connected with its morphemic or morphological structure and often coincides with it, but greatly differs from it. The basic elementary units of the derivative structure of words are: derivational bases, derivational affixes and derivational patterns. A derivational base as a functional unit is defined as the constituent to which a rule of word-formation is applied. It is the part of the word which establishes connection with the lexical unit that motivates its individual lexical 25 meaning describing the difference between words in one and the same derivative set. Structurally derivational bases fall into 3 classes: Bases that coincide with morphological stems of different degrees of complexity, i.e., with words functioning independently in modern English, e.g., dutiful, day-dream. Bases built on stems of different degree of complexity make the largest and commonest group of components of derivatives of various classes. Bases of this class are functionally and semantically distinct from all kinds of stems. Functionally the morphological stem is the part of the word which is the starting point for its forms; it is the part which semantically presents a unity of lexical and functional meanings, thus, predicting the entire grammatical paradigm. The stem remains unchanged throughout all word-forms; it keeps them together preserving the identity of the word. Stems are characterized by a phonetic identity with the word-form that habitually represents the word as a whole. A derivational base is the starting point for different words and its derivational potential outlines the type and scope of existing words and new creations. Semantically the stem stands for the whole semantic structure of the word; it represents all its lexical meanings. A base represents, as a rule, only one meaning of the source word or its stem. Bases that coincide with word-forms, e.g., unsmiling, unknown. This base is usually constituted by verbal forms. The second class of derivational bases is made up of word-forms. This class of bases is confined to verbal word-forms – the present and the past participles – which regularly function as immediate constituents of non-simple adjectives, adverbs and nouns. Bases that coincide with word-groups of different degrees of stability, e.g., blue-eyed, good-for-nothing. The third class of derivational bases is made up of word groups. Free word-groups make up the greater part of this class of bases. Bases of this class allow of a rather limited range of collocability, they are most active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns (long-fingered, blue-eyed). Like word-forms, word-groups serving as derivational bases lose their morphological and syntactic properties proper to them as self-contained lexical units. Bases of this class also allow of a rather limited range of collocability, they are most active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns. Derivational Pattern A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes rigid rules on the order and the nature of the derivational bases and affixes that may be brought together to make up a word. A derivational pattern is a scheme according to which the type of immediate constituents, their order and arrangement are chosen. The derivational patterns may be viewed as classifiers of non-simple words into structural types and within 26 them into semantic sets and subsets. Derivational patterns are studied with the help of distributional analysis at different levels. Patterns of derivative structures are usually represented in a generalized way in terms of conventional symbols: small letters v, n, a, d. Derivational patterns may represent derivative structure at different levels of generalization. At the level of structural types specifying only the class membership of immediate constituents and the direction of motivation. The patterns of this type are known as structural formulas, all words may be classified into 4 classes: suffixal derivatives (friendship), prefixal derivatives (rewrite), conversions (a cut, to parrot), compound words (music-lover). Derivative structure and hence derivative types of words may be represented at the level of structural patterns which specify the base classes and individual affixes thus indicating the lexical-grammatical and lexical classes of derivatives within certain structural classes of words. Derivational patterns of this level are based on the mutual interdependence of individual affixes and base classes and may be viewed in terms of each. The suffixes refer derivatives to specific parts of speech and lexical subsets. V + -er = N (a semantic set of active agents, denoting both animate and inanimate objects – reader, singer); n + -er = N (agents denoting residents or occupations – Londoner, gardener). We distinguish a structural semantic derivational pattern. Derivational patterns may be specified as to the lexical-semantic features of both immediate constituents. Derivational patterns of this level specify the semantic constraints imposed upon the set of derivatives for which the pattern is true and hence the semantic range of the pattern. N + -ess = N (a male animate being – lioness, stewardess). N + -y = A (nominal bases denoting living beings are collocated with the suffix meaning “resemblance” – birdy, catty; but nominal bases denoting material, parts of the body attract another meaning “considerable amount” – powdery, grassy, leggy). 2. Compounding Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms. In a compound word the immediate constituents obtain integrity and structural cohesion that make them function in a sentence as a separate lexical unit. Most compounds in English have the primary stress on the first syllable. For example, income tax has the primary stress on the in of income, not on the tax. Compounds have a rather simple, regular set of properties. First, they are binary in structure. They always consist of two or only two constituent lex27 emes. A compound which has three or more constituents must have them in pairs, e.g., washingmachine manufacturer consists of washingmachine and manufacturer, while washingmachine in turn consists of washing and machine. Compound words also usually have a head constituent. By a head constituent we mean one which determines the syntactic properties of the whole lexeme, e.g., the compound lexeme longboat consists of an adjective, long, and a noun, boat. The compound lexeme longboat is a noun, and it is a noun because boat is a noun, that is, boat is the head constituent of longboat. Compound words can belong to all the major syntactic categories: Nouns: signpost, sunlight, bluebird, redwood, swearword, outhouse; Verbs: window shop, stargaze, outlive, undertake; Adjectives: icecold, hellbent, undersized; Prepositions: into, onto, upon. From the morphological point of view compound words are classified according to the structure of immediate constituents: Compounds consisting of simple stems – heartache, blackbird; Compounds where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem – chainsmoker, maid-servant, mill-owner, shop-assistant; Compounds where one of the constituents is a clipped stem – V-day, A-bomb, Xmas, H-bag; Compounds where one of the constituents is a compound stem – wastepaper basket, postmaster general. Compounds are the commonest among nouns and adjectives. Compound verbs are few in number, as they are mostly the result of conversion, e.g., to blackmail, to honeymoon, to nickname, to safeguard, to whitewash. The 20th century created some more converted verbs, e.g., to weekend, to streamline, to softpedal, to spotlight. Such converted compounds are particularly common in colloquial speech of American English. Converted verbs can be also the result of backformation. Among the earliest coinages are to backbite, to browbeat, to illtreat, to housekeep. The 20th century gave more examples to hitch-hike, to proof-read, to mass-produce, to vacuumclean. One more structural characteristic of compound words is classification of compounds according to the type of composition. According to this principle two groups can be singled out: words which are formed by a mere juxtaposition without any connecting elements, e.g., classroom, schoolboy, heartbreak, sunshine; composition with a vowel or a consonant placed between the two stems, e.g., salesman, handicraft. Semantically compounds may be idiomatic and non-idiomatic. Compound words may be motivated morphologically and in this case they are 28 non-idiomatic. Sunshine – the meaning here is a mere of the elements of a compound word (the meaning of each component is retained). When the compound word is not motivated morphologically, it is idiomatic. In idiomatic compounds the meaning of each component is either lost or weakened. Idiomatic compounds have a transferred meaning. Chatterbox – is not a box, it is a person who talks a great deal without saying anything important; the combination is used only figuratively. The same metaphorical character is observed in the compound slowcoach – a person who acts and thinks slowly. The components of compounds may have different semantic relations. Form this point of view we can roughly classify compounds into endocentric and exocentric. In endocentric compounds the semantic centre is found within the compound and the first element determines the other as in the words filmstar, bedroom, writing-table. Here the semantic centres are star, room, table. These stems serve as a generic name of the object and the determinants film, bed, writing give some specific, additional information about the objects. In exocentric compound there is no semantic centre. It is placed outside the word and can be found only in the course of lexical transformation, e.g., pickpocket – a person who picks pockets of other people, scarecrow – an object made to look like a person that a farmer puts in a field to frighten birds. The Criteria of Compounds As English compounds consist of free forms, it’s difficult to distinguish them from phrases, because there are no reliable criteria for that. There exist three approaches to distinguish compounds from corresponding phrases: Formal unity implies the unity of spelling solid spelling, e.g., headmaster; with a hyphen, e.g., head-master; with a break between two components, e.g., head master. Different dictionaries and different authors give different spelling variants. Phonic principal of stress Many compounds in English have only one primary stress. All compound nouns are stressed according to this pattern, e.g., ice-cream, ice cream. The rule doesn’t hold with adjectives. Compound adjectives are doublestressed, e.g., easy-going, new-born, sky-blue. Stress cannot help to distinguish compounds from phrases because word stress may depend on phrasal stress or upon the syntactic function of a compound. Semantic unity Semantic unity means that a compound word expresses one separate notion and phrases express more than one notion. Notions in their turn can’t be measured. That’s why it is hard to say whether one or more notions are ex29 pressed. The problem of distinguishing between compound words and phrases is still open to discussion. Derivational Compounds There is a particular group of words in English which combine two word-building types – derivation and composition. To this group belong nouns and adjectives consisting of a compound stem and a suffix, e.g., dogooder, week-ender, first-nighter, house-keeping, baby-sitting, blue-eyed, blond-haired, four-storied. The formal and semantic unity of these words is insured by the derivation of suffixes -er, -ed, -ing. The suffixes refer to both of the stems combined, but not to the final stem only. Such stems as nighter, gooder, eyed do not exist. In modern English it is common practice to distinguish semiaffixes. Semi-affixes are word-formative elements that correspond to full words as to their lexical meaning and spelling as – man, proof, like in such words as waterproof, kissproof, businesslike. Compound Neologisms In the last two decades the role of composition in the word-building system of English has increased. In the 60th and 70th composition was not so productive as affixation. In 80th composition exceeded affixation and comprised 29.5 % of the total number of neologisms in English vocabulary. Among compound neologisms the two-component units prevail. The main patterns of coining the two-component neologisms are Noun stem + Noun stem = Noun; Adjective stem + Noun stem = Noun. Endocentric compound words are numerous in the language now, e.g., glue-sniffing, think-tank. Exocentric compound nouns are few in number, e.g., low-rise, high-rise. There appeared a tendency to coin compound nouns where: The first component is a proper noun, e.g., Kirlian photograph – biological field of humans. The first component is a geographical place, e.g., Afro-rock. The two components are joined with the help of the linking vowel -o – e.g., bacteriophobia, suggestopedia. The number of derivational compounds increases. The main productive suffix to coin such compound is the suffix -er – e.g., baby-boomer, allnighter. Many compound words are formed according to the pattern Participle 2 + Adv = Adjective, e.g., laid-back, spaced-out, switched-off, tapped-out. 30 The examples of verbs formed with the help of a post-positive -in – work-in, die-in, sleep-in, write-in. Many compounds formed by the word-building pattern Verb + postpositive are numerous in colloquial speech or slang, e.g., bliss out, fall about/horse around, pig-out. 3. Derivational Affixation Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to different types of bases. Affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation. In Modern English suffixation is mostly characteristic of nouns and adjectives coining, while prefixation is mostly typical of verb formation. Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes. Two types of prefixes can be distinguished: 1) those not correlated with any independent word (un-, post-, dis-); 2) those correlated with functional words (prepositions or preposition-like adverbs – out-, up-, under-). Diachronically distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreign origin. Synchronically prefixes may be classified according to the following criteria: 1) class of words they form; 2) type of lexical-grammatical character of the base they are added to; 3) generic denotational meaning. Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify the lexical meaning of the base and transfer words to a different part of speech. Suffixes may be classified according to the following items: 1) part of speech they serve to form; 2) lexico-grammatical character of the base; 3) criterion of sense expressed by a set of suffixes. 4. Conversion Conversion is a process which allows us to create additional lexical items out of those that already exist. It is also a process in language change, e.g., to saw, to spy, to snoop, to flirt. This process is not limited to onesyllable words, e.g., to bottle, to butter, nor is the process limited to the creation of verbs from nouns, e.g., to up the prices. Converted word are extremely colloquial: “I’ll microwave the chicken”, “Let’s flee our dog”, “We will of course quiche and perrier you”. People talk about “zip-coding their letters”, “trashing papers”, “carpooling people”. They say they will “Haagan-Daz” or “pizza a bit”, or “freeway” on home. Conversion came into being in the early Middle English period as a result of the leveling and further loss of endings. This process occurred to verbs, nouns, adjectives. As a result of it words of the same stem belonging to 31 different parts of speech acquired the same form. As these pairs of words became numerous other correlations began to be formed by analogy. In Modern English conversion is a highly-productive type of wordbuilding. Conversion is a specifically English type of word formation which is determined by its analytical character, by its scarcity of inflections and abundance of mono-and-de-syllabic words in different parts of speech. Conversion is coining new words in a different part of speech and with a different distribution but without adding any derivative elements, so that the original and the converted words are homonyms. The word-building means in this case the distribution of the word and its paradigm. Structural Characteristics of Conversion Mostly monosyllabic words are converted, e.g., to horn, to box, to eye. In Modern English there is a marked tendency to convert polysyllabic words of a complex morphological structure, e.g., to e-mail, to X-ray. Most converted words are verbs which may be formed from different parts of speech – from nouns, adjectives, adverbs, interjections. Nouns from verbs – a try, a go, a find, a loss From adjectives – a daily, a periodical From adverbs – up and down From conjunctions – but me no buts From interjection – to encore Semantic Associations / Relations of Conversion The noun is the name of a tool or implement, the verb denotes an action performed by the tool, e.g., to nail, to pin, to comb, to brush, to pencil; The noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes an action or aspect of behavior considered typical of this animal, e.g., to monkey, to rat, to dog, to fox; When the noun is the name of a part of a human body, the verb denotes an action performed by it, e.g., to hand, to nose, to eye; When the noun is the name of a profession or occupation, the verb denotes the activity typical of it, e.g., to cook, to maid, to nurse; When the noun is the name of a place, the verb will denote the process of occupying the place or by putting something into it, e.g., to room, to house, to cage; When the word is the name of a container, the verb will denote the act of putting something within the container, e.g., to can, to pocket, to bottle; When the word is the name of a meal, the verb means the process of taking it, e.g., to lunch, to supper, to dine, to wine; 32 If an adjective is converted into a verb, the verb may have a generalized meaning “to be in a state”, e.g., to yellow; When nouns are converted from verbs, they denote an act or a process, or the result, e.g., a try, a go, a find, a catch. 5. Shortening Shortenings are coined in two different ways. The first is to make a new word from a syllable of the original word (clipping). The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone, fence from defence), its ending (as in hols from holidays, vac from vacation, props from properties, ad from advertisement) or both the beginning and ending (as in flu from influenza, fridge from refrigerator). The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group (acronymy or initial abbreviation), e.g., UNO from the United Nations Organisation, BBC from the British Broadcasting Corporation, MP from Member of Parliament. Clippings are derived from single words, though sometimes they may be derived from phrases. One component of a phrase is omitted. Clipping means taking away any part of the word. The remaining part of the word which may be neither a morpheme, nor even a syllable acquires all the properties of a regular word, e.g., He spoke to the vet’s wife. There are three structural types of clippings: Aphaeresis – initial part of the word is clipped, e.g., history-story, telephonephone; Syncope – the middle part of the word is clipped, e.g., madam- ma’am; Apocope – the final part of the word is clipped, e.g., professor-prof, editored, vampire-vamp; Sometimes a combination of some types of clipping may occur: Apheresis+syncope, e.g., influenza-flu, detective-tec. Clipping is a source of new morphemes in English and clipping may serve as word-building basis, e.g., taxi – to taxi, taxidriver, taxidancer, airtaxi, taxitest. Clipping can be combined with derivation and composition, e.g., chinee, comfy, labassistant. Semantic Peculiarities of Clipping Polysemantic words are usually clipped in one meaning only, e.g., doc and doctor have the meaning “one who practices medicine”, but doctor is also “the highest degree given by a university to a scholar or scientist”. Clippings can develop a system of meanings of their own, e.g., fancy. Among abbreviations there are homonyms, so that one and the same sound and graphical complex may represent different words, e.g., vac – vacation/vacuum 33 cleaner, prep – preparation/preparatory school, vet – veterinary surgeon/veteran. Stylistic Peculiarities of Clippings Clippings are highly colloquial and it is quite common to encounter them in spoken English, e.g., TV, paper, PC, maths, bike, photo, sales rep. Most of such words are stylistically neutral. In Modern English clippings are part of professional vocabulary because they represent terms in some scientific spheres. E.g.: ACD-solution (ACID CITRATE DEXTROSE). In modern English there appear colloquial expressions such as catch-22 which was taken from the novel “CATCH-22” (Поправка-22), written by G. HELLER. It functions in the meaning “an uphill task”, e.g., It’s a catch-22, I need experience to get a job, and I need a job to get experience. Acronymy Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of parts of a word or phrase, commonly the names of institutions and organizations. No full stops are placed between the letters. All acronyms are divided into two groups. The first group is composed of the acronyms which are often pronounced as series of letters: EEC (European Economic Community), ID (identity or identification card), UN (United Nations), VCR (videocassette recorder), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), LA (Los Angeles), TV (television), PC (personal computer), GP (General Practitioner), TB (tuberculosis). The second group of acronyms is composed by the words which are pronounced according to the rules of reading in English: UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). Some of these pronounceable words are written without capital letters and therefore are no longer recognized as acronyms: laser (light amplification by stimulated emissions of radiation), radar (radio detection and ranging). Acronyms are derived from phrases, where the initial letters of the phrase remain. They may be pronounced in two ways. Alphabetically – some abbreviations are read as individual letters, e.g., WHO, BBC, UN, DVD. Some abbreviations are read as words according to the rules of reading, e.g., NATO, AIDS. Some abbreviations have become so common and normal as words that people do not think of them as abbreviations any longer. They are not written in capital letters, e.g., radar (radio detection and ranging), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) yuppie, gruppie, sinbads, dinkies. 34 Some abbreviations are only written forms but they are pronounced as full words, e.g., Mr, Mrs, Dr. Some abbreviations are from Latin. They are used as part of the language etc. – et cetera, e.g., (for example) – exampli gratia, that is – id est. Acromymy is widely used in the press, for the names of institutions, organizations, movements, countries. It is common to colloquial speech, too. Some acronyms turned into regular words, e.g., jeep – came from the expression general purpose car. The whole expression was shortened into GP, but the pronunciation and spelling of this word remained the same. There are a lot of homonyms among acronyms: MP – Member of Parliament/Military Police/Municipal Police PC – Personal Computer/Politically correct Shortenings of both types are becoming productive because of the following reasons: 1) the extra-linguistic factor – shortenings are used for the sake of economy of time, space and the increasing pace of life; 2) linguistic factor – long words are shortened with the norms of the English words. 6. Blending Blending is a particular type of shortening which combines the features of both clipping and composition, e.g., motel (motor + hotel), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog), telethon (television + marathon), modem (modulator + demodulator), Spanglish (Spanish + English). There are several structural types of blends: Initial part of the word + final part of the word, e.g., electrocute (electricity+execute); Initial part of the word + initial part of the word, e.g., lib-lab (liberal+labour); Initial part of the word + full word, e.g., paratroops (parachute+troops); Full word + final part of the word, e.g., slimnastics (slim+gymnastics). 7. Backformation Backformation is coining new words by means of subtracting a real or a supposed suffix, as a result of misinterpretation of the structure of the word. This type of word-formation is not highly productive in Modern English. There are quite a number of words formed according to this type, e.g., beggar – to beg, cobbler – to cobble, blood transfusion – to blood transfuse, baby-sitter – to baby-sit. 35 8. Reduplication This type of word-formation is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number of monosyllabic words. Most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang, hurdy-gurdy, walkietalkie, riff-raff, chi-chi girl. In reduplication new words are coined by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat. QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. What is the definition of word-formation? What are the approaches to study word-formation? Define the terms word-formation and word-derivation. What is productivity? What is meant by a derivative base? What is the classification of derivative bases? What is meant by a derivative pattern? Give the definition of compound words, their syntactic and structural characteristics. What is the classification of compound words according to the semantic criterion? Describe the category of derivational compounds. What does derivational affixation stand for? What is the analytical way of coining new words? Give structural and semantic characteristics of conversion. What is shortening? Characterize minor types of word-formation (blending, backformation, reduplication). 36 PART 2 CHAPTER 1 THE MEANING OF WORDS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. The Definition of Meaning The Structure of Meaning Lexical Meaning and Notion Motivation of the Word Polysemy. Types of Polysemy Semantic Change. Types of Semantic Change 1. The Definition of Meaning What does the word mean? What are the meanings and how does a word mean more or less the same thing to anyone who knows it? We can start by looking in the traditional place people look for meanings, a dictionary. We can see what the meaning of the word imposter is 1) one who assumes a false character or personality; 2) swindler, someone who pretends to be someone else in order to trick people. The dictionary entry tells that a word that is spelled imposter has a meaning given by other words. These words are not the meaning but have the same meaning as the word being defined. We can recognize the sameness of meaning. When expressions share the same meaning they are synonymous. When expressions share the same meaning they are synonyms. The branch of the study of language concerned the meaning of words is called semasiology. Meaning is a realization of a notion or a motion by means of definite language system. The modern approach to semasiology is based on the assumption that the inner form of the word presents a structure which is called the semantic structure of the word. The basic principle of a structural semantic approach is that words do not exist in isolation. The meanings of words are defined through the sense relations they have with other words. These relations have psychological validity. Write down the word with which the given example is mostly associated. Stimulus word–Typical response Accident Alive Baby 37 Born Cabbage Table Careless These word associations are all based on different types of sense relationships: Contrast or antonymy – wet – dry; Similarity or synonymy – blossom – flower; Subordinate classification – animal – dog; Coordinate classification – apple – peach; Superordinate classification – spinach – vegetable. There were different approaches to define the meaning of the word. Referential Approach. There are broadly speaking two schools to Meaning of thought in present-day linguistics representing the main lines of contemporary thinking on the problem: the referential approach, which seeks to formulate the essence of meaning by establishing the interdependence between words and the things or concepts they denote, and the functional approach, which studies the functions of a word in speech and is less concerned with what meaning is than with how it works. All major works on semantic theory have so far been based on referential concepts of meaning. The essential feature of this approach is that it distinguishes between three components closely connected with meaning: the sound-form of the linguistic sign, the concept underlying this sound-form, and the actual referent, i.e., that part or that aspect of reality to which the linguistic sign refers. The best known referential model of meaning is the socalled “basic triangle” which, with some variations, underlies the semantic systems of all the adherents of this school of thought. In a simplified form the triangle may be represented as shown below: It should be pointed out that among the adherents of the referential approach there are some who hold that the meaning of a linguistic sign is the concept underlying it, and, consequently, they substitute meaning for concept in the basic triangle. Others identify meaning with the referent. They argue that unless we have a scientifically accurate knowledge of the referent, we cannot give a scientifically accurate definition of the meaning of a word. 38 In recent years a new and entirely different approach to meaning, known as the functional approach, has begun to take shape in linguistics and especially in structural linguistics. The functional approach maintains that the meaning of a linguistic unit may be studied only through its relation to other linguistic units and not through its relation to either concept or referent. In a very simplified form this view may be illustrated by the following: we know, for instance, that the meaning of the two words move and movement is different because they function in speech differently. Comparing the contexts in which we find these words we cannot fail to observe that they occupy different positions in relation to other words. (To) move, e.g., can be followed by a noun (move the chair), preceded by a pronoun (we move), etc. The position occupied by the word movement is different: it may be followed by a preposition (movement of smth), preceded by an adjective (slow movement), and so on. As the distribution of the two words is different, we are entitled to the conclusion that not only they do belong to different classes of words, but that their meanings are different, too. The same is true of the different meanings of one and the same word. Analysing the function of a word in linguistic contexts and comparing these contexts, we conclude that meanings are different (or the same) and this fact can be proved by an objective investigation of linguistic data. For example, we can observe the difference of the meanings of the word take if we examine its functions in different linguistic contexts, take the tram (the taxi, the cab, etc.) as opposed to to take to somebody. It follows that in the functional approach (1) semantic investigation is confined to the analysis of the difference or sameness of meaning; (2) meaning is understood essentially as the function of the use of linguistic units. As a matter of fact, this line of semantic investigation is the primary concern, implied or expressed, of all structural linguists. 2. The Structure of Meaning In real speech a word can be associated either with a concrete object or with an abstract notion. Depending on it the word has either the denotative function when it denotes a concrete object. A word has a significative function when it expresses a notion, e.g., All men are created equal (notion). I have never seen that man before (concrete object). And in utterances about complex object they are used in the demonstrative function. Different classes of words are differently characterized with the respect to their function, e.g., verbs, adjectives have one significative function. Nouns may have both significative and demonstrative functions. Demonstrative pronouns, some adverbs have only demonstrative function. 39 Lexical and Grammatical Meaning There are two kinds of linguistic meaning – the lexical (material) and the grammatical (categorial) meaning. The grammatical meaning is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words: asked, thought, walked; girl's, boy's, night's; joys, tables, places. Grammatical meaning is generalized in the most abstract part of the meaning of the word, it is common to all the words belonging to this part of speech. It is that part of meaning which recurs in the identical forms of different words of the same class, e.g., big, bigger, the biggest. The lexical meaning is the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions. The word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone possess different grammatical meanings of tense, person, number, but in each form they have one and the same semantic component denoting 'the process of movement'. Lexical meaning is not indivisible, it may be analyzed in two components. One part of meaning expressing a notion is called denotation. The other part of meaning may express a personal attitude of the speaker to the object of speech, or it may characterize the role of the speaker in the process of communication. The notional part is well-known and the second part is subjective, in this case it is evaluative part of meaning. The subjective part of meaning is the connotation of the word. Connotations are subjective, they characterize the speaker, his attitude, his social role. Denotation expresses a notion. Denotation is objective, it reflects objective reality through notions. There are four types of connotation: 1. Emotional connotation shows the emotional attitude of the speaker to the object of speech, e.g., duckie, darling, trash. 2. Evaluative connotation characterizes the object as having good or bad qualities, e.g., a war-monger. 3. Expressive connotation characterizes an object as having a great degree of some quality. It is subdivided into: a) Quantitative (in which meaning is the component of the words very or much), e.g., calamity, disaster; b) Imaginative type to which words in figurative meaning belong, e.g., a monkey. 4. Stylistic connotation characterizes the social role of the speaker. All the words which are used in limited spheres of communication are marked by stylistic connotation, e.g., to do in, to kick the bucket. 40 3. Lexical Meaning and Notion Lexical Meaning is the meaning of the main material part of the word which reflects the concepts the given word expresses and the basic properties of the thing (phenomenon, quality, state) it denotes. Meaning is a linguistic realization of notion. The features of a notion are reflected in the semantic components of the words. Everyday notions have no clear-cut edges and are surrounded by endless associations (river, sea). Obligatory features of the notion make up the intensional of the word. Associative features of the notion form the implicational of the word, e.g., river – implicational – freshness, coolness; sea – implicational – storm, difficulties. The implicational part of meaning is often realized in poetic contexts, in emotional talks. Lexical meaning is often identified with notion, but it’s wrong for several reasons: Not all the words express notion, they just label the concrete persons or objects. Proper names which denote familiar and famous persons do not express notions. Lexical meaning may include not only notional denotative components but connotation as well. Notions are devoid of connotations, especially emotional and stylistic ones. Pronouns have meaning but they don’t express any notions, they simply point certain things or points. The same is true of some adverbs, e.g., here, there, now, then. Interjections express emotions, but not notions. Notions are said to be international, but meanings have a national character. That’s why translation from one language into another is possible. 4. Motivation of the Word Motivation denotes the relationship between the phonemic or morphemic composition and structural pattern of the word on the one hand, and its meaning on the other. Morphological motivation implies a direct connection between the morphological structure of the word and its meaning. One-morpheme words, e.g., sing, tell are non-motivated. The meaning of words composed of more than one morpheme is the combined meaning of the morphemes and the meaning of the structural pattern of the word itself, e.g., finger-ring (кольцо, которое носят на пальце руки) and ring –finger (палец, на котором носят обручальное кольцо) – the morphemes are phonetically identical with identical lexical meaning. The difference in the meaning can be accounted for by the difference in the arrangement of the component morphemes. Morphological motivation is relative. The degree of motivation varies from complete motivation to lack of motivation with various grades of partial 41 motivation, e.g., endless – completely motivated (lexically and structurally); cranberry – partially (there is no lexical meaning of the morpheme cran-). Phonetic motivation is a direct connection between the phonetical structure of the word and its meaning, e.g., swish, sizzle, boom, splash mean a direct imitation of the sounds these word denote. Semantic motivation is based on co-existence of direct and figurative meanings of the same word. Mouth – a part of the human face, but at the same time it can be applied to any opening or outlet: the mouth of a river, of cave. Jacket is a short coat and also a protective cover for a book. As to compounds, their motivation is morphological if the meaning of the whole is based on the direct meaning of the components, and semantic if the combination is used figuratively: watchdog – a dog kept for watching property (morphologically motivated); a watchful human guardian (semantically motivated). 5. Polysemy. Types of Polysemy Polysemy means plurality of meaning and is characteristic of most words in many languages. But it is mere characteristic of the English vocabulary as compared with Russian, due to the monosyllabic character of English and the predominance of root words. The tendency here works both ways. The more widely a word is used, the more meanings it has to have (to go – 70 meanings). Different meanings of a polysemantic word make up the lexical semantic structure of a word. The meanings themselves are called the lexical semantic variants of a word. It’s not just a list of lexical semantic meanings. There is a special correspondence between the meanings of one and the same word. The correlation between the meanings corresponds to one of the same sound-form and forms a unity of meanings which is known as a semantic structure of a word. The greater the frequency of the word, the greater the number of meanings that constitute its semantic structure. The word in one of its meanings is termed a lexico-semantic variant of this word, e.g., the word table has at least 9 lexico-semantic variants: a piece of furniture; the persons seated at table; the food put on a table; a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood; a slab of stone; plateau, extensive area of high land; an orderly arrangement of facts, etc. The problem of polysemy is that of interrelation of different lexicosemantic variants. There may be no single semantic component common to 42 all lexico-semantic variants, but every variant has something in common with at least one of the others. All the lexico-semantic variants of a word taken together form its semantic structure or semantic paradigm. The word face, for example, according to the dictionary data has the following semantic structure: 1. The front part of the head: He fell on his face. 2. Look, expression: a sad face, smiling faces, she is a good judge of faces. 3. Surface, facade: face of a clock, face of a building, he laid his cards face down. fig. Impudence, boldness, courage; put a good/brave/boldface on something, put a new face on something, the face of it, have the face to do, save one's face. 4. Style of typecast for printing: bold-face type. A polysemantic word may be characterized from 3 points of view: Diachronically. Within this approach meanings may be characterized as etymological, archaic, and present-day,e.g., quick present-day – fast, moving, speedy; etymological, archaic – living. Archaic meanings are preserved in some set-expressions or in compound words, e.g., quick-silver, to touch to the quick. Synchronically. In the frames of synchronic approach meanings are characterized in pairs, as: direct of figurative; primary or secondary; central or peripheric; general or particular; abstract or concrete. Stylistically. In the frames of stylistic approach meanings are characterized with respect to their sphere of usage. They may be neutral, colloquial, literary, formal, slang, etc., e.g., to blow To move smth or to be moved by the force of the wind or a current of air; To make a sound by passing air through a musical instrument or a horn; To damage or destroy smth violently with an explosion or shooting; To spend all your money at one time in a careless way; To lose a good opportunity by making a mistake or by being careless; Leave the place! (Дуй отсюда!) A.I. Smirnitsky introduced the term 'a lexico-semantic variant' (LSV). A lexico-semantic variant is a two-facet unit (двусторонняя единица), the formal facet of which is the sound-form of a word, while the content facet is one of the meanings of the given word, i.e., the designation (обозначение) of a certain class of objects. Words with one meaning are represented in the lan43 guage system by one LSV, polysemantic words by a number of LSVs. All lexico-semantic variants of a word form a homogenous semantic structure ensuring the semantic unity of the given word. All LSVs are united together by a certain meaning – the semantic pivot of the word called the semantic center of the word. Thus, the semantic center of the word is the part of meaning which remains constant in all the lexico-semantic variants of the word. V.V.Vinogradov admitted the importance of differentiating the meaning from the usage (a contexual variant). Meanings are fixed and common to all people, who know the language system. The usage is only a possible application of one of the meanings of a polysemantic word, sometimes very individual, sometimes more or less familiar. Meaning is not identical with usage. Polysemy can be of several types: chain-like, radial, mixed type of chain-like and radial. 6. Semantic Change. Types of Semantic Change All languages are subject to constant change. We notice this in the situations when the young use words and expressions that confuse and puzzle their grandparents or even parents, and vice versa when the parents or grandparents say things that the young find obsolete and outmoded. Words undergo changes in the course of the language development. For example, the word broadcast referred to “the scattering of seed in all directions”, when it originated in the 18th century, but it is now commonly used to mean “transmit by radio or television”. The word dilapidated comes from Latin lapis meaning stone. At present this word can be referred to the description of a decrepit car or a shabby coat. The word holiday comes from “holy day” (religious occasions such as Christmas, Easter), but it is used now to describe any free day from work, irrespective of its religious origin. The words dilapidated and holiday are the examples of widening of meaning. Words may also become narrower in meaning, taking more specific meanings. The word deer was used to mean any animal, a small mammal in particular (Shakespeare’s phrase rats and mice and small deer). But now the word applies only to ruminants. In the 14th century the word villain meant a village peasant, but now it can mean only a scoundrel. Social attitude towards some words may change, too. For example, the political term imperialism is now a derogatory term because people no longer admire the policy of extending national power by territorial acquisition. Quite opposite process has happened to the words casual and aggressive. They have undergone elevation of meaning. Now people are more fascinated by the idea of being natural and informal which is revealed in the phrases casual clothes and casual lifestyle. 44 The word aggressive being more close to destructive in meaning applies in present – day English to modern business methods which require much energy and savvy to achieve goals and bring success to a businessman or a company strategy. Shifts of meaning may expand, limit, or replace the original meanings of words in the process of elevating the value of the word or lowering it. Semantic change is a source of qualitative and quantitative development of language vocabulary. There are two groups of factors accounting the change of meaning. Extra-linguistic factor – vocabulary is connected with the life of people in the most direct way. The changes in social, political and cultural life are immediately reflected in the word-stock of the language. Linguistic factor – change of meaning may be sometimes explained by system relations existing in the language. Synonymic relations are among the most important: Differentiation of meaning (2 words with exactly the same meaning – one of them is bound to disappear or change its meaning) – fowl, hound. Synonymic radiation – one of the members of a synonymic set changes its meaning other members of the same set are also likely to change their meanings – to take, to grasp, to catch, to comprehend. There are several results of semantic change: Derived meanings can supersede the primary ones. Derived and primary meanings can coexist. Thus polysemy appears. Meanings of a polysemantic word can depart from each other very far. Semantic links between them are lost. Thus, homonymy appears. There are several types of semantic change: Metaphor Metonymy Generalization of meaning Specialization of meaning Amelioration (elevation of meaning) Pejoration (deterioration of meaning) Irony Hyperbole Litotes (understatement) Euphemism Metaphor Our language is full of words and expressions that are metaphorical in origin: He flew into a rage. I sat at the head of the table. She was greatly attached to her younger sister. Such metaphors are called dead or trite metaphors. They are so widely used that we no longer think of them as metaphors. 45 Sophisticated writers sometimes revive these metaphors to grant them fresh metaphorical force. Metaphor is a change of meaning based on the transfer of the name from one object onto another on the basis of similarity. Sometimes it is called hidden comparison. There are different kinds of similarity: Similarity of form – head of cabbage Similarity of position – head of stairs Similarity of function – head of family Similarity of colour – pink collar jobs Similarity of manner – caterpillar Linguistic metaphors are devoid of imagery. Artistic metaphors are used for creating special stylistic effect, e.g., a balloon on legs. Trite/dead metaphors – face of the clock, foot of the mountain, mouth of the river. Zoomorphic metaphors characterize human beings through likening them to animals, e.g., a fox, a pig, a swine. Zoomorphic metaphors are often converted into verbs, e.g., to fox, to dog, to monkey. There is a particular type of metaphor, that is use of proper names as a common noun. Here certain qualities are personified, e.g., an Adonis, a Don Juan, an Apollo. Metaphor is regarded as a universal process, models we think by. To illustrate the model working we can take perceptual metaphors. We will begin with an example of metaphor of emotions. Emotions are abstract feelings and so it is only natural that we would use other source fields to talk about the target field of emotions. These perceptions are clear in the metaphors we use for love and anger. Body heat All hot and bothered Pressure Burst in blood vessel Agitation Shaking with anger Hopping mad All worked up Interference with perception Blind with rage Body is a container Filled with anger, love, despair, loneliness Brimming with happiness Emotion is the heat of a fluid in a container You make my blood boil Emotion increases, the fluid rises Anger welled up 46 In a towering rage Felt her gorge rise It produces steam, pressure, explosion All steamed up, fuming She blew up Blew a fuse Set me off explosive Part of a container goes up in the air Blew my stack, flipped her lid, hit the ceiling The fluid comes out Poured out her love, oozed sweetness, she had kittens, had a cow Metonymy Metonymy is a type of semantic change based on the transferring the name of one object onto another on the basis of contiguity. There are certain semantic relations between the objects: Part and whole – town Container and content – cash Organs and their functions – eye Places and things made in the places – china Materials and things made of them – copper, silver, glass Symbol and things symbolized – crown Common names may be derived from proper names metonymically. The objects are named after the inventor: Physical and technical terms are named after great scientists – volt, ohm, watt. Political places and the policies pursued – Wall Street, White House. Generalization of Meaning The scope of a new notion is wider than that of the original one, whereas the content of the notion is poorer. The specific features of a notion become faded, they may be even lost. The notion is widened and the meaning becomes generalized. The degree of generalization may be very high. The meaning of the word may lose all its components except for the categorical marker, e.g., thing – pronominal substitute for practically all the nouns denoting concrete things, persons, happenings, situations. Some more examples are stuff, way, to go, to get, to have, to do. 47 Specialization of Meaning In passing from general use to some special sphere words begin to express notions with a narrower scope. The notion becomes richer. It has more features and the object is characterized more fully, e.g., deer (OE “wild beast”, ME – “wild ruminant of a particular species”) – Rats and mice and such small deer; meat (OE “food”, ME “edible flesh”) – sweetmeat. Amelioration of Meaning This process is connected with strengthening favourable good approving connotations which can become part of the denotative meaning. For example, steward/stewardess have undergone great amelioration from OE “cattleman, herdsman” to ME “passengers’ attendant on ships and airliners”. Pejoration of Meaning It is connected with strengthening disapproving evaluative connotation which can become part of the denotative meaning. This process is determined by social and psychological factors. It is mostly observed in the names of persons and reflects disdain of some social group, e.g., wench – daughter – orphan girl – morally bad girl. Irony means expressing one’s meaning by words having an opposite meaning, e.g., You’ve got us into a nice mess. A pretty mess you’ve made of it. These words may develop the opposite ironic meanings in their semantic structures. Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement not meant to be understood literally but expressing an intensely emotional attitude of the speaker to what he is speaking about. Hyperbole is a characteristic feature of women’s speech. Some of the most emphatic words are: absolutely, awfully, terribly, lovely, magnificent, splendid. For example, I haven’t seen you for ages. You will be the death of me! Litotes means expressing the affirmative by the negation of its contrary, e.g., not bad, not half bad. Sometimes there is no negation in the litotes, but a word expressing a smaller degree of some quality is used to express a high degree. Litotes is a characteristic feature of men’s speech, e.g., Rather/very – I could do with a cup of tea. Euphemism means substitution of words with mild connotation for rough, unpleasant, or otherwise unmentionable words. Euphemism is due to social, religious and cultural factors. Taboo is one of these factors. The word lavatory has produced many euphemisms – loo, powder room, washroom, restroom, retiring room, public station, comfort station, ladies’, gentlemen’s, water-closet (WC), public convenience, Windsor Castle (a comical phrase). Pass away is a euphemism for die, agent for spy, dentures for false teeth. 48 Euphemisms are particularly common for the processes of reproduction and excretion and for activities, people, and parts of the body involved in these processes. People vary in what they consider to be offensive, and toleration for blunt language also varies from period to period. A euphemism may eventually acquire unpleasant associations and give way to later euphemisms: toilet and lavatory, themselves euphemisms, are frequently replaced by other euphemisms, such as cloakroom. Euphemisms can be used legitimately for politeness and tact, but they are dishonest when they are used to avoid facing unpleasant activities or to conceal and deceive. Dishonest uses are frequent in political and military language: Hitler’s plan for the extermination of the Jews was called the final solution, protective custody has been used for imprisonment, industrial action for strikers, police action for war, and armed reconnaissance for bombing.whole new generation of U.S. and European naturalistic Genteelism is a kind of euphemism, which means the substitution of a mild or indirect expression for one that might be offensive. Many euphemisms are entirely justified. We use them not only for decency, with reference to bodily parts and functions, but out of generous feelings towards people whom we should otherwise have to call poor, fat, old, crippled, or stupid. But the kind of euphemism here called genteelism is favoured by people who think the frank and obvious word is vulgar. Since the most effective users of the language are seldom afraid of being frank, it is a mistake to try to sound genteel. QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. What is the subject matter of semasiology? What are the main trends in defining meaning? What is lexical meaning? What is grammatical meaning? What is the difference between lexical meaning and notion? What is motivation? What types of motivation do you know? What is polysemy? What types of polysemy are known to you? What are the peculiar features of the types of semantic change? 49 CHAPTER 2 SYNONYMY. ANTONYMY. HOMONYMY. HYPONYMY 1. 2. 3. 4. The Definition of Synonymy. Types of Synonyms Antonyms. Types of Antonyms Homonyms. Types of Homonyms. Split Polysemy Hyponymy 1. The Definition of Synonymy. Types of Synonyms Synonyms are words that share meanings. Dictionaries traditionally provide a list of words that are more or less synonymous for each entry. A thesaurus, too, presents synonyms, but it also gives words whose meanings are opposites (antonyms). We assume that synonyms refer to the same entity. If all features are the same, the words should be interchangeable. However, native speakers will consistently select among them in similar ways. For example, we might assign the same features to cease and to stop and yet realize that cease is most often selected in legal discourse. A mother is unlikely to say, “Cease that!” to a misbehaving child. Such words may be synonymous, but they survive in the language because there are differences in the ways and situations in which they are used. Of course, synonyms do not usually share all the features. We often use synonyms to make our lexical choices more precise. Dictionaries list synonyms as words with similar meanings. But murder is a synonym of kill but does not list kill as a synonym for murder. One of the most important ways that we make text hold together is with the use of synonyms. They convey different shades of meanings. In trying to understand the ways in which we assign meanings to words, cognitive psychologists and linguists use two terms: core and prototype. Core relates to meanings of a particular word which are most central, primary, or invariant. The core meaning of break is that of breaking an object such as a cup, not the breaking of waves on the shore. A prototype is a best instance of the concept bird and oak might be a prototype best instance of the concept tree. In any language grouping of words is based upon similarities and contrasts. Every language has in its vocabulary a variety of words close in meaning but having distinct morphemic composition, phonemic shape and usage. The more developed the language, the richer the diversity and, therefore, the greater the possibilities of lexical choice. Synonymy is one of the most controversial problems in modern linguistics. The very existence of words called synonyms is hotly debated and treated in quite different way by the representatives of different linguistic schools. The way synonyms function may be seen from the following examples: I have always liked you very much, I ad50 mire your talent, but, forgive me – I could never love you as a wife should love her husband. In the following extract, a young woman rejects a proposal of marriage, the verbs like, admire and love all describe feelings of attraction, approbation, fondness. The second extract depicts a young father taking his child for a Sunday walk, e.g., Neighbours were apt to smile at the longlegged bare-headed young man leisurely strolling along the street and his small companion demurely trotting by his size. The synonyms stroll and trot vividly describe two different styles of walking, the long slow paces of the young man and the gait between a walk and a run of the short-legged child. All these synonyms express the most delicate shades of thought, feeling and imagination. And a carefully chosen word from a group of synonyms is a great asset not only on the printed page but also in a speaker’s utterance. Traditionally, synonyms are the two or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical denotational meaning. But many linguists are still uncertain which words should correctly be considered as synonyms. There are several criteria to define synonyms in contemporary linguistics: Conceptual criterion – synonyms are defined as words of the same category of part of speech conveying the same concept but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics. Some aspects of this theory have been criticized. It has been pointed out that linguistic phenomena should be defined in linguistic terms and that the use of the term concept makes this an extra linguistic definition. Semantic criterion is used in contemporary research on synonymy. In terms of componential analysis synonyms may be defined as words with the same denotation but differing in connotative components. A group of synonyms can be taken and analyzed with the help of their dictionary definitions comparatively. By the transformational operations we can single out the semantic components of each analyzed word. The criterion of interchangeability is sometimes applied in modern research on synonymy. According to this, synonyms are defined as words which are interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning. The criterion of interchangeability has been much criticized. The substitution of one word for another is possible, but each synonym creates an entirely new situation. There are not so many synonyms which are interchangeable. Synonyms are words only similar, but not identical in meaning. They can be interchangeable in some contexts only. Taken together these three approaches represent a good theoretical basis for further consideration and development of synonymy. Synonyms are two or more words that possess almost the same general meaning. If we take, for instance, synonyms face and visage, we’ll see that 51 they come together as they both denote the front part of human head. Large and big are synonymous as they indicate a considerable size. Tell and relate are synonymous as their general meaning is “to give information”. Synonyms are usually arranged into synonymic groups or sets. The number of words that constitute a synonymic group is not strictly limited and differs with every dictionary or book on lexicology. It usually depends on the principles which lie at the basis of grouping synonyms. A synonymic set may range from two words, e.g., enemy, foe to more lexical units, e.g., beautiful, handsome, pretty, fair, bonny, comely, beauteous, good-looking, attractive. Every set of synonyms presents its own problems as two or more words may be synonymous without being semantically identical. Few words in a language are identical in meaning. Such words are usually found in terminology. Thus, in linguistics the terms noun and substantive, functional affix, flexion and inflexion are synonymous. In medicine there are two names for the same disease typhlitis and caecitis. In lexicology the terms semantics and semasiology are identical in meaning. Synonyms are characterized by either the semantic relations of equivalence or by the semantic relations of proximity. Classification of Synonyms Taking into account the difference of synonyms by three aspects of their meaning (denotational, the connotational and the pragmatic aspect) they are classified into: Stylistic synonyms imply no interchangeability in context because the underlying situations are different, e.g., children – infants, dad – father. Stylistic synonyms are similar in the denotational aspect of meaning, but different in the pragmatic (and connotational) aspect. Substituting one stylistic synonym for another results in an inadequate presentation of the situation of communication. Ideographic synonyms present a still lower degree of semantic proximity and are observed when the connotational and the pragmatic aspects are similar, but there are certain differences in the denotational aspect of meaning of two words, e.g., forest – wood, apartment – flat, shape – form. Ideographic-stylistic synonyms are characterized by the lowest degree of semantic proximity. This type of synonyms includes synonyms which differ both in the denotational and the connotational and/or the pragmatic aspects of meaning, e.g., ask – inquire, expect – anticipate. All synonyms are grouped into synonymic sets. In each synonymic set there is a synonymic dominant that possesses the highest frequency of use compared with other synonyms in a group. Synonymic dominant is the most general term potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the other members of the synonymic group, e.g., leave, depart, quit, retire, clear 52 out. Its role and position in relation to its synonyms is of some importance as it presents a kind of center of the group of synonyms. Its semantic structure is quite simple because it has only denotative component of meaning and is devoid of connotations. The dominant synonym expresses the notion common to all synonyms of the group in the most general way, without contributing any additional information as to the manner, intensity, duration, or any attending feature of the referent. So, any dominant synonym is a typical basicvocabulary word. Its meaning, which is broad and generalized, more or less “covers” the meanings of the rest of the synonyms, so it may be substituted for any of them. In this case we face loss of additional information supplied by connotative components of synonyms. 2. Antonyms. Types of Antonyms Antonyms constitute a class of words grouped together on the basis of the semantic relations of opposition. Antonyms are words belonging to one part of speech sharing certain common semantic characteristics and in this respect they are similar to such semantic classes as synonyms, lexical sets, lexico-semantic groups. Classification of antonyms Structurally, antonyms can be divided into antonyms of the same root, e.g., to do – to undo, cheerful – cheerless; and antonyms of different roots, e.g., day – night, rich – poor. Semantically, antonyms may be classified into contradictories, contraries and incompatibles. Contradictories represent the type of semantic relations that exist between pairs like, for example, dead – alive, single – married. Contradictory antonyms are mutually opposed, they deny one another. Contradictories form a privative binary opposition, they are members of two-term sets. To use one of the words is to contradict the other and to use 'not' before one of them is to make it semantically equivalent to the other: not dead = alive; not single = married. Contraries are antonyms that can be arranged into a series according to the increasing difference in one of their qualities. The most distant elements of this series will be classified as contrary notions. Contraries are gradable antonyms, they are polar members of a gradual opposition which may have intermediate elements. This may be observed in cold – hot and cool – warm which are intermediate members. Thus, we may regard as antonyms not only cold and hot, but also cold and warm. Contrary antonyms may also be considered in terms of degrees of the quality involved. Thus, water may be cold or very cold, and water in one glass may be colder than in another glass. Incompatibles are antonyms which are characterized by the relations of exclusion. Semantic relations of incompatibility exist among antonyms with a 53 common component of meaning and may be described as the reverse of hyponymy. For example, to say morning is to say not afternoon, not evening, not night. The use of one member of this set implies the exclusion of the other members of the set. 3. Homonyms. Types of Homonyms. Split Polysemy Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of these aspects, but differing in meaning. The term is derived from Greek “homos”, meaning similar and “onoma”, meaning name. English vocabulary is rich in such pairs and even groups of words. Their identical forms are mostly accidental. The majority of homonyms coincided due to the phonetic changes which they suffered during their development. In the process of communication they are more of an encumbrance leading sometimes to confusion or misunderstanding. This characteristic makes homonyms one of the most important sources of popular humour, e.g.: Waiter! Yes, sir. What’s this? It’s bean soup, sir. Never mind what it has been. I want to know what it is now. Classification of Homonyms The most widely accepted classification is that recognizing homonyms proper, homophones and homographs. Homonyms proper are homonyms which have the same pronunciation and spelling, but differ in meaning, e.g., sound, sound, sound, sound; saw, saw, saw; school, school; mole, mole, mole; blow, blow, blow. Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning, e.g., buy, bye, by; piece, peace; scent, cent, sent; write, right, rite. Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling, e.g., lead (v), lead (n); wind (n), wind (v); row (n), row (n). The subdivision of homonyms into homonyms proper, homophones and homographs is not precise enough and doesn’t reflect certain important features of these words. Homonyms may belong both to the same or to different categories of parts of speech. Classification of homonyms should reflect this distinctive feature. The paradigm of each word should be considered. Professor Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes: full homonyms and partial homonyms. Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of part of speech and have the same paradigm, e.g., match, match. Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups: 54 Simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words which belong to the same category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it’s never the same form, e.g., to found, found (to find). Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of parts of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms, e.g., one, won; maid, made; rose, rose. Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms, e.g., to lie (lay, lain); to lie (lied, lied); can (could); to can (canned, canned). Sources of Homonymy Phonetic change – words undergo changes in the course of their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words which were originally pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and become homonymous, e.g., night, knight in OE were not homonymous, as the initial [k] was pronounced, in ME the initial [k] is not pronounced. Borrowings can be considered to be one more source of borrowings. A borrowed word in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation may duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing, e.g., write – native; right – native; rite – Latin. Word-building (conversion, shortening, sound-imitation) also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy. The most productive type here is conversion, e.g., comb – to comb, pale – to pale, au pair – to au pair. Homonyms of this type are the same in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of speech. Shortening also increases the number of homonyms, e.g., fan – enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer, etc; fan (Latin borrowing) – an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air. Sound-imitation forms pairs of homonyms with other words, e.g., bang – a loud, sudden, explosive noise; bang – a fringe of hair. Split Polysemy Two or more homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when for some reason, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word presents a system within which all its constituent meanings are held together by logical associations. In most cases, the function of the arrangement and the unity is determined by one of the meanings. If this meaning happens to disappear from the word’s semantic structure, semantic structure loses its unity and falls into two or more parts which then become independent lexical units, e.g., board – a long and thin piece of timber; board – daily meals, room and board; board – an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity. 55 The study of homonymy in speech is complicated by paronymy. By paronyms we mean words which because of similarity of sound or partial identity of morphemic structure can be erroneously or punningly used in speech, e.g., proscribe – prescribe, affect – effect, allusion – illusion. 4. Hyponymy Hyponymy is a relationship existing between specific and general lexical items in that the meaning of the specific item is included in, and by, the meaning of the more general item. Hyponymy is a kind of asymmetrical synonymy; its basic organization is hierarchical. Tulips and roses are cohyponyms, they are linked by their common inclusion under a superordinate (or hypernym) flower in whose class they belong. The word house is a hyponym of building (which is its superordinate), but it also serves itself as a superordinate of another set of hyponyms. BUILDING Factory Hospital House Museum Theatre School Cottage Bungalow Villa Mansion QUESTIONS 1. 2. How are synonyms traditionally defined? What is the definition of synonyms in the frames of contemporary linguistics? 3. The meanings of two apparent synonyms may be in a way opposed to each other. Why are such words still regarded as synonyms? Give examples. 4. What is the classification of synonyms? 5. Which word in a synonymic group is considered to be the dominant synonym? What are its characteristic features? 6. Which words do we classify as antonyms? 7. What words do we traditionally call homonyms? 8. What are the distinctive features of the classification of homonyms suggested by A.I. Smirnitsky? 9. What is understood by the term split polysemy? 10. What is hyponymy? 56 PART 3 CHAPTER 1 STYLISTIC STRATIFICATION OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY 1. 2. 3. 4. Lexical Layers The Formal Layer of English Vocabulary The Informal Layer of English Vocabulary Standard English 1. Lexical Layers With regard to the sphere of usage all the words fall into two groups: Neutral words, which can be used in any sphere of communication, e.g., to go, to make, to do, thing; Words with a limited sphere of communication, which can be used in learned or poetic texts, or in formal conversation. They are called stylistically coloured words. Stylistically coloured words are subdivided into two groups: formal (official) and informal (colloquial). Formal vocabulary consists of terms, learned official vocabulary, poetic and archaic words. Informal vocabulary is made up of familiar colloquial words, slang, dialectisms, and vulgarisms. The boundaries between these layers are not clear cut. Words can travel from one layer into another, e.g., many terms have become part of neutral vocabulary, such as radio, television, football. And otherwise, many slang words became part of neutral vocabulary, e.g., donkey, to tackle, teenager, to bang for the bucks. Besides between neutral and stylistically coloured layer there may be words and expressions equally important for these layers, they occupy an intermediate position between them, e.g., fastidious, to fascinate. They are characterized as common literary and can be used either in colloquial conversation or in literary conversational style. Between neutral and informal vocabulary there is also a group of common colloquial vocabulary which stands between them. The criterion of the reference of the word to this or that layer is not absolutely reliable, but it is the only criterion existing now. A word may belong to the neutral layer if it sounds neutral in any kind of communication. In all other cases, it produces an unintentional comical effect, especially when placed in another layer or when it jars upon the ear in a different style. In this case it belongs to a stylistically coloured layer. 57 2. The Formal Layer of English Vocabulary Formal English is more common in writing than in speaking. It is found in notices, business letters and legal English, but there are some examples of such words in spoken English. Theatre announcement: The play will commence (start) in two minutes. Formal letter: I regret to inform you (I am sorry to say) that we are unable (can’t) grant (give) you….. Outside a pub: Parking for patrons (customers) only. Terms A term is a word or a word-group which is used to express a special notion of some field of knowledge, production, sport, culture, etc. Terms are, in many respects, particular types of words. An ideal term should be monosemantic. Its meaning remains constant until some new discovery or invention changes the referent or the notion. Being mostly independent of the context, a term can have no contextual meaning. A term is intended to ensure a one-toone correspondence between morphological arrangement and context. No emotional colouring can be possible when the term is used within its proper sphere. A term can obtain a figurative or emotionally coloured meaning only when taken out of its sphere and used in literary or colloquial speech. Every branch of science develops its own special terminology. Special terminology is not only a mere sum of terms but a definite system reflecting the system of its notions. Terminological systems may be regarded as sets of terms belonging simultaneously to several terminological systems. Terms are not separated from the rest of the vocabulary. With the development of science and technology special terms have become known to everybody. Are we justified to call such words as vitamin, sedative, inoculation, antenna, software, hardware terms? In this respect, many terms can lose their specific terminological character and become similar to all common words of the language. The origin of terms shows some general sources: Formation of terms from terminological phrases by means of clipping, blending, abbreviation, e.g., transistor receiver – transistor – trannie; television text – teletext; ecological architecture – ecotecture; extremely low frequency – ELF; The use of combining forms from Latin and Greek like cyclotron, microfilm, supersonic, telegraph, telemechanics; Borrowing from other terminological systems within the same language. Sea terminology, for example, lent many words to aviation vocabulary, which in its turn made the starting point of space terminology. 58 Learned Words and Official Vocabulary In addition to terms, there is a considerable part of learned words, such as approximately, indicate, include, initial, feasible etc. This layer is especially rich in adjectives. All learned words have their everyday synonyms. The learned layer of vocabulary is characterized by lexical suppletion. This term is used for pairs like Mouth – oral; Nose – nasal; Eye – ocular; Mind – mental; Son – filial; Ox – bovine; Worm – vermicular; House – domestic; The Middle Ages – medieval; Book – literary; Moon – lunar; Sun – solar; Star – stellar/sideral; Town – urban; Man – human; Money – monetary/pecuniary; Letter – epistolary; School – scholastic. All these adjectives can characterize something through their relation to the object named by the noun. There exist also adjectives of the same root. The learned vocabulary comprises: some archaic connectives not used elsewhere, e.g., hereby, hereafter, hereupon, whereafter, wherein, whereupon; double conjunctions, e.g., moreover, furthermore, however, such as; group conjunctions, e.g., in consequence; set expressions used in academic texts, e.g., as follows, as early as, in terms of. Learned official words have their neutral equivalents, e.g., Accommodation – room; Comestibles – food; Conveyance – carriage; Dispatch – send off; Donation – gift; Forenoon – morning; 59 Summon – send for; Sustain – suffer. Poetic Diction There is no such thing as one poetic style in the English language. The language a poet uses is closely connected with his or her outlook and experience. There are words in English that have been traditionally used only in poetic texts. These words have poetic connotations. Their usage was typical of poetic conventions in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nouns: array – clothes; billow – wave; brine – salt water; gore – blood; Verbs: behold – see; deem – think; slay – kill; Adjectives: fair – beautiful; hapless – unhappy; lone – lonely; murky – grim; Adverbs: anon – presently; nigh – almost; oft – often; Pronouns: thee – you; aught – anything; naught – nothing; Conjunctions: albeit – although; ere – before. 3. The Informal Layer of English Vocabulary Informal vocabulary is used in one’s immediate circle: family, relatives or friends. One uses informal words when at home or when feeling at home. Informal language is more common in spoken English than in written English. Informal style is relaxed, free-and-easy, familiar, and unpretentious. But informal talk of well-educated people considerably differs from that of the illiterate or the semi-educated; the choice of words with adults is different from the vocabulary of the teenagers; people living in provinces use certain regional words and expressions. The choice of words is determined in each particular case not only by an informal or formal situation, but also by the speaker’s educational and cultural background, age group and his occupational and regional characteristics. Informal words are traditionally divided into three types: colloquial, slang and dialect words. Colloquial and Literary Colloquial Words Colloquial words are used by everybody, their sphere of communication is wide. Literary colloquial are informal words that are used in everyday conversational speech both by cultivated and uneducated people of all age groups but mostly older generation. The sphere of communication of literary colloquial words also includes the printed page. Vast use of informal words is one of the prominent features of the 20th century English and American literature. Literary colloquial words are to be distinguished from familiar colloquial. The borderline between the literary and colloquial is not always clearly marked. The number of speakers using familiar colloquial is more limited: 60 these words are mostly used by the young and the semieducated. It is more emotional and more free. Familiar and literary colloquial words have some features in common: Only a small number of words are in actual use, these words are highly polysemantic. Words of broad meaning are very frequent. There are a lot of readymade formula. Set expressions are very frequent. Many phrasal verbs are informal. For these layers are also typical: nouns converted from verbs, converted verbs, substantivized adjectives, words derived by composition or substantivation, intensifiers are very frequent. Slang Slang includes expressive, mostly ironical words serving to create fresh names for those objects which are often mentioned in speech. These objects belong to money, class, drugs, drinking, music, modern dance, people. Slang helps to make speech vivid, colourful and interesting. It is mainly used in speech, but it can also be found in the popular press. It can be risky for someone who is not a native speaker to use slang: Some slang expressions can cause offence to some sections of the population. Slang words date very quickly. Different generations used different slang expressions. The following words were used to say that something was “wonderful” at different periods of time: Pre-war – top-hole 1940s – wizard 1960s – fab, groovy 1970s – ace, cosmic 1980s – brill, wicked Slang can be general and special. General slang words are figurative words and expressions of emotional and evaluative colouring generally understandable and widely spread in colloquial speech. General slang has a range of peculiar features: General slang is widely spread and understandable for all social strata of the society. General slang has a marked emotional and evaluative character with the predominance of the expressive function over the nominative one. General slang is relatively stable. 61 General slang is heterogeneous. General slang has phonetic, morphological and syntactic peculiarities. Special slang words are words or expressions of this or that class jargon. Some particular types of special slang: Cockney – has a rhyming structure, e.g., Trouble and strife, Apples and pears, Cain and Abel, Lean and lurch; Back slang – secret language used to communicate with each other with the help of peculiar code unfamiliar to other people, e.g., police – slop, woman – namow, market – tekram, yes – say, took – cool, good – doog; Centre/Medial slang. This form of slang appeared later than back slang. The concealing of the form goes not through turning over the most important words, but through splitting these words half by half on a vowel or diphthong and putting its first part before the second. Sometimes the sound [h] is added at the beginning of a new word or suffixes -mer, -fer, -ee, e.g., mug – hugmer, flat – hatfer, language – anguaagela, sweet – eetswe, fool – oolfoo. Dialectisms Dialectisms are words used by a subgroup of speakers of the language. The word croft is a word used in parts of Scotland for the houses of tenants on an estate. This is a regional dialect word. In the southern provinces of Otago and Southland in New Zealand, locals may call a holiday cottage a crib, while northerners call it a bach. When authors convey the regional dialect speech of their characters they use dialect words. If an author chooses a word which is spoken only in the area in which his story is set, then what the character says may be obscure to the reader, whereas if the words are common in other dialects, then the regional flavour of the speaker may not be clear. Analyze the following abstract: “Bide a bee – bide a wee; you southrons are aye in sic a hurry, and this is something concerns yourself, an ye wad tak patience to hear’t – Yill? – deil a drap o’yill did Pate offer me; but Mattie gae us baith a drap o’skimmed milk, and ane o’her thick ait jannocks, that was a wat and raw as a divot. – O, for the bonnie girdie-cakes o’the North! – and sae we sat doun and took out our clavers”. Dialect words remain outside the literary norm, but some words have penetrated into the neutral vocabulary. Authors who want to represent the social status of the speakers will often include social dialect words. Social dialect vocabularies are determined on the basis of the social class or status of the speaker. For example, what you call the toilet tends to be part of your social dialect. Some people might call it a loo. 62 Specialist Vocabulary A speaker has a regional, social and ethnic dialect vocabulary because of where he or she comes from, either regionally, socially or ethnically. But every speaker is also in command of a number of specialist vocabularies that are related to particular interests and occupations. Doctors when they are speaking as doctors to other doctors or their patients, use some vocabulary items that are peculiar to their occupation. So do the surfies and drug addicts. Rock musicians have also their special words. Here is a piece of scientific writing. Notice how difficult it is to understand because of the special technical vocabulary: Assuming conversions of gluons into sea quark-antiquark pairs, any gluon contribution is implicitly taken into account in the sea quark distribution. Jargon and Vulgarisms Specialized vocabulary that is incomprehensible to the general public is known as jargon when it is addressed to the general public. Technical terms sometimes enter the common vocabulary. Depending on their level of education and experience, many ordinary readers can understand them sufficiently to make sense of the passage in which they occur. For instance, software (computers), habeas corpus (law), leukaemia (medicine). Vulgarisms refer to 2 groups: expletives, abusive words and obscene words (dirty language, mostly taboo). 4. Standard English Neutral vocabulary, common literary words, common terms, on the one hand, and common colloquial words and expressions, on the other, form the so-called Standard English vocabulary. Standard English is the official variety of the English language spoken and understood everywhere where English is used. It is the variety of English that is taught at schools and universities, used by the press, radio and television. By Educated English we must not understand Standard English. Speakers of this kind of English do not necessarily submerge all signs of social or geographical origin. Their accent is often local or characteristic of the class. Educated English is spoken by all classes of people all over the world. This is the only kind of English that has the remotest chance of universality even in Great Britain. 63 QUESTIONS 1. What two classes do the words fall into according to the sphere of communication? 2. What lexical units do the formal and informal vocabularies include? 3. What are the main features of terms? 4. What are the characteristic features of learned official vocabulary? 5. How can poetic diction be defined? 6. What words constitute the informal layer of English vocabulary? 7. What do colloquial, familiar colloquial words have in common? 8. What is slang? What are the types of slang? 9. What part of the whole vocabulary of the language do dialectisms and specialist words occupy? 10. What is Standard English? 64 PART 4 CHAPTER 1 ETYMOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The Wordstock of English Borrowing in English Assimilation of Borrowed Words Barbarisms, Etymological Doublets and International Words Eponymy 1. The Wordstock of English Etymology is a science that deals with origin and history of words. English has a mixed character. The wordstock of English is represented by native words (25 % of the whole vocabulary) and borrowed words (75 % of the whole vocabulary). The Germanic tribes that settled in Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries (traditionally identified as Angles, Saxons and Jutes) brought with them the dialects of German that they had spoken in their home territories (thought to be in pairs of what are now Germany and Denmark). As far back as the earliest written records in the language (dated about 700) their language was called English, a name derived from that of the tribe of the Angles. Many of the basic words in our language are Germanic, retained from the early English period, for example, child, mother, father, house, room, bed, door, body, head, arm, leg, foot, eat, drink, be, have, go, come, and, but, if, so, yet, day, night, week, month, year, bread, milk, meat, fish. English has constantly borrowed words and phrases from other languages, and most have become fully naturalized. Some familiar words retain one or more indications of their foreign origin: their plural is not typically English, e.g., datum – data, bacterium – bacteria. Some borrowed words retain their original accents (protégé); or they have spellings that diverge from the usual spellingpronunciation correspondences (concerto, debris). Some borrowings are well-naturalized in English: café, ad hoc, a priori, bête noire, laissez-faire. There are situations where a borrowed term has no reasonable English equivalent: manqué, détente (French), imbroglio (Italian), schadenfreude (German). 65 2. Borrowing in English All languages borrow words from other languages. English borrowed an extremely large number of lexical items from French during the occupation period which followed the Norman Conquest in 1066. Legal occupation meant that terms for the court, law, and property would enter English from French. And so, while English terms like king and queen survived, French provided the new words, e.g., sovereign, crown, state, and government. Thief and steal are English terms, but burglar comes from French, along with such law terms as accuse, plea, fee, and attorney general. Because the French took military control, we find enemy, danger, soldier, and guard added to the lexicon. The influence of the church brought new terms, too, like religion, service, virgin, and trinity. And, of course, the language of food also changed. Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe popularized the saying that while the names of many animals in their lifetime are English, e.g., cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer, they appear on the table as French beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison. All cultures that have contact are likely to borrow words from other languages. English has words borrowed from almost every language of the world. Immigrants from many parts of the world have brought their languages to enrich English. Many words in English have a Spanish origin. Borrowing is a sociolinguistic process which is not always appreciated by all members of the language community. In countries that have a language academy, there is usually an attempt to keep the language “pure” by prohibiting borrowed words. For example, France, by law, has tried to prevent the use of English words in French. Borrowed words may be marked as such by keeping the original pronunciation and spelling of the word. However, if the word is used for any length of time, changes begin to occur and the pronunciation and spelling become closer to the borrowing language. A distinction needs to be made between lexical borrowing and language mixing. In borrowing, the words become part of language and are used by the speakers of that language as though they were native lexical items. We all use terms like garage (French), confetti (Italian), vodka (Russian), goulash (Hungarian), and robot (Czech) without much thought of their origin. In language mixing and switching, the words are momentarily borrowed by individual speakers in order to create certain effects. The novelists mentioned earlier borrowed words from other languages into English in a manner that made them be part of that language within the world of the novel. Borrowed words (or loan words or borrowings) are words taken over from another language and modified according to the patterns of the receiving language. 66 The number of borrowings in the vocabulary of a language and the role played by them is determined by the historical development of the nation speaking the language. The most effective way of borrowing is direct borrowing from another language as the result of contacts with the people of another country or with their literature. There are different ways of classifying the borrowed stock of words. First of all, the borrowed stock of words may be classified according to the nature of the borrowing itself as borrowings proper, translation loans and semantic loans. Translation loans are words or expressions formed from the elements existing in the English language according to the patterns of the source language, e.g., the moment of truth – sp. el momento de la verdad. A semantic loan is borrowing of a meaning for a word already existing in the English language, e.g., the compound word shock brigade which existed in the English language with the meaning "аварийная бригада" acquired a new meaning "ударная бригада" which it borrowed from the Russian language. Phonetic loans are loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and meaning. They undergo assimilation, each sound in the borrowed word is substituted by the corresponding sound of the borrowing language. In some cases the spelling is changed. The structure of the word can also be changed. The position of the stress is very often influenced by the phonetic system of the borrowing language. The paradigm of the word and sometimes the meaning of the borrowed word are also changed, e.g., labour, travel, table, chair, people (French); apparatchik, nomenklatura, sputnik (Russian). Latin Loans are classified into the subgroups: Early Latin Loans. Those are the words which came into English through the language of Anglo-Saxon tribes. The tribes had been in contact with Roman civilisation and had adopted several Latin words denoting objects belonging to that civilisation long before the invasion of Angles, Saxons and Jutes into Britain, e.g., cup, kitchen, mill, port, wine. Later Latin Borrowings. To this group belong the words which penetrated the English vocabulary in the sixth and seventh centuries, when the people of England were converted to Christianity, e.g., priest, bishop, nun, candle. The third period of Latin includes words which came into English due to two historical events: the Norman conquest in 1066 and the Renaissance or the Revival of Learning. Some words came into English through French but some were taken directly from Latin e.g., major, minor, intelligent, permanent. 67 The Latest Stratum of Latin Words. The words of this period are mainly abstract and scientific words, e.g., nylon, molecular, vaccine, phenomenon, vacuum. Norman-French Borrowings may be subdivided into subgroups: Early loans – 12th–15th century. Later loans – beginning from the 16th century. The Early French borrowings are simple short words, naturalised in accordance with the English language system, e.g., state, power, war, pen, river. Later French borrowings can be identified by their peculiarities of form and pronunciation e.g., regime, police, ballet, scene, bourgeois. The Etymological Structure of English Vocabulary The native element I. Indo-European element II. Germanic element III. English proper element (brought by Angles, Saxons and Jutes not earlier than 5th c. A.D.) The borrowed element 1. Celtic (5th–6th c. A.D.) 2. Latin 1st group: lst c. B.C. 2nd group: 7th c. A.D. 3d group: the Renaissance period Scandinavian (8th–11th c. A.D.) French a) Norman borrowings: 11th –13th c. A.D. b) Parisian borrowings: (Renaissance) 3. Greek (Renaissance) 4. Italian (Renaissance and later) 5. Spanish (Renaissance and later) 6. German 7. Indian and others The most characteristic feature of English is usually said to be its mixed character. Many linguists consider foreign influence, especially that of French, to be the most important factor in the history of English. This widespread viewpoint is supported only by the evidence of the English wordstock, as its grammar and phonetic system are very stable and not easily influenced by other languages. While it is altogether wrong to speak of the mixed character of the language as a whole, the composite nature of the English vocabulary cannot be denied. Almost all words of Anglo-Saxon origin belong to very important semantic groups. They include most of the auxiliary and modal verbs, e.g., shall, will, must, can, may, etc., pronouns I, you, he, 68 my, his, who, etc., prepositions in, out, on, under, etc., numerals one, two, three, four, etc. and conjunctions and, but, till, as, etc. Notional words of Anglo-Saxon origin include such groups as words denoting parts of the body head, hand, arm, back, etc., members of the family and closest relatives father, mother, brother, son, wife, natural phenomena and planets snow, rain, wind, sun, moon, star, etc., animals horse, cow, sheep, cat, qualities and properties old, young, cold, hot, light, dark, long, common actions do, make, go, come, see, hear, eat, etc. Most of the native words have undergone great changes in their semantic structure and as a result are nowadays polysemantic, e.g., the word finger does not only denote a part of a hand as in Old English, but also 1) the part of a glove covering one of the fingers, 2) a finger-like part in various machines, 3) a hand of a clock, 4) an index, 5) a unit of measurement. Highly polysemantic are the words man, head, hand, go, etc. Most native words possess a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency. Many of them enter a number of phraseological units, e.g., the word heel enters the following units: heel over head or head over heels – 'upside down'; cool one's heels – 'be kept waiting'; show a clean pair of heels, take to one's heels – 'run away', turn on one's heels – 'turn sharply round', etc. Borrowings enter the language in two ways: through oral speech (by immediate contact between the peoples) and through written speech (by indirect contact through books, etc.). Oral borrowing took place chiefly in the early periods of history, whereas in recent times written borrowing gained importance. Words borrowed orally, e.g., L. inch, mill, street are usually short and they undergo considerable changes in the act of adoption. Written borrowings, e.g., Fr. communiqué, belles-lettres, naïveté preserve their spelling and some peculiarities of their sound-form, their assimilation is a long and laborious process. 3. Assimilation of Borrowed Words Assimilation is the process of changing the adopted word. The process of assimilation of borrowings includes changes in sound form, morphological structure, grammar characteristics, meaning, and usage. There are several types of assimilation: Phonetic assimilation comprises changes in sound form and stress. Sounds that were alien to the English language were fitted into its scheme of sounds, e.g., in the recent French borrowings communique, cafe the last [e] is rendered with the help of [ei]. The accent is usually transferred to the first syllable in the words from foreign sources. The degree of phonetic adaptation depends on the period of borrowing: the earlier the period is the more com69 pleted is this adaptation. While such words as "table", "plate" borrowed from French in the 8th – 11th centuries can be considered fully assimilated, later Parisian borrowings (15th c.) such as regime, valise, café are still pronounced in a French manner. Grammatical adaption is usually a less lasting process because in order to function adequately in the recipient language a borrowing must completely change its paradigm. Though there are some well-known exceptions as plural forms of the English Renaissance borrowings – datum pl. data, criterion – pl. criteria and others. The process of semantic assimilation has many forms: narrowing of meanings (usually polysemantic words are borrowed in one of the meanings); specialisation or generalisation of meanings, acquiring new meanings in the recipient language, shifting a primary meaning to the position of a secondary meaning. Completely assimilated borrowings are the words, which have undergone all types of assimilation. Such words are frequently used and are stylistically neutral, they may occur as dominant words in a synonymic group. They take an active part in word-formation. Partially assimilated borrowings are the words which lack one of the types of assimilation. They are subdivided into the groups: 1) Borrowings not assimilated semantically, e.g., shah, rajah. Such words usually denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they came. 2) Loan words not assimilated grammatically, e.g., nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek which keep their original plural forms, e.g., datum – data, phenomenon – phenomena. 3) Loan words not completely assimilated phonetically. These words contain peculiarities in stress, combinations of sounds that are not standard for English, e.g., machine, camouflage, tobacco. 4) Loan words not completely assimilated graphically, e.g., ballet, cafe, cliche. 4. Barbarisms, Etymological Doublets and International Words Barbarisms Barbarisms are words from other languages used by the English people in conversation or in writing, but not assimilated in any way, and for which there are corresponding English equivalents e.g., ciao Italian – good-bye English. The borrowed stock of the English vocabulary contains not only words, but a great number of suffixes and prefixes. When these first appeared in the 70 English language they were parts of words and only later began a life of their own as word-building elements of the English language (-age, -ance, -ess, merit). Etymological Doublets The words originating from the same etymological source, but differing in phonemic shape and in meaning are called etymological doublets, e.g., shirt (native word) and skirt (a Scandinavian borrowing). Etymological doublets can enter the vocabulary by different routes, e.g., shrew (native word) and screw (Scandinavian borrowing). Etymological doublets may be represented by two borrowings from two languages which are historically descended from the same root senior (Lat.) – sir (Fr.); canal (Lat.) – channel (Fr.). Etymological doublets may be borrowed from the same language twice, but in different periods, e.g., corpse (Norm. Fr.) – corps (Par. Fr.); travel (Norm. Fr.) – travail (Par. Fr.); gaol (Norm. Fr.) – jail (Par. Fr.). A doublet may consist of a shortened word and the one from which it was derived, e.g., history – story; fantasy – fancy; fanatic – fan; defence – fence; shadow – shade. Groups of three words of common root occur rarer, e.g., hospital (Lat.) – hostel (Norm. Fr.) – hotel (Par. Fr.). International words There exist many words that were borrowed by several languages. Such words are mostly of Latin and Greek origin and convey notions which are significant in the field of communication in different countries. Here belong names of sciences, e.g., philosophy, physics, chemistry, linguistics, terms of art, e.g., music, theatre, drama, artist, comedy, political terms, e.g., politics, policy, progress. The English language became a source for international sports terms, e.g., football, hockey, cricket, rugby, tennis. 5. Eponymy Every language has words that have not been borrowed from other languages but that have developed with the language over time. These are called native words. Words are arbitrary, but we know that is not strictly true. The form of the word must fit the phonology of the language. Companies spend a lot of money trying to find exactly the right sound and letter combination for their product. Kodak is an example of a brand name that has became a general synonym for camera. List as many other brand names which have become general terms as you can. Why have they been incorporated into the general lexicon in this way? Can you think of other examples of individuals who have coined words for the language? 71 Astroturf was a word created for the grasslike synthetic covering on sports fields. On National Public Radio news, a U.S. senator talked about astroturf as mail from his constituents that did not reflect grass-roots opinion on an issue, but rather the efforts of lobbyists who get people to sign form letters. How quickly do you think that new words are used metaphorically? Can you supply additional examples? The names of inventors of products or people associated with particular products have often become the words for the products themselves. Such words are called eponyms. For example, the word maverick came from the major of San Antonio who refused to brand his cattle. Maverick then became a term for unbranded cattle, and later for anyone who took an independent stand. The word boycott is also based on the name of a real person, Captain Boycott, a retired British army captain who oversaw estates in Ireland and refused to give humanitarian concessions to his Irish tenants. They hated him so much that they ostracized him and boycott became a synonym for rejection and isolation. Place names can become common words. Camembert (cheese) and limousine are named after places in France. Charleston, the dance, is also the name of an American city. In science eponyms abound, and a definite etiquette governs how eponyms are used from field to field. In astronomy, comets are named for the first person who observes them. In other fields, scientists can only hope that their colleagues will memorialize their work in this way. Plants and birds carry the name of important researchers. QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. What is the difference between native and borrowed words? What does the term borrowing mean? What languages did the English language borrow from? What are the main periods of borrowing words in English? What borrowings are called semantic loans? What borrowings are called translation borrowings? What does the term assimilation of borrowing denote? What are the types of assimilation of borrowings in English? What does the term etymological doublet imply? What words are called international? What words are called barbarisms? How can the term eponymy be defined? 72 CHAPTER 2 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY 1. 2. 3. 4. Peculiar Features of English Vocabulary Changes of English Vocabulary Neologisms Archaisms 1. Peculiar Features of English Vocabulary English is the world’s most important language. One criterion is the number of speakers of the language. A second is the extent to which the language is geographically dispersed. A third is its functional load. A fourth is the economic and political influence of the native speakers of the language. English has also become the language of science and literature and the object of studying. The most peculiar features of the English vocabulary are: A great number of mono-disyllabic words, e.g., ask, add, age, bad, big, girl; Abnormal growth of homonymy, e.g., silence (n) – silence (v); Highly developed polysemy, e.g., pod 1. A long narrow seed container that grows on various plants. 2. A part of space vehicle that can be separated from the main part. 3. A long narrow container for petrol or other substances. The role of context is great, e.g., to catch (ловить, поймать), to wash (умываться, стирать, мыть); Phrasal verbs, set expressions are very common in English, e.g., to hurry up, to look after, to take a shower; Rich synonymic sources, e.g., to gather (E) – to assemle (F) – to collect (L); A great abundance of borrowed words Yacht, tatto Seminar, hamburger Cuisine, elite Mosquito, macho Casino, piano, ballerina Tundra, tsar, pelmeni, blini 2. Changes of English Vocabulary How many words are there in English? How many words does an average native speaker of English use in his/her everyday speech? How many words did Winston Churchill use in his writing? The word-stock of any lan73 guage is always developing. Vocabulary is sensitive to the changes in political, social and cultural life of the society. There appear a lot of new words annually. Many new words appeared due to the changes in political, economic and cultural changes, e.g., political, politics, parliamentary, the Secretary of state; lyric, epic, dramatic, fiction, critic (16th century), Jet-plane, X-rays, broadcasting, nuclear fission, antibiotics (19th century). There are many concepts in English around which new words appear and bring about changes to its vocabulary in general. In the social life sphere concept communitarism is very popular. It means collaborative living in one global and entire world. Due to this fact new words appeared in the language not long ago, e.g., collective thinking, think tank, collective responsibility. In the criminal sphere due to the appearance of the concept comunitarism it was enlarged by new words, as gangsta, steaming, wolf-pack, wilding, side-walking, jamming, drive-by. New concepts were added in the health care conceptual sphere, e.g., the 20th century syndrome (agoraphobia) and tight/sick building syndrome. The concept women’s lib also influenced greatly the appearance of new words. The vocabulary in this sphere has totally changed in the last few years due to the tendency to uni-sex: House-wife – homemaker Fisherman – fisher Stewardess – flight attendant Hairdresser – hairologist Prison – correctional facility Prison guard – correctional officer Garbage collectors – sanitation engineers/sanitation personel Negroes, black people – non-white, coloured, Afro-American, AfroCaribbean The concept homo sapiens gave birth to the following phrases: homo loquens (coach potato, mouse potato), homo agens (do-it-yourselfism, do-ityourself, DIY shop, all-at-once-ness), life-boat ethics, hard-liner, bridgebuilder, gut-lifer. 3. Neologisms Neology is a science dealing with new words in the language. A neologism is a new word, new in form and content. 800 words appear annually. This factor creates some problems for the linguists. The first is connected with finding the right ways of identification of new words and analyzing the factors which cause the emerge of new words in connection with pragmatic needs of society. Studying the models of creating the limits of using new words can also cause some problems for the linguists. Elaboration of principles of the attitude 74 to new words in different social, professional and age groups is connected with the mentioned above problems. There are two main factors of creating a new word: linguistic factor (it’s necessary to give a name to a new object of reality) and extra-linguistic factor (the development of new technologies, Internet, the brain of people producing words – “mini-word producing factory”). New words are coined because of the needs of society, as the result of new associations, as the result of homonymy elimination. All new words are created in the course of communication. New words undergo some stages of adoption and adaptation in the vocabulary system of the language: the stage of socialization, the stage of lexicalization, the acquisition of the word by the native speakers. A new word has a quality of neologism, i.e., it has a temporal connotation of newness, until the people react to it as something new. The most trendy words in English now are: DINKY, SINBAD, PC, WRINKLIES, clubbing, glass ceiling, spend more time with my family, overtired and emotional, economical with the truth, plastic. Paul McFedries (American linguist and writer) defined the following criteria for neologisms: The word is not included in the dictionaries; The first usage of the word was registered not earlier than in 1980; The word had already appeared in three different sources and was used by three different authors. Paul McFedries singled out several features of a neologism: The word should be easy for pronunciation and using in speech, e.g., democrazy (absurd democracy); The word should be easy to understand, e.g., pollutician (a politician who stands for the policy doing harm to the environment); The new word should be easily picked up and memorized by the people, e.g., gynobibliophobia (neglecting women writers); The new word should not create a gap for the people of other generations, e.g., girlfriend, boyfriend, lover. Types of Neologisms Proper neologisms – new words and expressions which were coined to name a new object or phenomenon, e.g., bio-computer (computer which can imitate the nervous system of a human being); Transnominations – new words which appear to name the existing things or phenomena (semantic coloring), e.g., slum=ghetto=inner town; Semantic neologisms – the lexical units change their primary meaning to name new things or objects of reality, e.g., umbrella is used in the meaning of “political shelter”; 75 Occasional neologisms – words created by writers, journalists, ordinary people, and children. Occasional neologisms are not created because of some necessity to give a new name to an object, but as a result of somebody’s developed imagination or even mistake (ghost word), e.g., dord (плотность) must have had another form D or D. It was wrongly registered in a dictionary. Compare the Russian occasional neologisms created by writers: широкошумные дубровы (А.С. Пушкин), огнекистные веточки бузины (М. Цветаева), открывалка, распакетить, перегрустить, Я намакоронился. Смотри как налужил дождь. Я уже не мальчишечка, а больчишечка. Analyze the dialogue and find the occasional neologism there. “Did you read MacWhoozit’s column today?” “Year, the man is a master at stating the obvious.” “I know. I counted no less than four, uh, obviosities.” “Obviosities? Is that a word?” “Hmmm, let’s see. If you can describe something as curious, then you can call that thing a curiosity, right? So, if you can describe something as obvious, then why not call the thing an obviosity.” “Okay. But is it really a word?” “Well, it is now.” 4. Archaisms Vocabulary is an open system. Some words come in, others drop out. The general tendency of vocabulary development is its enrichment and enlargement. There are several criteria playing an important role of vocabulary enlargement. Word-building, e.g., superbrand, self-gift, to butter, e-book; Borrowing new words from other dialects, professional and social spheres of communication, e.g., lox; Semantic change/semantic derivation. Semantic change takes place when new meanings are developed for familiar notions and words. The process of semantic change is based on developing a primary meaning of the word and creating a new secondary figurative meaning, e.g., bird (any flying object), паралич власти, гастролер; Forming phraseologisms. A certain amount of words may drop out of the language in the course of its history. This is a gradual process. Words grow old and perceived by the speakers as archaic. The disappearance of words may be caused by two factors: extra-linguistic factor and linguistic factor. Extra-linguistic factor is 76 connected with the disappearance of a thing or a notion because it became outdated and has no value for the nation. Words denoting such things are called historisms. These are numerous names for ancient weapons, types of boats, carriages, musical instruments, agricultural implements e.g., sword, sabre, diligence, phaeton. Linguistic factor – a new name is introduced for the notion that continues to exist. Two words with exactly the same meaning can not exist in the language for a long time. One of them is bound to change its meaning or disappear. There are several stages of turning a word into an archaism: Obsolescent words – they sound a bit old-fashioned, but they can still be used in the speech of the older generation, in literary works, in documents, e.g., fraught with (full of), kin (relative), to swoon (to faint); Archaisms proper – words are hardly ever used in the speech, but understandable to the speakers, e.g., methinks (it seems to me), nay (no), nether (low), very (real); Obsolete words – the words have dropped out of the language. They are no longer understood by the speakers, e.g., lozel. QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. What are the peculiar features of English vocabulary? What is a neologism? How many new words appear in the language annually? What factors cause the appearance of new words? What criteria for neologisms were singled out by Paul McFedries? What types of neologisms can be singled out? What factors influence the disappearance of vocabulary units? What types of archaic words can be singled out? 77 PART 5 CHAPTER 1 PHRASEOLOGY 1. 2. 3. 4. Phraseology and Phraseological Units Classification of Phraseological Units Idioms and Fixed Expressions Similes and Binomials 1. Phraseology and Phraseological Units Phraseology is one of the sources of vocabulary enlargement and enrichment. It is the most colourful part of vocabulary system, and it describes the peculiar vision of the world by this speaking community. It reflects the history of the nation, the customs and traditions of the people speaking the language. Phraseology forms a special subsystem in the vocabulary system. The units of the subsystem are called differently: phraseological units, phraseologisms, set expressions, idioms. The classification which will be distributed here is found on the fact that phraseology is regarded as a self-contained branch of linguistics and not as a part of lexicology. Phraseological units are not modeled according to regular linguistic patterns, they are reproduced ready-made, e.g., to read between the lines, a hard nut to crack. Each phraseological unit represents a word group with a unique combination of components, which make up a single specific meaning. The integral meaning of the phraseological units is not just a combination of literal meanings of the components. The meaning is not distributed between the components and is not reduced to the mere sum of their meaning. Phraseological units are defined as stable word groups with a specialized meaning of the whole. The meaning can be partially or completely transferred. Some features are usually stressed by this definition: Stability, the basic quality of all phraseological units. The usage of phraseological units is not subject to free variations, and grammatical structure of phraseological units is also stable to a certain extent, e.g., we say “red tape”, but not“red tapes”. Phraseological meaning may be motivated by the meaning of components, but not confined. Stability makes phraseological units more similar to words, rather than free word combinations. Correct understanding of the units depends on the background information. Idiomaticity, the quality of a phraseological unit, when the meaning of the whole is not deducible from the sum of the meanings of the parts. 78 Reproducibility is regular use of phraseological units in speech as single unchangeable collocations. In lexicology opinions differ as to how phraseology should be defined, classified, described, and analysed. The word "phraseology" has very different meanings in this country and in Great Britain or the United States. In linguistic literature the term is used for the expressions where the meaning of one element is dependent on the other, irrespective of the structure and properties of the unit (V.V. Vinogradov); with other authors it denotes only such set expressions which do not possess expressiveness or emotional colouring (A.I. Smirnitsky), and also vice versa: only those that are imaginative, expressive and emotional (I.V. Arnold). N.N. Amosova calls such expressions fixed context units, i.e., units in which it is impossible to substitute any of the components without changing the meaning not only of the whole unit, but also of the elements that remain intact. O.S. Ahmanova insists on the semantic integrity of such phrases prevailing over the structural separateness of their elements. A.V. Koonin lays stress on the structural separateness of the elements in a phraseological unit, on the change of meaning in the whole as compared with its elements taken separately and on a certain minimum stability. In English and American linguistics no special branch of study exists, and the term "phraseology" has a stylistic meaning, according to Webster's dictionary 'mode of expression, peculiarities of diction, i.e., choice and arrangement of words and phrases characteristic of some author or some literary work'. As far as semantic motivation is concerned phraseological units are extremely varied from motivated, e.g., a sight for sore eyes and to know the ropes, to partially motivated or to demotivated like tit for tat, red tape. Lexical and grammatical stability of phraseological units is displayed by the fact that no substitution of any elements is possible in the stereotyped set expressions, which differ in many other respects; all the world and his wife, red tape, calf love, heads or tails, first night, to gild the pill, to hope for the best, busy as a bee, fair and square, stuff and nonsense, time and again, to and fro. 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 the 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 79 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). 2. Classification of Phraseological Units Difference in terminology ("set-phrases", "idioms", "word-equivalents") reflects certain differences in the main criteria used to distinguish types of phraseological units and free word-groups. The term "set phrase" implies that the basic criterion of differentiation is stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure of word-groups. The term "idiom" generally implies that the essential feature of the linguistic units is idiomaticity or lack of motivation. The term "word-equivalent" stresses not only semantic, but also functional inseparability of certain word groups, their aptness to function in speech as single words. According to the type of meaning phraseological units may be classified into: Idioms are phraseological units with a transferred meaning. They can be completely or partially transferred, e.g., red tape. Semi-idioms are phraseological units with two phraseosemantic meanings: terminological and transferred, e.g., chain reaction, to lay down the arms. Phraseomatic units are not transferred at all. Their meanings are literal. Scientists also distinguish: Phrases with a unique combination of components (born companion). Phrases with a descriptive meaning. Phrases with phraseomatic and bound meaning (to pay attention to). Set expressions (clichés): the beginning of the end. Preposition-noun phrases (for good, at least). Terminological expressions (general ticket, civil war). According to the class the word combination belongs to, we single out: idiomatic meaning; idiophraseomatic meaing; phraseomatic meaning. The information conveyed by phraseological units is thoroughly organized and is very complicated. It is characterized by 1) multilevel structure, 2) structure of a field (nucleus + periphery), 3) block-scheme. It contains 3 macro-components which correspond to a certain type of information they convey: the grammatical block; the phraseological meaning proper; motivational macro-component (phraseological imagery; the inner form of the phraseological unit; motivation). 80 Vinogradov’s Classification of Phraseological Units In his classification V.V. Vinogradov developed some points first advanced by the Swiss linguist Charles Bally. The 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. According to the type of motivation three types of phraseological units are suggested: phraseological combinations, phraseological unities, and phraseological fusions. Phraseological combinations are partially motivated, they contain one component used in its direct meaning while the other is used figuratively: meet the demand, meet the necessity, meet the requirements. 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, the possibility of synonymic substitution, which can be only very limited, e.g., to know the way the wind is blowing. Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated word-groups representing the highest degree of blending together, e.g., tit for tat. 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. Koonin’s Classification of Phraseological Units A detailed functional and semantic classification is developed by Professor Koonin. The main classes of phraseological units are singled out on the basis of the function the unit fulfils in speech. They are divided into: Nominating, e.g., a bull in a china shop; Communicative, e.g., Familiarity breeds contempt; Nominating-communicative, e.g., to pull somebody’s leg; Interjectional, e.g., a fine/nice/pretty kettle of fish. All set expressions are supposed to perform one or another function. Professor Koonin proposes his classification on the assumption of functional, semantic and structural features the phraseological units have. He distinguishes nominative and communicative phraseological units, and those which combine both the functions. So, according to Koonin’s classification phraseological units are divided into unchangeable expressions (closed), e.g., a feath81 er in one’s cap, tit for tat and changeable (open) expressions. Open phraseological expressions are subdivided into three groups: Phraseological units in which synonymic substitution is possible, e.g., not to stir a finger; Expressions, containing variable pronominal elements, e.g., to pull somebody’s leg; Expressions, combining these two types of variability, e.g., to give somebody a piece/a bit of one’s mind. 3. Idioms and Fixed Expressions Idioms are fixed expressions with meanings that are usually not clear or obvious. The individual words often give you no help in deciding the meaning. The expression to feel under the weather, which means ‘to feel unwell’ is a typical idiom. The words do not tell us what it means, but the context usually helps. Idioms are rather informal and include an element of personal comment on the situation. They are sometimes humorous and ironic. Idioms contain all information in compressed form. This quality is typical of idioms, it makes them very capacious units (idiom is a compressed text). An idiom can provide such a bright explanation of an object that can be better than a sentence. We can compare idioms with fables, e.g., the Prodigal son. Idioms based on cultural components are not motivated, e.g., the good Samaritan, Lot’s wife, the Troy horse. Idioms can be grouped in a variety of ways: Their grammatical structure, e.g., to poke one’s nose in(to), to get the wrong end of the stick (verb+object); By meaning, e.g., idioms describing character or personality, idioms describing feelings or mood, idioms connected with some problematic situations, e.g., he is as daft as a bush, I could eat a horse, to be in a tight corner; By verb or other key word, e.g., I think we should make a move. Most politicians are on the make. It is important when using idioms to know just how flexible their grammar is. Some are more fixed than others, e.g., barking up the wrong tree (be mistaken) is always used in the continuous tense, e.g., I think you are barking up the wrong tree. Everyday spoken language is full of fixed expressions that are not necessarily difficult to understand (their meaning may be quite “transparent”), but which have a fixed form which doesn’t change. These have to be learned as whole expressions. These expressions are hard to find in the dictionaries, e.g., As I was saying, As far as I am concerned, this and that. 82 4. Similes and Binomials Semantic and stylistic features contracting set expressions into units of fixed context are simile, contrast, metaphor, and synonymy. For example: as like as two peas, as оld as the hills and older than the hills (simile); from beginning to end, for love or money, more or less, sooner or later (contrast); a lame duck, a pack of lies, arms race, to swallow the pill, in a nutshell (metaphor); by leaps and bounds, proud and haughty (synonymy). A few more combinations of different features in the same phrase are: as good as gold, as pleased as Punch, as fit as a fiddle (alliteration, simile); now or never, to kill or cure (alliteration and contrast). More rarely there is an intentional pun: as cross as two sticks means 'very angry'. Fixed similes are not neutral, they are usually informal, colloquial, and often humorous, e.g., as blind as a bat, as thin as a rake, as strong as an ox, as quick as a flash, as white as a sheet. Binomials are expressions often idiomatic where two words are joined by a conjunction (usually “and”). The order of the words is usually fixed. It is best to use them only in informal situations, e.g., odds and ends, give and take. There are some peculiar features of binomials: Specific sound pattern, e.g., The boss was ranting and raving at us. The words in the structure are near-synonyms, e.g., You can pick and choose, it’s up to you. There are some neutral binomials which can be used in formal or in informal situations, e.g., A black and white film, please. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. There are binomials linked by “or”, “but”, e.g., Sooner or later, you’ll learn your lesson. Slowly but surely, I realized the boat was sinking. QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What is a phraseological unit? What peculiar characteristics do the phraseological units possess? What role does a cultural component play in the semantic structure of phraseological units? What makes phraseological units similar to words? What types of phraseological units can be distinguished according to the degree of idiomaticity? Provide some information about Vinogradov’s and Koonin’s classification. Define the term idiom. What expressions are called similes and binomials? 83 PART 6 CHAPTER 1 REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY 1. 2. 3. Regional Varieties of English American English Other Englishes (Australian, Canadian) 1. Regional Varieties of English English is the national language of English proper, the USA, Australia and some provinces of Canada. It was also at different times imposed on the inhabitants of the former and present British colonies and protectorates as well as other Britain- and US-dominated territories, where the population has always stuck to its own mother tongue. When speaking about the territorial differences of the English language, philologists and lexicographers usually note the fact that different variants of English use different words for the same objects. English is considered as a symbol of modernization, a key to expanded functional roles, an extra arm for success, and mobility in culturally and linguistically complex and pluralistic societies. The prestige the language acquired has been used in certain important domains. Most powerful language, non-native Englishes are transplanted varieties of English that are required primarily as second languages. There are a number of Englishes in the world today. The first broad division may be in terms of the English-speaking nations: British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English, Indian English and so forth. If we use colour categories, we may find such names as White English, Black English, Brown English, Yellow English. English as the second language is used for various purposes: for science and technology, for international commerce and tourism, for language planning of a number of countries, a medium for education, language of government. British English, American English and Australian English are variants of the same language because they serve all spheres of verbal communication. Their structural peculiarities, especially morphology, syntax and wordformation, as well as their word-stock and phonetic system are essentially the same. American and Australian standards are slight modifications of the norms accepted in the British Isles. The status of Canadian English has not yet been established. 84 On the British Isles there are some local varieties of English, which developed from Old English local dialects. There are six groups of them: Lowland (Scottish), Northern, Western, Midland, Eastern, Southern. The local population uses these varieties in oral speech. Only the Scottish dialect has its own literature. One of the best-known dialects of British English is the dialect of London – Cockney. Some peculiarities of this dialect can be seen in the examples of interchange of /f/ and //, /v/ and /ð/, e.g., /fing/thing/ and /fa:ve/father/; interchange of /h/ and /-/ , e.g., «hart» for «art» and «’eart» for «heart»; substituting the diphthong /ei/ by /ai/ e.g., «day» is pronounced /dai/; substituting /au/ by /a:/, e.g., «house» is pronounced /ha:s/, «now» /na:/; substituting /ou/ by /o:/ e.g., «don’t» is pronounced /do:nt/ or substituting it by /-/ in unstressed positions, e.g., «window» is pronounced /wind/. Another feature of Cockney is rhyming slang: «hat» is «tit for tat», «wife» is «trouble and strife», «head» is «loaf of bread», etc. There are also such words as «tanner»–/sixpence/, «peckish»–/hungry/. Peter Wain in the «Education Guardian» writes about accents spoken by University teachers: «It is a variety of Southern English RP which is different from Daniel Jones’s description. The English, public school leavers speak, is called «marked RP», it has some characteristic features: the vowels are more central than in English taught abroad, e.g., «bleck het» for /black hat/, some diphthongs are also different, e.g., «house» is pronounced /hais/. There is less aspiration in /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/. The American English is practically uniform all over the country, because of the constant transfer of people from one part of the country to the other. However, some peculiarities in New York dialect can be pointed out, such as: there is no distinction in words: «ask», «dance» «sand» «bad», both phonemes are possible. The combination «ir» in the words: «bird», «girl», «ear» in the word «learn» is pronounced as /oi/ e.g., /boid/, /goil/, /loin/. In the words «duty», «tune» /j/ is not pronounced /du:ti/, /tu:n/. 2. American English American influence is a ubiquitous phenomenon in all languages. One notices an intrusion of Americanisms in the press, radio, television. In the last fifty years, America has become an object of envy because it “rules the world’s roost” as the most powerful country and combines technology and scientific progress. One notices this slow but definite encroachment in several semantic areas in British English. When we speak of Americanisms, we mean words of the English used in the USA. Many coinages that were originally Americanisms have been fully 85 incorporated into British English and their origin is no longer recognized: to advocate, to belittle, cold war, hot air, immigrant, lengthy, live wire, mass meeting, radio, squatter, teenager, third degree. However, some British writers and speakers are reluctant to use Americanisms because of the exact equivalents of these words in British English: OK, I guess, to check up on, to lose out, to win out. In practice, some recent usages of Americanisms have penetrated into British English due to a mere fashion dictated by American culture. Many Americanisms are found exclusively in American English: color, theater (spelling of the word), gotten (BE got), dove (dived), real good (BE really good), sidewalk (BE pavement), faucet (BE tap), pacifier (baby’s dummy), wash up (wash face and hands), blank (form). Thus, in describing the lexical differences between the British and American variants they provide long lists of word pairs like BE AE flat apartment underground subway lorry truck pavement sidewalk post mail tin-opener can-opener government administration leader editorial teaching staff faculty In some cases a notion may have two synonymous designations used on both sides of the Atlantic ocean, but one of them is more frequent in Britain, the other – in the USA. Thus, in the pairs post – mail, timetable – schedule, notice – bulletin the first word is more frequent in Britain, the second – in America. So the difference “here lies only in word-frequency. Most locallymarked lexical units belong to partial Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., that is they are typical of this or that variant only in one or some of their meanings. Within the semantic structure of such words one may often find meanings belonging to general English, Americanisms and Briticisms, e.g., in the word pavement, the meaning ’street or road covered with stone, asphalt, concrete, etc.’ is an Americanism, the meaning ‘paved path for pedestrians at the side of the road’ is a Briticism (the corresponding American expression is sidewalk), the other two meanings ‘the covering of the floor made of flat blocks of wood, stone, etc.’ and ’soil’ (geol.) are general English. Very often the meanings that belong to general English are common and neutral, central, direct, while the Americanisms are colloquial, marginal and figurative, e.g., 86 shoulder – general English – ‘the joint connecting the arm or forelimb with the body’, Americanism – ‘either edge of a road or highway’. The American variety of English has several special characteristics associated with its growth and development that offer an interesting linguistic case study for comparison with other varieties of English. On the one hand, it provides an example of linguistic pride and what may be termed a conscious effort toward establishing language identity. On the other hand, it has the unique characteristics of a transplanted language. A language may be considered transplanted if it is used by a significant number of speakers in social, cultural and geographical contexts different from the contexts in which it was originally used. In this respect, there are several varieties of English which continue to be used as native languages by a majority of the people in Australia, Canada, the United States, and New Zealand which were transplanted from the mother country, England. One might say that a transplanted language is cut off from its traditional roots and begins to function in new surroundings, in new roles and new contexts. This newness initiates changes in language. This could be seen through different linguistic manifestations in this or that variety of the language. There are more similarities than differences between the diverse varieties of English, but Englishness is maintained in all Englishes spoken around the globe. The natural outcome of such contacts is linguistic innovation. The innovations specific to each variety can be regarded as deviations with reference to a norm. It is the sum total of all deviations in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, style, and discourse strategies. Different varieties of English are the results of language-contact situations. Two or more languages come into contact for political, economic, geographical, historical, social and other reasons. Indian English: twice-born, dining-leaf, caste-mask, roundel, pish-pash, earth-oil, hog-deer, flying-fox, nor-wester, iron-wood, barking-deer. Australian English: fit as a Malee bull, looking like a consumptive kangaroo, mean as a dishwasher, awkward as a pig with serviette, handy as a cow with a muske. Australianisms, and the like met with in literature and dictionaries are also often used to denote lexical units that originated in the USA, Australia, etc. These are homonymous terms, therefore in dealing with linguistic literature the reader must be constantly alert to keep them separate. There are also some full Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., i.e., lexical units specific to the British, American, etc. variant in all their meanings. For example, the words fortnight, pillar-box are full Briticisms, campus, mailboy are full Americanisms, outback, backblocks are full Australianisms. These may be subdivided into lexical units denoting some phenomena that have no counterparts elsewhere (such as the Americanism junior high school) and those denoting phenomena observable in other English-speaking countries 87 but expressed there in a different way e.g., campus is defined in British dictionaries as ‘grounds of a school or college’. Lexical peculiarities in different parts of the English-speaking world are not only those in vocabulary. For instance, the grammatical valency of the verb to push is much narrower in AuE, than in BE and AE, e.g., to push up prices, rents, etc. As to word-formation in different variants, the word-building means employed are the same and most of them are equally productive. The difference lies only in the varying degree of productivity of some of them in this or that variant. As compared with the British variant, for example, in the American variant the affixes -ette, -ее, super-, as in kitchenette, draftee, supermarket, are used more extensively; the same is true of conversion and blending (as in walk-out – ‘workers’ strike’ from (to) walk out; (to) major – ’specialise in a subject or field of study’ from the adjective major; motel from motor + hotel, etc.). In the Australian variant the suffixes -ie/-y and -ее, as well as abbreviations are more productive than in BE. American English and British English (BrE) differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a lesser extent, grammar and orthography. Differences in grammar are relatively minor and normally do not affect mutual intelligibility; these include, but are not limited to: different use of some verbal auxiliaries; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns; different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs, e.g., learn, burn, sneak, dive, get; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts, e.g., AmE in school, BrE at school. Differences in orthography are also trivial. Some of the forms that now serve to distinguish American from British spelling color for colour, center for centre, traveler for traveller, etc. were introduced by Noah Webster himself; others are due to spelling tendencies in Britain from the 17th century until the present day, e.g., -ise for -ize (although the Oxford English Dictionary still prefers the -ize ending), programme for program, manoeuvre for maneuver, skilful for skillful. 3. Other Englishes Australian English The history of Australian English starts with kangaroo (1770) and Captain James Cook’s glossary of local words used in negotiations with the Endeavour River tribes. The language was pidgin. The aboriginal vocabulary, which is one of the trademarks of Australian English, included billabong (a waterhole), jumbuck (a sheep), corroboree (an assembly), boomerang (a curved throwing stick), and budgerigar (from budgeree, “good” and gar, 88 “parrot”). The number of Aboriginal words in Australian English is quite small and is confined to the namings of plants (like bindieye and calombo), trees (like boree, banksia, quandong, and mallee), birds (like currawong, galah and kookaburra), animals (like wallaby and wombat) and fish (like barramindi). As in North America , when it comes to place-names, the Aboriginal influence was much greater: with a vast continent to name, about a third of all Australian place-names are Aboriginal. The Aborigines also adopted words from maritime pidgin English, words like piccaninny and bilong (belong). They used familiar pidgin English variants like talcum and catchum. The most famous example is gammon, an eighteenth-century Cockney word meaning “a lie”. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Australian population were either convicts, ex-convicts or of convict descent. The convict argot was called “flash” language, and James Hardy Vaux published a collection of it in 1812, the New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language. Most of the words and phrases Vaux listed remained confined to convict circles and have not passed in the main stream of Australian English. There are a few exceptions, of which the best known is swag meaning “a bundle of personal belongings” in standard Australian. Swagman, billy, jumbuck, tucker-bag and coolibah tree are early Australianisms. The roots of Australian English lie in the South and East of England, London, Scotland, and Ireland. To take just a few examples, words like corker, dust-up, purler, and tootsy all came to Australia from Ireland; billy comes from the Scottish bally, meaning “a milk pail”. A typical Australianism like fossick, meaning “to search unsystematically”, is a Cornish word. Cobber came from the Suffolk verb to cob, “to take a liking to someone”. Tucker is widely used for “food”. Clobber has Romany roots and is originally recorded in Kent as clubbered up, meaning “dressed up”. Australian Peculiarities In 1945 Sidney J. Baker published the book The Australian Language which was a milestone in the emergence of a separate Australian Standard. Since 1945 the Australian vernacular continues to flourish. Australian English incorporates several uniquely Australian terms, such as outback to refer to remote regional areas, walkabout to refer to a long journey of uncertain length and bush to refer to native forested areas, but also to regional areas as well. Fair dinkum can mean “are you telling me the truth?”, “this is the truth!”, or “this is ridiculous!” depending on context – the disputed origin dates back to the gold rush in the 1850s, “dinkum” being derived from the Chinese word for “gold” or “real gold”: fair dinkum is the genuine article. G'day is well known as a stereotypical Australian greeting – it is worth 89 noting that G'day is not synonymous with the expression “Good Day”, and is never used as an expression for "farewell". Many of these terms have been adopted into British English via popular culture and family links. Some elements of Aboriginal languages, as has already been mentioned, have been incorporated into Australian English, mainly as names for the indigenous flora and fauna (e.g., dingo, kangaroo), as well as extensive borrowings for place names. Beyond that, very few terms have been adopted into the wider language. A notable exception is Cooee (a musical call which travels long distances in the bush and is used to say “is there anyone there?”). Although often thought of as an Aboriginal word, didgeridoo/didjeridu (a well known wooden musical instrument) is actually an onomatopoeic term coined by an English settler. Canadian English The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglocentric attitude prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect", in comparison to what he considered the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain. Canadian English is the product of four waves of immigration and settlement over a period of almost two centuries. The first large wave of permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the Mid-Atlantic States – as such, Canadian English is believed by some scholars to have derived from northern American English, and is nothing more than a variety of it. The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by the governors of Canada, who were worried about anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910 and 1960 had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of globalization. The languages of Aboriginal peoples in Canada started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place, and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada. Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American rules. Most notably, French-derived words that in American English end with -or and -er, such as color or center, usually retain British spellings, e.g., colour, honour and centre, although American spellings are not uncommon. 90 Also, while the United States uses the Anglo-French spelling defense (noun), Canada uses the British spelling defence. (Note that defensive is universal.) In other cases, Canadians and Americans differ from British spelling, such as in the case of nouns like tire and curb, which in British English are spelled tyre and kerb. Words such as realize and recognize are usually spelled with -ize rather than -ise. The etymological convention that verbs derived from Greek roots are spelled with -ize and those from Latin with -ise is preserved in that practice. Nouns take -ice while verbs take -ise, compare practice and practise. Canadian spelling also retains the British practice of usually doubling a final single -l when adding suffixes to words even when the final syllable (before the suffix) is not stressed. Compare Canadian (and British) travelled, counselling, and controllable (always doubled) to American traveled, counseling, and controllable (only doubled when stressed). But both Canadian and British have balloted and profiting. Canadian spelling rules can be partly explained by Canada's trade history. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's automobile industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire and American terminology for the parts of automobiles, e.g., truck instead of lorry, gasoline instead of petrol. QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. What main group of dialects are to be found in Great Britain? What distinctive features does American English have? What does Canadian English have in common with American English? What varieties of the English language does Australian English have close ties with? Define the differences between American and British Englishes. Characterize the main features of Canadian English. 91 PART 7 CHAPTER 1 LEXICOGRAPHY 1. 2. 3. 4. The Definition of Lexicography Types of Dictionaries Historical Development of British and American Lexicography Modern Dictionaries 1. The Definition of Lexicography Lexicography is “the practice of compiling dictionaries” (New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998). Lexicography is defined as “theory and practice of compiling dictionaries” (Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, RDLL, 1996). Lexicology is defined as “the study of the vocabulary items (lexemes) of a language, including their meanings and relations, and changes in their form and meaning through time” (Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 1995). Dictionary is 1)“a book that lists the words of a language in the alphabetical order and gives their meaning or that gives the equivalent words in a different language”; 2) “a reference book on any subject, the items of which are arranged in alphabetical order” (NODE, 1998). Dictionaries play an important role in our daily and academic lives. Lexicography is a growing field with a practical branch (dictionary making or lexicographic practice) and a theoretical branch (dictionary research). There are dictionaries for native speakers (various Webster dictionaries and Oxford dictionaries) and for learners of English. Dictionary research is the part of lexicographic theory which deals with the following issues: working theoretical methods or principles underlying lexicography; different lexicographic traditions that have been established throughout dictionary history; assessment of dictionaries as lexicographic products; classification of dictionaries; user-orientation assessment of dictionaries. 92 2. Types of Dictionaries The term dictionary is used to denote a book listing words of a language with their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage and origin. There are also dictionaries that concentrate their attention upon only one of these aspects. For dictionaries in which the words and their definition belong to the same language the term unilingual or explanatory is used, whereas bilingual or translation dictionaries are those that explain words by giving their equivalents in another language. Multilingual or polyglot dictionaries are not numerous, they serve chiefly the purpose of comparing synonyms and terminology in various languages. Unilingual dictionaries are further subdivided with regard to time. Diachronic dictionaries, of which the Oxford English Dictionary is the main example, reflect the development of the English vocabulary by recording the history of form and meaning for every word registered. They may be contrasted to synchronic or descriptive dictionaries of current English concerned with present-day meaning and usage of words. Special General Explanatory dictionaries irrespective of their bulk Etymological, frequency, phonetical, rhyming, and thesaurus type dictionaries Glossaries of scientific and other special terms; concordances; Dictionaries of abbreviations, antonyms, borrowings, new words, proverbs, synonyms, surnames, typonyms, etc. Dictionaries of American English, dialect and slang dictionaries BILINGUAL OR MULTILINGUAL English-Russian, RussianEnglish, etc. and multilingual dictionaries Dictionaries of scientific and other special terms; Dictionaries of abbreviations, phraseology, proverbs, synonyms, etc. Concentrated on one of the distinctive features of the word UNILINGUAL Dictionaries of Old English and Middle English with explanations in Modern English Both bilingual and unilingual dictionaries can be general and special. General dictionaries represent the vocabulary as a whole with a degree of 93 completeness depending upon the scope and bulk of the book in question. Some general dictionaries may have very specific aims and still be considered general due to their coverage. They include, for instance, frequency dictionaries, i.e., lists of words, each of which is followed by a record of its frequency of occurrence in one or several sets of reading matter. A rhyming dictionary is also a general dictionary, though arranged in inverse order, for example, Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. There are also specialized, for example, those devoted to words used in the fields of computers, law, environment, medicine, and dictionaries of slang, dialects, idioms. Special dictionaries stated aim is to cover only a certain specific part of the vocabulary. Special dictionaries may be further subdivided depending on whether the words are chosen according to the sphere of human activity in which they are used (technical dictionaries), the type of the units themselves (phraseological dictionaries), or the relationship existing between them (dictionaries of synonyms). Highly specialized dictionaries of limited scope may appeal to a particular kind of reader. They register and explain technical terms of various branches of knowledge: medical, linguistic, technical, etc. Unilingual dictionaries of special type are called glossaries. They are often prepared by the boards and commissions specially appointed for the task of improving technical terminology and nomenclature. Dictionaries recording the complete vocabulary of some author are called concordances. Dictionaries may be also classified into linguistic and non-linguistic. The latter are dictionaries giving information on all branches of knowledge, the encyclopedias. They deal with facts and concepts, but not words. The best known encyclopedias of English are the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Encyclopedia Americana. Dictionaries provide information on the vocabulary of a language. In addition to general dictionaries in one language, there are bilingual dictionaries, which give equivalent words in another language. Dictionaries vary in size. The largest is the Oxford English Dictionary in twelve volumes with a supplement in four volumes; it is a historical dictionary and contains many obsolete words. The largest contemporary dictionary is Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, including 2662 pages. All general dictionaries miss recent words and meanings and do not contain all the specialized words that the language possesses. Bilingual dictionaries are also useful for those who study foreign languages, for those who read special literature, for translators, linguists, and travelers. It may have two principal purposes: reference for translation and guidance for expression. It provides an adequate translation in the target language of every word and expression in the source language. But one and the same bilingual dictionary cannot serve the needs of the speakers of both lan94 guages. An English-Russian dictionary for Russian speakers is different from that for British or American users. Bilingual dictionaries contain all the inflectional, derivational, semantic and syntactic information, as well as information on spelling and pronunciation. The entries of a dictionary are usually arranged in the alphabetical order. The arrangement of the vocabulary entry presents many problems, of which the most important are the differentiation and the sequence of various meanings of a polysemantic word. A descriptive dictionary dealing with the current usage has to face its specific problems. It has to apply a structural point of view and give precedence to the most important meanings. But how is the most important meaning determined? The whole procedure is to obtain statistical data. But counting the frequency of different meanings of the same word is far more difficult than counting the frequency of its forms, irrespective of meanings. Also, the interdependence of meanings and their relative importance within the semantic structure of the word do not remain the same. Nevertheless some semantic counts have been achieved and the lexicographers profited by them. It is admitted that counts are only one of the criteria necessary for selecting meanings and entries. Compilers of dictionaries obtain their information partly through collecting citations of words in different contexts and partly through consulting existing general and special dictionaries. All dictionaries have a descriptive character. General dictionaries of one particular language usually supply the following data: 1. Spelling, including any variants; the dictionary gives the information whether the word is spelt with a letter or a hyphen. 2. Pronunciation, with stress patterns of words containing more than one syllable. 3. Parts of speech, indicating if the same word is used for more than one part of speech. 4. Inflections, such as the plural form -s of nouns and -ed of verbs. Irregular forms are also provided. 5. Definitions, with all possible definitions of the word. As well as the definitions, the dictionary explains how the word is used through authentic contexts. 6. Usage. The dictionary may indicate some restrictions on a word: to place (Australian/Canadian/American), time (archaic, present-day), sphere of usage (law, business, medicine), style (formal/informal). Dictionaries also list expressions and clichés as separate entries or under major entries. They also provide lists of abbreviations and names, symbols and other types of information. 7. Etymology, or history of words. The words are traced back to earlier periods of English and to languages from which they were borrowed. 95 3. Historical Development of British and American Lexicography Whole vocabularies exist in languages and in people’s heads. In a society where there was no writing, dictionaries would not exist but then neither would they be needed. Speakers would learn all the words they needed from others’ use of them. However, writing makes it possible to look up in dictionaries words which one might not come across in the normal course of events. Indeed the first dictionaries of English were published with this in mind. As the speakers of English became more socially stratified and as literacy became more common among middle-class people, there were words in writing that were not in people’s own vocabularies. A need for a dictionary or glossary has been felt in the cultural growth of many civilized peoples at a fairly early period. The history of dictionary-making for the English language goes back as far as the Old English period where its first traces are found in the form of glosses of religious books with translation from Latin. The first unilingual English dictionary, explaining words by English equivalents, appeared in 1604. It was meant to explain difficult words occurring in books. Its title was “A Table Alphabetical, containing and teaching the true writing and understanding of English words from the Hebrew, Greek, Latin or French”. The little volume of 120 pages explaining about 3,000 words was compiled by one Robert Cawdrey, a schoolmaster. The first attempt at a dictionary including all the words of the language, not only the difficult ones, was made by Nathaniel Bailey, who in 1721 published the first edition of his “Universal Etymological English Dictionary”. He was the first to include pronunciation and etymology. Big explanatory dictionaries were created in France and Italy before they appeared for the English language. Learned academies on the continent had been established to preserve the purity of their respective languages. This was also the purpose of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary published in 1755. The idea of purity involved a tendency to oppose change, and Johnson’s Dictionary was meant to establish the English language in its classical form, to preserve it in all its glory. Dr. Samuel Johnson’s attempted to “fix” and regulate English. When his work was accomplished, he had to admit he had been wrong and confessed in his preface that “no dictionary of a living tongue can ever be perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are building and some falling away”. The most important innovation of Johnson’s Dictionary was the introduction of illustrations of the meanings of the words “by examples from the best writers”. Since then such illustrations have become a “sine qua non” in lexicography. As to pronunciation, attention was turned to it somewhat later. A pronouncing dictionary that must be mentioned first was published in 1780 by 96 Thomas Sheridan. In 1791 “The Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language” was compiled by John Walker. The vogue of this second dictionary was great, and in later publications Walker’s pronunciations were inserted into Johnson’s text – a further step to a unilingual dictionary in its present-day from. The Golden Age of English lexicography began in the last quarter of the th 19 century when the English Philological Society started work on compiling what is now known as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), but was originally named “New English Dictionary on Historical Principles”. It is still occasionally referred to as NED. The purpose of this monumental work is to trace the development of English words from their form in Old English, and if they were not found in Old English, to show when they were introduced into the language, and also to show the development of each meaning and its historical relation to other meanings of the same word. For words and meanings which have become obsolete the date of the latest occurrence is given. All this is done by means of dated quotations ranging from the oldest to recent appearances of the words in question. The English of Chaucer, of the Bible and of Shakespeare is given as much attention as that of the most modern authors. The dictionary includes spellings, pronunciations, and detailed etymologies. The completion of the work required more than 75 years. The result is a kind of encyclopedia of language used not only for reference purposes, but also as a basis for lexicographic and lexicological research. The first part of the dictionary appeared in 1884. Later it was issued in twelve volumes and in order to accommodate new words a supplement was issued in 1933. The success of the enterprise was largely due to its third editor James A.H. Murray, a Scottish schoolmaster, who organized an editorial staff and actually started the publication. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1911, i.e., before the work on the main version was completed. It is not a historical dictionary but one of current usage. Another big dictionary, created by joined efforts of enthusiasts, is Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary. Before this dictionary could be started upon, a thorough study of English dialects had to be completed. The first American dictionary of the English language was compiled by a man whose name was also Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson Jr., a Connecticut schoolmaster, published in 1798 a small book entitled “A School Dictionary”. This book was followed in 1800 by another dictionary by the same author, which showed already some signs of Americanization. It included, for instance, words like tomahawk and wampum, borrowed into English from Indian languages. 97 Noah Webster is universally considered to be the father of American lexicography. His great work “The American Dictionary of the English Language” appeared in two volumes in 1828 and later sustained numerous revised and enlarged editions. Noah Webster improved and corrected many of Johnson’s etymologies and his definitions are often more exact. Webster attempted to simplify the spelling and pronunciation that were current in the USA of the period. He devoted many years to the collection of words and the preparation of more accurate definitions. Webster’s dictionary enjoyed great popularity from its first editions. This popularity was due not only to the accuracy and clarity of definitions, but also to the richness of additional information of encyclopedic character, which had become a tradition in American lexicography. As a dictionary Webster’s book aims to treat the entire vocabulary of the language providing definitions, pronunciation and etymology. As an encyclopedia it gives explanations about things named, including scientific and technical subjects. The other three great American dictionaries are The Century Dictionary, first completed in 1891, and Funkand Wagnall’s Standard Dictionary, first completed in 1895 and the Random House Dictionary of the English Language completed in 1967 and presenting a synchronic review of the language in the mid XX century. Many small handy popular dictionaries for office, school and home use are prepared to meet the demand in reference books on spelling, meaning and usage. Roget's Thesaurus First published in 1852, Roget's Thesaurus has long been recognized as one of the greatest English language reference books in the world. Generations of writers and speakers of English have come to regard it as an invaluable companion and they swear by it. Nowadays more and more emphasis is being placed on the importance of communication skills in all manner of contexts and the need for a reliable vocabulary guide is greater than ever. An ever-increasing number of people requires a book which will help them to use the right word in the right place, and Roget's Thesaurus is there to provide just this kind of help. This paperback edition has all the merits of the parent edition, while being slightly reduced in extent for ease of handling. Despite its age, the Thesaurus still has remarkable relevance to this modern age. It is a tribute to the methodology of Peter Mark Roget that his unique classification system has not only stood the test of time remarkably well, but also has demonstrated an in-built capacity for absorbing new vocabulary as the years have gone on. Language holds a mirror up to life and is a reflection of what is happening in society. In recent decades changes in var98 ious aspects of society have been fast and furious and English has witnessed a corresponding boom in vocabulary additions. With the help of successive editors who have expanded or adapted the system where necessary, the Thesaurus has shown itself to be more than capable of allowing for such additions. Recent vocabulary additions reflect the broad spectrum of interests that are common in the modern age, including such areas as science, medicine, computing, sport and leisure, music and entertainment, food and drink, marketing and shopping terminology, social issues, environmental concerns, and traffic control. The sheer range and diversity of these interests have brought in their wake such a mass of vocabulary changes that it is becoming more and more impossible for language reference books to be truly comprehensive. The problem has been exacerbated by the advent of the Internet which is spawning new words at an alarming rate – as well as taking over our lives. Some degree of selectivity is required and the present edition of the Thesaurus has plucked from the current superabundance of vocabulary items a representative selection which reflects what is happening in our lives and marries well with the linguistic information given in previous editions. Users of the Thesaurus may access information either by means of the classification system, outlined on p. ix and clarified on p. xiii, or by means of the index, explained on p. xi. Either way they will find valuable assistance in shaping their thoughts and translating these into competent, and hopefully polished, English. Those who are in need of inspiration will find that as well as the right words, the Thesaurus, because of the thematic way it is structured, has the capacity to suggest ideas as well as words. It thus has a decidedly creative dimension to it, unlike some reference books on the market, which are entitled thesauruses but which are, in fact, synonym dictionaries. This creative dimension also makes the Thesaurus an ideal medium for browsing, a pursuit much enjoyed by the many people who have an interest in language. 4. Modern Dictionaries Dictionaries are books compiled by lexicographers and published by publishers. Since they are published by publishers, they are, for the most part, written for particular markets and in the hope that they will make a profit. Reasonably sized and therefore reasonably priced, dictionaries of English do not list all the words a reader might want to look up. So lexicographers make a choice of the words which they think more people will want to look up and leave out the more marginal and arcane words which are less to be useful. Dictionaries attempt to list as many words as possible within the bounds of 99 the particular dictionary format. They attempt to give as many senses of the words as they can. They provide a few examples and hints of how the word might be used, but they cannot be authoritative in the sense that they provide information on all aspects of all the words of the language. Mainly, people look up dictionaries for unfamiliar words. The bigger the dictionary, the more likely it is to contain an unfamiliar word. But not necessarily. A very large number of technical words will not appear in a standard dictionary. For them you must turn to a technical dictionary. Dictionaries have a good image. They have social prestige. Any dictionary is a tool of learning. The last 25 years have seen rapid developments in lexicography directed at improving the image of dictionaries within the language teaching profession. The dictionaries, in particular the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD, 1974) and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE, 1978), have contributed considerably to the development and design of dictionaries for non-native learners of English. The Oxford English Dictionary is often called the big Oxford. The big Oxford started to be compiled in the middle of the 19th century and took three editors to finish. It was based on the idea that entries should show the development of the word over the whole of its recorded history and that entries should illustrate this history through quotations. The big Oxford is in fact twenty volumes in edition. The most convenient way to gain access to it is through a CD ROM reader, since the OED is now available in a form that looks like a CD but which you read with a computer rather than listening to it by means of a stereo. This new technology allows you to search for the word you want very rapidly. The big Oxford is also an essential tool when reading English written in earlier periods. Dictionaries arrange their entries according to the alphabetical order of the written version of the word. That is a very useful way to look words up in the dictionary. However, there are other ways that have their uses. A rhyming dictionary often lists words in reverse alphabetical order, and that way all the words which rhyme with each other are listed together. Another means of listing words is to list them according to their meaning. Essentially this is what a thesaurus does. If you want a word with the same meaning as a given word, you look it up in the thesaurus. Again, computer technology is able to help there. In many modern computers a thesaurus is available as a piece of software, and thus if you are writing and would like to use a different word, but one which has the same meaning as the one you have just thought of, you can get a range of options from the thesaurus. 100 Learner’s Dictionary The term learner’s dictionary is confined to dictionaries specially compiled to meet the demands of the learners for whom English is not their mother tongue. These dictionaries differ essentially from ordinary academic dictionaries, on the one hand, and from word-books compiled specially for English and American schoolchildren and college students, on the other hand. The word-books of this group include only the essential information, which must be easy to find and understand. Much attention is given to the functioning of lexical units in speech. Learner’s dictionaries may be classified according to the volume of the word-list and thus they fall into two groups. Those of the first group contain all lexical units that the prospective user may need, in the second group only the most essential and important words are selected. To the first group we can refer A.S. Hornby’s Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (50,000 lexical units) and M. West’s International Reader’s Dictionary (about 24,000 units); to the second group – A Grammar of English Words by H. Palmer (1,000 words), and The English-Russian Learner’s Dictionary by S.K. Folomkina and H.M. Weiser (3,500 units). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English by A. Hornby has achieved international recognition as the most valuable practical reference book to English as a foreign language. It contains 50,000 units and is compiled to meet the needs of advanced foreign learners of English and language teachers. It aims at giving detailed information about the grammatical and partly lexical valency of words. The New Horizon Ladder Dictionary includes 5,000 of the most frequently used words in written English. It is called Ladder Dictionary because the words are divided in it into five levels or ladder rungs of approximately 1,000 each, according to the frequency of their use. The COBUILD Project The COBUILD is one of the largest and most ambitious lexical research projects ever undertaken. COBUILD stands for Collins Birmingham University International Language Database and is largely funded by the publisher William Collins (now Harper Collins). It is based in the School of English at the University of Birmingham under the direction of Professor John Sinclair. The first publication of COBUILD called Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (CCELD) was in 1987, the latest edition is the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (CCED) published in 1995. The principal aim of COBUILD research is to investigate in as much detail as possible how the English language is actually used at a given moment in time in both speech and writing. CCELD (1987) includes a core database of 101 7.3 million words and makes supporting reference to a general corpus of 20 million words. COBUILD is made mainly for non-native users of English. The meanings of words in the COBUILD are illustrated by way of citations taken from the most typical examples of the language. The main innovations of the COBUILD dictionary both CCELD, CCED can be summarized into the following: 1. Citations are examples of real English and do not involve made-up examples; 2. Linguistic and stylistic differences between spoken and written usage, BE, AE usage can be stored and marked in dictionary entries. Information concerning use in context, level of formality and related features is also provided; 3. In entries for individual lexical items, the order of senses corresponds to their frequency order in the corpus, for example, mug: A large deep cup with straight sides and a handle, used for hot drinks. To mug means to attack someone in order to steal his or her money. Mugging, muggings – bank robberies, burglaries. Someone is a mug – stupid, and easily deceived or mislead by other people. He is a mug as far as women are concerned. A mug’s game – activity that is not worth doing because it doesn’t give the person who is doing it any benefit or satisfaction. Dieting is a mug’s game. Mug – face. He managed to get his ugly mug on the telly. Mug up a subject – you study it very quickly. Mugger is a person who attacks someone violently in a street to steal money. Muggy. Muggy weather is unpleasantly warm and damp. It was muggy and overcast. Mug shot – a photograph of someone, especially a photograph of a criminal which has been taken by the police. 4. Concordancing techniques are used to illustrate the main collocational properties of a word. 5. Explanations are written in complete sentences. 6. The COBUILD lays emphasis on the most frequent words of the language. The COBUILD corpus has informed word on grammar and on idioms, including the Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Idioms (1995). The dictionary of idioms gives unique guidance concerning both the frequency of different idioms and the different patterns which idioms form. The corpus also 102 informed word on a dictionary of collocations – Collins COBUILD English Words in Use (1997) which describes over 100, 000 collocations in a range of lexical patterns. Further Major Innovations Other major contributions to EFL lexicography have continued with editions of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE, the third edition in 1995) and the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD, the fifth edition 1995). Cambridge University Press has also published a learner’s dictionary: The Cambridge International Dictionary of English (CIDE, 1995). Both LDOCE and OALD have benefited from the British National Corpus – a corpus of 100 million words of written and 10 million words of spoken English. Additionally, Longman has further extensive corpora of American English which inform all dictionaries including the Longman Dictionary of American English, the Longman Lancaster Corpus (LLC) – a corpus of 30 million words of written English developed with advice from Professor Geoffrey Leech at Lancaster University and a 10-million wordlearner corpus including written texts from students at all levels from over 70 different language background. This dictionary is designed to provide information of the kinds of lexical mistakes most frequently made by learners. There are some very important characteristic features of LDOCE (1995), OALD (1995), and CIDE (1995): 1. Defining vocabulary; it defines the unit of meaning rather than individual words, it means that there are regular entries for phrases as well as for words. 2. A newly introduced feature called “signposts” to help learners with polysemantic items. Signposts help the learner to make mental connections with the word in the context. 3. Examples are given in an order which is most likely to help the learner rather than on the basis of the relative frequency of words. 4. The fifth edition of OALD (1995) and the first edition of CIDE (1995) contain numerous innovations. CIDE draws on the 100-million-word Cambridge Language Survey with an emphasis on different national variations in English use and containing lists of false friends in English in comparison with fourteen other languages. CIDE also contains guide words which in the case of polysemy orient the reader to the main meaning of the words listed in a single entry. OALD represents a number of key innovations in other areas. These innovations include 90,000 corpus-based examples and 40-million-word of 103 Oxford American English Corpus, notes and illustrated pages giving information on cultural differences between British and American English; notes covering areas of meaning and grammar which cause difficulty and a defining vocabulary. The most important features for all the main learner’s dictionaries (CCED, CIDE, LDOCE, OALD) are: 1. Clarity of definition and explanation, and the extent to which defining vocabularies assist in this aim. 2. Authenticity, naturalness, and pedagogic mediation of examples. 3. Ease of access to the most frequent uses and core meanings. 4. The extent to which words are shown in natural syntactic and collocational environments. 5. The extent, to which polysemantic words and words, which have different meanings in different phrasal forms is explained; ease of access to them. The Dictionary for Production The Longman Language Activator is a production dictionary. It is aimed at intermediate to advanced learners of English and is designed around a conceptual map of the core words of English. These 1,052 key concepts include words such as sad/happy around which a further thirteen related words, e.g., (to be fed up with, to be down in the dumps, depressed, miserable, downcast, glum, etc.) are grouped. These related words and their different levels of meaning and style are explained to help students produce and generate a range of expressions. One aim of a production dictionary is to generate greater learner autonomy by encouraging learners to check, priority to use. English language lexicography has undergone a phase of considerable invention and innovation in the last three decades of the 20th century. A number of problems in the presentation of the lexical information to language learners have been solved and there have been considerable advances in the treatment of fixed and idiomatic expressions. The most significant advances in the description of lexico-grammatical patterns have coincided with a time when the interests of linguists have shifted towards patterns of lexis in discourse. Several questions remain, they require urgent solutions: how will lexicographers take a more discourse-based approach which demands attention to words in context? Words in contexts tend to have variable meanings. But lexicographers tend to be more concerned with meaning as a property of words and expressions in abstraction from the contexts in which they are used. 104 QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. What does Lexicography deal with? Do Lexicology and Lexicography have one and the same subject matter? What is a dictionary? What is the main difference between bilingual and unilingual dictionaries? What is the difference between general and special dictionaries? What information do they provide? What were the first British and American dictionaries? What is a thesaurus? Describe Roget’s Thesaurus. Name the most sophisticated dictionaries for the learners of English and give their characteristics. What is so special about the COBUILD Project? 105 LIST OF SIMILES as artificial/crafty as a barrel/wagon-load of monkey – проказливый как обезьяна as tricky as a monkey – хитрющий, шкодливый as bald as a coot/an egg – совершенно лысый, голый как коленка as bare as a bone – совершенно пустой, хоть шаром покати as bitter as gall/wormwood – горький как полынь as black as coal/the ace of spades – черный как сажа, как уголь as black as ink/night – безрадостный, беспросветный; в темном свете as black as jet/pinch – совершенно темно, хоть глаз выколи as black as thunder – мрачнее тучи as blind as a bat – слепой, непроницательный as bold/brave as a lion – храбрый как лев as bold as brass – нахальный, наглый, бессовестный as brown as a berry – очень загорелый, шоколадного цвета as busy as a bee – очень занятый, трудолюбивый как пчелка as changeable as a weathercock – изменчивый как флюгер, куда ветер дует as cheap as dirt – очень дешевый as clean/neat as a (new) pin – чистый, опрятный, все блестит, ни пылинки as clean as a whistle – зеркально чистый, как стеклышко as clear as a bell – ясный, отчетливый, понятный as clear as crystal – прозрачный как кристалл, кристально чистый as clear as a day – ясно как божий день as clever as paint – очень находчивый, проницательный, с острым умом as close as an oyster – нем как рыба, умеет держать язык за зубами as cold as a fish – недружелюбный, бесчувственный, черствый as cold as charity – казенно-бездушный, черствый as cold as ice – холодный как лед, ледяной as common as dirt – 1) самый обычный, заурядный, вульгарный; 2) полным-полно, хоть пруд пруди as cool as a cucumber – совершенно невозмутимый, спокойный as crazy as a loon – совсем спятивший, рехнувшийся, не в своем уме as cross as a bear with a sore head – не на шутку рассерженный, зол как черт as cross as two sticks – в плохом настроении, не в духе, сердитый 106 as cunning as a fox – хитрый как лиса as duck as pitch – абсолютно темно, непроглядная тьма as dead as a dodo – без каких-либо признаков жизни, бездыханный as deaf as a post – совершенно глухой as different as chalk and cheese – совершенно непохожи, ничего общего as like as two peas (in a pod) – похожи как две капли воды as drunk as a lord – вдребезги, вдрызг, мертвецки пьяный as dry as a bone – совершенно сухой, высохший as dry as dust – скучный, неинтересный, написанный сухим языком as dull as ditch water – невыносимо нудный, скучный as dumb as a fish – нем как рыба as easy/simple as ABC – легче легкого, проще простого (ср. as easy/simple as falling off a log, as easy as a pie) as fair as a lily/rose – прекрасна как роза as fat as a pig – разг. презр. жирный как боров as fat as butter – откормленный, упитанный, пухлый (обык. о детях) as fit as a fiddle в добром здравии, как нельзя лучше, в прекрасном настроении as fit as a flea – разг. шутл., скачет как блоха, здоров и бодр as flat as a board – совершенно плоский, плоский как доска (обык. о бюсте или ландшафте) as fiat as a pancake – 1) плоский как блин, сплющенный; 2) плоский (о шутке, анекдоте) as fresh as a daisy – цветущий, пышущий здоровьем, бодрый as fresh as a rose – свежа как роза as gay as a lark – очень веселый, жизнерадостный as gentle as a lamb – кроткий как овечка as good as a feast – достаточно as good as a play – очень интересно, забавно as good as gold – 1) хороший, благородный, порядочный; 2) послушный (о ребенке) as green as grass – 1) разг. зеленый как трава; 2) очень неопытный, не знающий жизни as happy as a king/Larry – очень счастливый, рад-радешенек as jolly as a sandboy – очень веселый, жизнерадостный as hard as flint/stone – каменный, черствый (о сердце); очень жесткий, жестокий as hard as iron – очень строгий, жесткий as hard as nails – закаленный, выносливый; в прекрасной форме (о спортсмене) as hard as steel – твердый, жесткий; физически сильный as helpless as a new-born baby – беспомощный как младенец 107 as hungry as a hunter – голодный как волк as innocent as a babe/lamb – наивный, ни в чем не повинный as keen as mustard – полный энтузиазма, одержимый as big/large as a cabbage – большой как кочан капусты (напр. о цветке, шляпе) as big/large as life – 1) в натуральную величину; 2) действительный, несомненный; заметный, бросающийся в глаза; полнокровный as light as a feather – легкий как пух as light as air – беззаботный as light as thistledown – легкий и грациозный в движениях as lively as a cricket – жизнерадостный, полный жизни as long as one's arm – длиннющий as mad as a hatter – сумасшедший, спятивший, не в своем уме as merry as a cricket – веселый, жизнерадостный as nervous as a cat/kitten – нервы не в порядке as nutty as a fruitcake – чокнутый, психованный, с приветом as obstinate/stubborn as a mule – упрямый как осел as old as Methuselah – стар, как Мафусаил, преклонных лет as old as the hills – очень старый, древний (об одежде, привычках, историях и т. п.) as old as time – очень старый, древний (о местности, обычаях, грехах и т. п.) as pale as death – смертельно бледный as plain as a pikestaff – совершенно очевидно, бесспорно, ясно как день (ср. as plain as day или as daylight, as the nose on your face) as pleased as a dog with two tails – очень довольный, рад-радешенек as pretty as a picture – хороша как картинка, очаровательная as proud as Lucifer – гордый как дьявол, высокомерный as plump as a partridge – пухлая, толстенькая as poor as a church mouse – беден как церковная крыса as quiet/still as a mouse – тихий, незаметный как мышка as quiet/silent as the grave/tomb – ни звука не слышно, тихо как в могиле as silent as the grave – безмолвный, нем как рыба as red as a cherry – румяный, с румянцем во всю щеку, кровь с молоком as red as a turkey cock – красный как рак as red as blood – кроваво-красный as red as fire – огненно-красный, покрасневший as safe as houses – абсолютно надежный, безопасный as sharp as a needle – чертовски умен, чертовски наблюдательный, проницательный as sharp as a razor – острый как бритва 108 as sick as a dog – 1) испытывающий приступ тошноты; 2) крайне недовольный, раздраженный as slippery as an eel – скользкий как угорь as smooth as a baby's bottom – очень гладкий и мягкий as smooth as a billiard ball – очень гладкий и ровный (о голове, поверхности и т. п.) as smooth as a billiard table – очень гладкий, ровный (о лужайке, дороге, поле и т. п.) as smooth as glass – гладкий как стекло as smooth/soft as silk/Velvet – шелковистый, бархатистый, приятный на ощупь as snug as a bug in a rug – очень уютно устроившийся as sober as a judge – 1) совершенно трезвый, ни в одном глазу; 2) серьезный, здравомыслящий as soft as butter – мягкотелый, слабохарактерный as sound as a bell – 1) абсолютно здоровый, в полном здравии; 2) безукоризненный, безупречный as sour as vinegar – кислый как уксус as steady as a rock – твердый, прочный as stiff as a poker/ramrod – негнущийся, жесткий; чопорный, церемонный as still as a statue – неподвижный как изваяние as still as death – безмолвный as still as the grave – тихо как на кладбище as straight as a die – 1) прямой как палка; 2) прямой, честный as straight as an arrow – прямой как стрела as strong as a horse/ox – здоров как лошадь, силен как бык as sweet as honey – 1) сладкий как мед, очень вкусный; 2) сладостный, нежный, прелестный as tall as a maypole – высокого роста, как каланча as thick as thieves – спаянные крепкой дружбой, закадычные друзья as thick as two short planks – глуп как пробка as thin as a lath/rake – худ как щепка as tight as a drum – 1) тугой как барабан, туго натянутый; 2) вдребезги, мертвецки пьяный (тж. as tight as an owl или as a tick) as timid as a mouse – тихий, незаметный, очень робкий as tough as old boots – 1) жесткий как подошва (о кушанье и т. п.); 2) очень выносливый, стойкий, жесткий (о человеке) as ugly as sin – страшен как смертный грех (ср. страшнее атомной войны) as unstable as water – очень неустойчивый, непостоянный as vain/proud as a peacock – спесивый, горделивый, тщеславный 109 as warm as а toast – очень теплый, погретый as weak as a cat/kitten – совершенно обессиливший, слабенький as weak as water – 1) слабый, хилый; 2) слабовольный, безвольный, слабохарактерный as welcome as flowers in May – долгожданный, желанный as white as a sheet (as chalk или as death) – бледный как полотно, как смерть as white as the driven snow – белоснежный as wise as Solomon – мудрый, как Соломон as wise/solemn as an owl – с умным или глубокомысленным видом (шутл.) as yellow as gold – желтый, золотистый as yellow as a guinea – желтовато-бледный (о лице) 110 GLOSSARY OF TERMS Acronym Word made up from the first sounds or syllables of words in a phrase. Active vocabulary The words that a speaker uses in speaking or writing. Adjective Head word of an adjective phrase. Some adjectives inflect for the morphosyntactic category of comparison. Adverb Head word of an adverb phrase. Affix General name for prefixes and suffixes. Allomorph The various forms of the same morpheme. Amelioration The historical change which improves a word's connotations. Antonym A word that has the opposite sense to another where the oppositeness comes about from the senses being at the ends of a scale, for example, young and old. Archaism The historical process whereby a word comes no longer to be in use, or a word which is no longer in use. Associations The associations of words come about because of the attitudes people have to the word and its sense. Auxiliary verb Verb which modifies a lexical verb in a verb phrase. Auxiliary verbs appear to the left of, or before, lexical verbs. Base The lexeme (or set of lexemes) which a word formation rule takes and turns into a constituent (or constituents) of the new lexeme(s) created by the rule. Blend A word whose phonological form is formed from the first half of the phonological form of one word and the second half of another, for example, smog is a blend of smoke and fog. Bound morpheme A morpheme that cannot function as an independent word, that is, a morpheme which must attach to a stem to form a word. Clipping Shortening the phonological representation of a word. Closed class Classes of words where no new members of the class can be created by regular word formation rules. Coining Making up a new word. Collocation Conventional associations of words within a linear sequence in sentences. Comparative A morphosyntactic property of an adjective or adverb. Its form may be the inflectional suffix -er or alternatively the word more used immediately before the adjective or adverb. The comparative form is usually used in the context where the referents of two noun phrases are 111 being compared in respect of some property, as in the Atlantic Ocean is smaller than the Pacific Ocean. Comparison A morphosyntactic category of adjectives and adverbs having three morphosyntactic properties: positive, the unmarked form of the word, comparative and superlative. Complementary senses Words have complementary senses if they belong to a semantic field with only their senses in it. Componential analysis Finding the sense components of the meanings of words. Compositional If the meaning of a linguistic unit which is itself made up of constituents is made up in a predictable way out of the meanings of its constituent parts, then it is semantically compositional. Compound A word made up from two other words. Conjunction Word that links two grammatical structures. See Chapter 7. Connotation The connotations of words are conventional social associations that words have developed. They tend to be negative or positive depending on people's attitudes to what the words denote. Converse senses Two words have converse senses if they are essentially synonyms, but the 'actors' or relationship which they denote are differently allocated by the two senses. For example: buy and sell, husband and wife. Conversion The word formation process whereby a lexeme having one syntactic category acquires a further syntactic category and thus creates a new lexeme. Count noun Noun that takes plural inflection and can occur with the determiner a. Denotation The set of things, actions, properties etc. that a word's sense gives it the potential to refer to. Derivation The formation of lexemes by means of adding a derivational affix. Derivational morpheme An affix which is part of the word-building system. Derivational affixes take as input one lexeme and through the addition of the affix create a new lexeme. Determiner One of: a, the, this, that, these, those. Dialect vocabulary Vocabulary that is (recognisably) used by a subgroup of speakers of the language. Distribution A grammatical constituent's characteristic place(s) in sequence with other grammatical constituents. Drift The changes which take place in the representation of a word in the lexicon after it has been lexicalised. 112 Echo words Words made up by attempting to imitate the sound of the thing the word denotes. Entailment When what one sentence means follows logically from what another sentence means, the meaning of the second sentence entails the meaning of the first. Ethnic dialect vocabulary Words that are distinctive of the speech of members of an ethnic sub-group of society. Etymology The origin and history of words. Euphemism A word or expression which tries to evade drawing attention to the socially uncomfortable nature of what it denotes. Folk etymology An incorrect guess about the origin of a word. Free morpheme A morpheme that can function as a word. Gradable adjective An adjective that will take comparison. Grammatical category The syntactic function of a word, for example, noun. Grammatical word The form a lexeme takes when it includes one of its possible morphosyntactic properties, for example, the plural form of a noun, such as women. Head The head of a lexeme is that constituent which determines the syntactic properties of the whole lexeme. Homonym A word that has the same form as another but is otherwise unrelated to it. Hypernym Synonym for Superordinate. Hyponym A word whose sense is a more particular instance of that of its superordinate, for example, chair is a hyponym of furniture. Infinitive Form of a verb having no inflection. Inflection An affix that is part of the grammatical system of a language Isogloss Line on a map representing the boundary between geographic areas where two alternative regional dialect features are used. Labelled bracketed notation A way of showing hierarchical organisation by surrounding each unit in a structure with two brackets and enclosing within them a label to show to which category the unit inside the brackets belongs. Lexeme A word as an abstract entity, distinct from the inflected forms which it may assume in different syntactic contexts, for example, write, writes, wrote, writing, written are forms of the lexeme WRITE. Lexical borrowing The adoption of a word from the vocabulary of one language by that of another. Lexical item An entry in the lexicon of a speaker or language. Lexical verb Head of a verb phrase. See Chapter 7. Verbs inflect for the morphosyntactic category of tense. 113 Lexicalisation The process whereby a coinage becomes an established lexical item. Lexicon Used in three senses: 1) the dictionary which a speaker of a language has in his or her head; 2) the set of lexemes of a language and the processes which relate to them; 3) the set of lexical items of a language. Metaphor Using a word while breaking some of its selectional restrictions. Morpheme An element of word structure. Morpho-phonemic Having to do with the phonemic form of morphemes. Morphology Word form or the study of word form. Morphosyntactic category Grammatical categories which have to do with both morphology and syntax, such as tense, case, number. Morphosyntactic property One of the grammatically relevant properties within a morphosyntactic category. For example, in English, the category Number in nouns contains the properties Singular and Plural, and the category Tense contains the properties Present and Past. Narrowing The historical process whereby the denotation of a word covers less than it did. Non-count noun Noun that does not take plural inflection and cannot occur with the determiner. Non-gradable adjective An adjective that will not take comparison. Nonce word A word coined and used once, but not lexicalised. Noun Head word of a noun phrase. Open class Classes of words that can be added to by the word formation processes of a language. Part of speech A traditional name for grammatical category. Participle Verb form with some adjectival properties. In English, most participles end in -ing, -en, -ed. Passive vocabulary The words a speaker knows but does not use in speech or writing. Pejoration The historical process whereby a word comes to have worse connotations than it previously had. Perfect participle A form of the verb regularly ending in the inflection -en or -ed (provided the -ed is not the past tense), or irregularly by such means as a change in the vowel, for example, sung. (Traditionally termed the past participle.) Personification A particular kind of metaphor where something that is not human is given human attributes. Phonological form The way the sound of a word is represented in the lexicon. 114 Polysemy The property of having different, but semantically related senses. Positive A morphosyntactic property of adjectives or adverbs. Its form is the standard form, i.e., without inflection. Pragmatics That part of the meaning of an utterance that comes from things other than the senses of its words and the grammar of its sentence(s). Prefix An affix that attaches to the left of the stem. Preposition Head of a prepositional phrase, for example, in. See Chapter 7. Productivity The extent to which a word formation process, such as affixation, is able to apply to lexemes of the appropriate kind so as to create new words. Progressive participle A form of verb regularly ending in the inflection -ing. (Traditionally termed the present participle.) Proper noun A noun that will not go with the determiner the. Tru-name of a person, or thing, e.g., Sally, or of a place. Proper noun conversion A change in a proper noun's syntactic representation whereby it becomes a common noun, for example, Bowler the man, to bowler, the hat. Pun The use of a word that has two senses for humorous effect. Reference Words, through their denotation, can be used by speakers to refer to things, actions, properties, relationships, etc., that is, to pick them out for the hearer from other things, actions, etc. This activity is called reference. Referring expression A word or phrase which can be used to refer. Regional dialect word Word characteristically used by speakers from a particular geographic region. Rhyming dictionary A dictionary which lists words by their reverse spelling. Root creation Words made up from scratch by putting together a new phonological, syntactic, and semantic representation. Selectional restrictions Restrictions created by the way senses fit with each other in phrases and sentences. Semantic field An area of meaning covered by words with related senses. Semantic redundancy Semantic redundancy occurs when the sense of, say, an adjective has a semantic component (or components) which is already present in the sense of, say, a noun of which it is a modifier. Semantic representation The representation of a word's meaning. Sense The meaning of a word excluding its connotations or associations. Simile A comparison in which one thing is said to be like or as another, for example, 'Britten motorcycles ride like the wind'. Social dialect vocabulary Words characteristically used by members of a particular social class. 115 Specialist vocabulary Technical vocabulary of a group of specialists. Standard form Form of the adjective not inflected for neither the comparative nor the superlative. Stem The form of a word to which affixes are attached. Suffix An affix that attaches to the right of its stem. Superlative A morphosyntactic property of adjectives or adverbs. Its form is usually an inflection -est, or alternatively the word most, placed immediately before the adjective or adverb. Superordinate A word has a superordinate sense to another word (or words) if its sense is that of the whole set where the sense of the other word(s) denotes(-) sub-categories of the set, for example, furniture has the superordinate sense where table, chair, stool, etc. have hyponymous senses. Suppletive form An unpredictable and unrelated form of a word for a particular morphosyntactic realisation, for example, better as the comparative form of good. Syncretism This occurs when a morphosyntactic contrast systematically shows no difference in form even though elsewhere the morphosyntactic properties concerned are distinguished inflectionally. For example, both the perfect and past-tense forms of regular verbs in English are the same, e.g., John called the office and John has called the office. Synonym A word or expression that has the same sense as another. Syntactic category A word's part-of-speech label representing where a word will fit in a sentence. Synonymous with grammatical category and part of speech. Taboo word A word whose use is socially prohibited (at least in some contexts). Tautology Synonym for semantic redundancy. Thesaurus A dictionary which lists together words which have the same meaning. Unmarked In the case of pairs of antonymous senses and the lexical items which bear those senses, one of the pair of lexical items often has, as well as one of the antonymous senses, a neutral sense which subsumes both anonymous senses. This is the unmarked sense. It is the lexical item we use in questions such as 'How tall is she?', where we do not have any idea whether the person is tall or short. Vocabulary A set of words that have something other than their linguistic form, function, or meaning in common. Widen The historical process whereby a word's denotation comes to encompass more than it did. 116 СПИСОК ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ Список основных источников 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка. – М.: Наука, 1966. Английская лексикология в выдержках и извлечениях / С.С. Хидекель, Р.З. Гинзбург, С.С. Князева, А.А. Санкин. – Л.: [б. и.], 1969. Александрова О.В. Хрестоматия по английской филологии. – М.: Высшая школа, 1991. Гальперин И.Р. Лексикология английского языка. – М.: [б. и.], 1956. Гвишиани Н.Б. Современный английский язык: Лексикология. – М.: Академия, 2007. Лексикология английского языка: учебное пособие для студентов / Г.Б. Антрушина, О.В. Афанасьева, Н.Н. Морозова. – М.: Дрофа, 1999. Минаева Л.В. Лексикология и лексикография английского языка. – М.: Изд-во Ступени, 2003. Смирницкий А.И. 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