Lexicology as a Branch of Linguistics

LECTURE I

Lexicology as a Branch of Linguistics

The scope of lexicology and the key notions of the word studies

1. Links with other branches of linguistics
2. The theoretical and practical value of lexicology
3. Methods of lexicological research

The scope of lexicolgy

The word “Lexicology” comes from two Greek roots: lexis - “word” and logos -

“learning”. It is a branch of linguistics that deals with the vocabulary

of a language and the properties of words.

The basic task of this discipline is a systematic description of the

Vocabulary of a language from the point of view of its origin, development

and current us e.

The field of lexicology has been under discussion. The most disputable

points are: 1) the problem of the word and 2) distinguishing lexicology

as a separate science. Repesentatives of various linguistic schools treated these problems from different angles and often came to different conclusions.

Thus American descriptivists did not treat the word as the main unit

of the language, while many other scholars including former Soviet or present

Russian scholars consider it the basic unit of the language.

Some foreign scholars such as Ul. Weinrech, Aidan Cahill, M. Halliday,

D. Crystal and others did not distinguish lexicology

as a separate linguistic discipline and it was in the works

of Russian scholars (V.V.Vinogradov,G.O.Vinokur, L.V. Scherba,

A.I. Smirnitsky,O.S. Akhmanova etc.) that the theory of this science was

worked out.Today this branch of linguistics is a very important one and many

of its aspects are under research.

Considering lexicology scholars traditionally speak about general, special,

Historical and descriptive, comparative and contrastive, applied and functional

lexicology.

General lexicology is the study of words and vocabulary, irrespective

of the specific features of any particular language. It deals with language

universals which are linguistic phenomena and features common to all languages.

It means that general lexicology forms a part of general linguistics.

In contrast to general lexicology, s pecial lexicology devotes its attention

Meaning, semasiology and onomasiology, lexical system.

The term vocabulary is used to denote the system formed by all the words

and phraseological units of the language.

The term word is used to denote a very complicated notion, which is defined

in many ways. Traditionally the word denotes the basic unit of

A given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with

A particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical

employment. If we try to explain it, we can say that any word consists of sounds,

is used in some characteristic grammatical functions and has a special meaning

of its own. Thus a word therefore is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical

and phonological unit.

The phraseological unit is a group of words, characterized by a completely

Or partially transferred meaning.

The term meaning is also very dubious. According to F. de Soaussure,

LECTURE II

The Word as a Linguistic Unit. The Semantic Sstructure of the Word

The problem of the word. The main properties of the word as a unit of the language.

Meaning and notion. Types of meaning.

The elements of the semantic structure. Polysemy.

The change of meaning.

The problem of the word.

Trying to define the word we should distinguish its most essential features and differentiate it from other linguistic units, such as the phoneme, the morpheme, or the word-group.

The definition of a word is one of the most complicated problems in linguistics because the simplest word has many different aspects. It has a sound form as it consists of phonemes; it has its morphological structure, as it is a certain arrangement of morphemes; and in speech it occurs in different word-forms. Traditionally the word is considered to be the central element of any language system. It is studied in phonology, lexicology, syntax, morphology and other branches of human knowledge such as philosophy or psychology as they deal with language and speech.

All attempts to characterize the word and to solve the problem of nomination are specific for each branch of linguistics. They are considered one-sided and much criticized.

There are dozens of definitions of the word, each of them has its advantages and underlines some special aspect of the word as a unit.

The main disagreement between different scholars consists in the notiоnal and formal definition of the word.

H.Sweet and L. Bloomfield defined the word syntactically and spoke about “the minimum sen­tence” (H. Sweet) and as “a minimum free form” (L. Bloomfield).

E. Sapir takes into consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects and calls the word “one of the smallest, completely satisfying bits of isolated ‘meaning’, into which the sentence resolves itself”. He also points out one more, very important characteristic of the word, its indivisibility. The essence of this characteristic can be seen in the of comparison of the article a and the prefix a- in a jar and ajar. A jar is a word-group because we can separate its elements and insert other words between them: a full jar. Ajar is a word as it is indivisible.: nothing can be inserted between its elements. The morpheme a- is not free, it is not a word.

Discussing the internal cohesion of the word the English lin­guist John Lyons points out that it should be discussed in terms of two criteria: “positional mobility ” and “uninterruptability ”. To illustrate the first criterion he segments into morphemes the following sentence:

the — boy — s — walk — ed — slow — ly — up — the — hill

The sentence may be regarded as a sequence of ten morphemes, which occur in a particular order relative to one another. There are several pos­sible changes in this order which yield an acceptable English sentence:

slow — ly - the — boy — s— walk — ed — up — the — hill;

up — the — hill — slow — ly — walk — ed — the — boy — s

It is obvious that groups of morphemes occur always together, and in the same order relative to one another. There is no possibility of the sequence: s— the—boy, ly — slow, ed — walk. One of the characteristics of the word is that it tends to be internally stable (the order of the component mor­phemes), but positionally mobile ” -

Allan Gardiner applied a semantic-phonological approach and defined the word: “ A word is an articulate sound-symbol, in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken about. ”

D.Crystal and M. Halliday suggested speaking about not words but lexical items (лексемы). But their idea of a lexical item was not quite clear as they did not give the difference between an orphographical word (indivisibe item) and a compound word spelt in 2 items or a phraseological unit.

The famous French linguist A. Meillet combined the semantic, pho­nological and grammatical criteria and gave a definition which was accepted abroad and in this country: “ A word is defined by the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment.”

I.V. Arnold criticized this definition as it does not permit us to distinguish words from phrases because not only a word, but a word combination answer this definition and are combinations of a particular group of sounds with a particular meaning capable of a par­ticular grammatical employment.

She thinks that we can accept this formula if we add that a word is characterized by positional mobility within a sentence and indi­visibility, and that the word is the smallest significant unit of a given language, capable of functioning alone. I t helps us to create a basis for the oppositions between the word and the phrase, the word and the phoneme, and the word and the morpheme.

Some scholars doubted that the word is a linguistic unit and not an arbitrary segment of speech. This opinion is put forth by S. Potter, who writes that “unlike a phoneme or a syllable, a word is not a linguistic unit at all.” He calls it a conven­tional and arbitrary segment of utterance, and finally adopts the already mentioned definition of L. Bloomfield.

I.V. Arnold thinks that a description of the word seems more appropriate than a definition and writes that: The word is one of the fundamental units of language. It is unity of form and content.The word denotes the basic unit of a given language resulting from the association of a particular meaningwith a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment.

Among Russian scholars A.I. Smirnitsky paid much attention to the word and mentioned its basic properties. They are formal integrity (цельнооформленность), indivisibility (нечленимость) and so-called identity. In connection with these features A.I.Smirnitsky spoke about the size-of unit problem (проблема отдельности) and the identity –of-unit problem (проблема тождества слова).

Aspects of meaning

Word-meaning is not homogeneous and it consists of several components. We speak about grammatical, lexical and lexico-grammatical meaning.

Grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relations between word-forms. It is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words, e.g. the meaning of plurality in nouns.

Lexical meaning is the meaning proper, e.g. the meaning of the process of movement in the word to go (a meaning from a dictionary). The lexical meaning of every word depends upon the part of speech to which the word belongs. Every word may be used in a limited set of syntactical functions, and with a definite valency. It has a definite set of grammatical meanings, and a definite set of forms.

In the lexical meaning of every separate word t he lexico-grammatical meaning c ommon to all the words of the class to which this word belongs becomes particularized. E.g. The meaning of a specific property in such words as bright, clear, good is a particular realization of the lexico-grammatical meaning of qualitative adjectives.

The lexical meaning of the word is not homogeneous either. Various linguists suggest different approaches. But traditionally such phenomena as denotative aspect, significative aspect, connotative aspect and pragmatic aspect of meaning are discussed. It is important that all the aspects are closely linked and distinguishe only for scientific purposes.

The denotative aspect (component) of meaning (also called referential or extensional meaning) is formed by the features forming denotation, which is defined as the part of the word`s semantics which involves the relationship between a linguistic unit and the non-linguistic entities to which it refers. Normally it is the denotative aspect that forms dictionary definitions. E.g. a stool - a seat without a supporting fot the back and arms. (табурет). The significative aspect is often considered as reference not to a concrete object but a class of objects. E.G. Belyevskaya gives an example: a concrete cat - denotative aspect (all cats realised in one). I.V. Arnold considers it in a different way- significative aspect evokes a general idea. Words in their significative meanings can be found in aphorisms and sayings, here also belong abstract notions: philosophy, happiness. The demonstrative aspect of meaning is revealed when the word serves to name individual elements of reality: a table, a copy-book. Pronouns possess the demonstrative function and almost exclude the significative function, i.e. they only point out, they do not give any information about the object.

The meaning of many words can have complex associations which form the connotational or connotative component of meaning. The connotative component includes emotive, evaluative expressive and intensitive aspects.

The emotional content of the word is its capacity to evoke or directly express emotion. Emotions expressed in words can be positive and negative: admiration, respect, tenderness and other positive feelings on the one hand, and scorn, irony, loathing, etc. on the other, e.g. garish, notorious.

Evaluation is understood as the component of meaning that gives information about the positive or negative attitude to the object or phenomenon. There are 2 types of evaluation: logical (intellectual) and emotional. The former is the part of the denotative meaning: to boss, to fuss, to deceive. The latter shows the emotional attitude of the speaker: to whine. The emotive and evaluative aspects are so tightly connected, that often it is difficult to discriminate between them.

The intensive aspect of meaning accentuates the features typical of the denotative meaning. Intensity correlates with evaluation. Elements of connotation are gradual, e.g. small- tiny-minute; large-immense-huge-gigantic.

Types of connotations

Connotations can be of different types, the most usual are 5: a) emotion, e.g. daddy as compared to father, b) evaluation, e.g. clique as compared to group, c) intensity, e.g. adore as compared to love, d) stylistic colouring, e.g. slay as compared to kill e) duration, e.g. to glance instead of to look f) cause e.g. shiver (cold) compared with shudder (fear)

The pragmatic aspect of meaning forms the additional iformation about the circumstances of communication and its participants. Information about the circumstances of communication shows the register of communication: formal, neutral and informal: e.g. infant-child –kid, buy-purchase, brotherly-fraternal. Territorial variants of language can also be of importance: lift-elevator; underground-subway. Speaking about the participants of communication we should speak about their age – e.g. mummy (only a child can say); education, social status etc.

Speaking about the meaning we should mention such an important phenomenon as motivation.

The term motivation is used to denote the relationship exis­ting between the morphemic or phonemic composition and structural pattern of the word and its meaning. When the connection between the phonetical and morphological struc­ture of the word and its meaning is conventional and not synchro­nously perceptible, the word is non-motivated: e.g. table

There are three main types of motivation: phonetical motiva­tion, morphological motivation and semantic motivation

The word buzz is motivated by a certain similarity between the sounds which make it up, and those referred to by the sense, this type of motivation is called phonetical. Examples are also: bang, cuckoo, giggle, purr, whistle, etc.

Morphological motivation can be seen in the derived word rethink in which its morphological structure suggests the idea of thinking again.

Semantic motivation is based on the co-existence of direct and fig­urative meaning, e.g. mouth (a part of the face) - any opening or outlet the mouth of a river. In its direct meaning the word mouth is not motivated, so that semantic motivation is also only relative.

The motivation of compound words is morphological if the meaning of the whole is based on the literal meaning of the components, and se­mantic if the combination of components is used figuratively. I.V.Arnold give en example eyewash as “a lotion for the eyes” is motivated morphologically. If, eyewash is used metaphorically and means “some­thing said to deceive”, the motivation is semantic.

Some linguists consider one more type of motivation that is called sound symbolism or phonosemantics: flap, flip, flop, where fl is associated with quick movement, gl with light and fire etc.

Words that are non-motivated at present may have lost their motivation. due to changes in the vocabulary, their motivation is faded.

Speaking about the meaning of the word we also speak about its collocability or valency which is realizationof the meaning of the word which depends on the word`s association with other words. E.g. a handsome man, a pretty girl. We also speak about free meanings and phraseologicaly bound ones. The latter are realized only in set phrases or phraseological units. e.g. to raise – to show surprise (in the phrase “to raise one`s eyebrows”)

The change of meaning

The change of the semantic structure of a word is always a source of development of the vocabulary.

All the types of change of meaning depend upon some comparison between the earlier and the new meaning of the given word. This comparison may be based on the difference between notions expressed on the type of psychological association, on evaluation etc.

The traditional classification of types of change of meaning was suggested by M. Breal and H. Paul.

The most important types are: specialization of meaning, generelization of meaning, amelioration of meaning, perjoration of meaning. Besides, sholars speak about metaphorical and metonymical change and some minor typessuch as hyperbole, litotes, irony, euphemism. There is a difference between the terms of the last group as understood in in lexicology and stylistics.

During passing from general usage into some special sphere of communication a word can undergo some sort of specialization ( the other terms are “narrowing, dif­ferentiation ”.)of its meaning: e.g, “hound ” - a dog of any breed; now- “a dog used in the chase”; “to glide” -“to move smoothly”; now- “to fly with no engine”; “ to starve” – to die, now- to die of hunger;meat – food; now-special kind of food; “girl”- a small child of any sex; now- a child of the female sex.

A word here which formerly represen­ted a notion of a broader scope has come to render a notion of a narrower scope. In this case the word can name fewer objects, i.e. have fewer referents. At the same time the content of the notion is enriched. St. Ullmann said about it: “The word is now applicable to more things but tells us less about them.”

The process opposite to specialization is called generalization or broadening of meaning. In that case the scope of the new notion is wider than that of the original one, whereas the content of the notion is poorer. Often a concrete meaning becomes more abstract. E.g. target – a small round shield; now - anything that is fired at; pipe - a musical instrument; now - hollow body of special form; to arrive - to come to shore, to land, now to come anywhere.

Changes in the connotational component of lexical meaning are also of two main types. They are also called changes depending on the social attitude to the object named: ameliora­tion (elevation) and pejoration (degradation) of meaning.

Amelioration or elevation is a semantic shift undergone by words due to their referents coming up the social scale, e.g. minister - a servant;, now-a civil servant of high rank; queen - a woman; now- the king`s wife; marshal -a servant looking after horses; now –the highest military rank; knight -a young servant; now – a noble man; tory - a highwayman; now- a member of the Conservative party.

The reverse process is pejoration or degradation. It involves a lowering in social scale connected with the appearance of a derogatory and scornful emotive tone. E.g. knave –1)‘boy, 2) servant; now a term of abuse; villain - a worker on the villa; now - a scoundrel; silly -happy; now - foolish.

The most frequent transfers of the name of one object to a different one are based on associations of similarity or of contiguity. They are called metaphor (Greek – meta – “change” and phero “bear”) and metonymy (Greek - metonymia from meta and onoma 'name').

Metaphor is a transfer of name based on the association of similarity and thus is actually a hidden comparison. The relationship of the direct denotative meaning of the word and the meaning in the literary context is based on similarity of some features in the objects compared. E.g a cunning person - a fox; a woman -a peach, a lemon, a oat, a goose; a famous person - a star, the part of a building – a wing.

Metaphors are divided into language and poetic. In lexicology we are interested mostly in linguistic metaphors as poetic ones are tropes and studied in stylistics. Poetic metaphor is the fruit of the author's imagination, it is normally unexpected and new. Language metaphors are mostly dead or trite, and the thing nominated normally has no other name. In a dead metaphor the comparison is completely forgotten, e.g, source. When the development of the meaning is more or less obvious such metaphors are called genuine. Metaphors have been studied since Ancient times, when Aristotle and Quintillian dealt with them. In modern linguistics such foreign scholars as Richards and Lacoff and many Russian ones worked on the problem.

Metaphors, H. Paul points out, may be based upon several types of similarity, the most freqent are: 1) similarity of shape: head of a cabbage, the teeth of a saw. 2) similarity of function: a hand – a hand of the clock. 3) position: foot of a page, of a mountain, or behaviour: bookworm, wirepuller (политический интриган) 4) the analogy between duration of time and space, e.g. long distance’.’, long speech; a short path - a short time; 5) space relations and psychological and mental notions (e.g. words of understanding): to catch (to grasp) an idea; to take a hints to get the hang of; to throw light upon. 6 ) the concrete to the abstract score- a number of somth- state of affairs, span- length-period of time, thrill-vibration – excitement; 7) transitions of proper names into common ones: an Adonis, a Cicero, a Don Juan, etc.

Metaphors are often antropomorphic.: head of an army, of a procession, of a household; eye of a needle, foot of a hill, tongue of a bell.

If the transfer is based upon the association of contiguity it is called metonymy. It is a shift of names between things that are known to be in some way or other connected in reality. The transfer may be condi­tioned by spatial, temporal, causal, symbolic, instrumental, functional and other relations.

1) spatial relations are present when the name of the place is used for the people occupying it. The chair may mean ‘the chair­man’, the bar ‘the lawyers’, the pulpit ‘the priests’. The word town may denote the inhabitants of a town and the word house the members of the House of Commons or of Lords; the arms of the chair, the foot of the bed.

2) causal relationship is obvious in the following example: fear from ‘danger’, ‘unexpected attack’.

3)States and properties serve as names for objects and people possessing them: youth, age, authorities, forces.

4)Emotions may be named by the movements that accompany them: to froasn, to start.

5) Symbol for thing symbol­ized: the crown for ‘monarchy’;

6) The instrument for the product: hand for’handwriting’;

7) The receptacle for content, as in the word kettle.

8)The material from which an article is made for the article itself: glass, iron, copper, nickel

9)Common names may be derived from proper names also metonymically, as in mackintosh.

10) Many physical and technical units are named after great scientists:

volt, ohm, ampere, watt, etc.

11) The place of some establishment is used not only for the establishment itself or its staff but also for its policy: the White House, the Pentagon, Wall Street, Dawning Street, Fleet Street.

Examples of geographic names turning into common nouns to name the goods exported or originating there are exceedingly numerous: china, tweed.

Hyperbole (from Greek huperballo “exceed”) 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: e.g. A bsolutely! Awfully! Terribly! Lovely! The reverse figure is called litotes or understatement. It is defined as expressing the affirmative by the negation of its contrary: e.g. not bad or not half bad for ‘good’, not small for ‘great’, no coward for ‘brave’. Some understate­ments do not contain negations: rather decent; I could do with a cup of tea. Understatement is a typical feature of English speech. Moreover it is a sort of phenomenon of life, the style of life: I won` t recommend, I don` t think you are right, I`d rather not do it.

Irony, expression of one’s meaning by words of opposite meaning, especially for the purpose of ridicule. One of the meanings of the adjective nice is ‘bad’, ‘unsatisfactory’; it is marked off as ironical and illustrated by the example: You’ve got us into a nice mess!

Causes of semantic change

The causes of semantic changes may be grouped under two main head­ings, linguistic and extralinguistic ones. The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the languages. They are observed in changes of meaning resulting from the development of the notion and the denotatum or by appearance of new notions and things. To name these new objects new words can appear, words can be borrowed from other languages or old words develop new meanings. This process is reflected in the develop­ment of lexical meaning, e.g. carriage – a vehicle, drawn by horses – a railway car; a mill -a building where flour was produced, now- a textile factory.

The linguistic reasons deal with changes due to the constant interdependence of vocabulary units in language and speech, such as differentiation between synonyms, changes taking place in connection with ellipsis and with fixed contexts, changes resulting from ambiguity in certain contexts, and some other cases: e.g. time and tide. The words were synonyms. Then tide took on its more limited application to the periodically shifting waters, and time alone is used in the general sense.

There are also syntagmatic semantic changes depending on the context, e.g.

ellipsis. The qualifying words of a frequent phrase may be omitted: propose can be used for to propose marriage, to be expecting for to be expecting a baby. The kernel word of the phrase may seem redundant: minerals for mineral waters. Due to ellipsis starve which originally meant ‘die’ (Germ - sterben) came to substitute the whole phrase die of hunger, and also began ‘ to mean ‘suffer from lack of food’ and even in colloquial use ‘to feel hungry’.

LECTURE III

The Problem of Homonymy

LECTURE IV

Sources of synonymy.

Euphemisms.

Antonyms.

Sources of synonymy

There are several sources of synonymy. One of them is borrowing. It is considered to be the main reason for the appearance of new words. 0. Jespersen and many others used to stress that English is peculiarly rich in synonyms because the wars between ancient tribes (Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans) influenced their speech. Besides, British scholars studied Greek and Latin and for centuries used Latin as a medium for communication on scholarly topics.

The pecu­liar feature of synonymy in English is the contrast between simple native words, which are sty­listically neutral, literary words borrowed from French and learned words of Greco-Latin origin. It can be illustrated by the following:

Euphemisms

In all languages there are words which people avoid in their speech or notions they avoid to mention. Earlier names of ritual objects or animals were forbidden to be mentioned because the name was regarded as an equivalent of what was named. The object itself or the word, which shoud not be used is taboo. Words that substitute for such “forbidden” word are called euphemisms. Euphemism (Greek euphemismos from eu ‘well’ and pheme ‘speak’) is the substitution of words of mild or vague connotations for expressions which seem unpleasant or for some other reasons unmentionable.

With peoples of developed culture euphemism is dictated by social usage, moral tact and etiquette. E.g. queer -mad, deceased - dead. The denotational meaning of drunk and merry may be the same. The euphemistic expression merry coincides in denotation with the word it substitutes, but the connotations of the latter fade out and so the utterance on the whole is less offensive. The substitution is accounted for by the speaker’s tendency to be considerate. The effect is achieved because the periphrastic expression is not so harsh, sometimes jocular and usually motivated according to some sec­ondary feature of the notion: poor- underprivileged; naked - in one’s birthday suit; pregnant - in the family way. Very often a learned word which sounds less familiar is therefore less offensive, as in drunkenness- intoxication; sweat - perspiration.

Antonyms.

Antonyms may be defined as two or rarely more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and used together so that.their denotative meanings render contrary or contradictory notions. Antonyms form binary oppositions, the distinctive feature of which is semantic polarity. Such oppositions are called antonymic pairs. e.g. love - hate, early - late, unknown - known..

V. N. Komissarov worked out a classification of antonyms and criteria of antonymy applying a contextual treatment of the problem. He classified antonyms into absolute or root: love- hate, late - early and derivatiional antonyms known – unknown. He gave at least 2 criteria of antonymy. 1)two words shall be considered antonymous if they are regularly contrasted in actual speech. 2) the possibility of substitution and identical lexical valency.

Antonyms are classified into:1)a bsolute antonyms then are words regularly contrasted, as homogeneous sentence members connected by copulative (соединительный), disjunctive (разделительный) or adversative (противительный) conjunctions. E.g. He was alive, (not dead).

Members of the same antonymic pair reveal nearly identical spheres of collocation. The adjective hot in its figurative meaning of ‘angry’ and ‘excited’ is chiefly combined with unpleasant emotions: anger, resent­ment, scorn, etc. Its antonym cold occurs with the same words. Both hot and cold are used in combinations with emotionally neutral personal nouns: fellow, man, but not with personal nouns implying posi­tive evaluation: friend, supporter.

Unlike synonyms, antonyms do not differ either in style, emotional colouring or distribution. They are interchangeable at least in some con­texts.

2) derivational antonyms. The affixes in them serve to deny the quality stated in the stem, e.g. the opposition known - unknown. There are typical-affixes and typical patterns for derivational antonyms. The regular type of derivational antonyms con­tains negative prefixes: dis-, il-lim-lin-lir - and un -. The only suffix forming antonyms - less. But the opposition hopeless - hopeful or useless - useful is more complicated as the suffix – less is not merely added to the contrasting stem, but substituted for the suffix – ful.

Leonard Lipka and David Crystal classified antonyms into contradictories, contraries, incompatibles and conversives.

Contradictories are words that contradict each other and the denial of one thing implies the assertion of the other: e.g. dead-alive, single-married (not A but B). Contradictories are also called complementaries.

Contraries (antonyms proper) add to each other, e.g. cold – warm; big-small. (A and B= all). They are also called gradable, as they can form gradual oppositions: hot-warm-tepid-cold

Incompatibilities are characterized by relations of exclusion, e.g. red is not yellow, not blue etc. (A or B)..

C onversives, e.g. buy - sell, give - receive. Conversives denote one and the same referent as viewed from different points of view, that of the subject and that of the object. The substitution of a conversive does not change the meaning of a sentence if appropriate regular morpho­logical and syntactical changes take place, e.g. He gave her flowers — She received flowers from him.

Not only words, but phraseological units as well, can be grouped into antonymic pairs. The phrase by accident can be contrastedto the phrase on purpose.

Polysemantic words may have antonyms in some of their meanings and none in the others, e.g. criticism - blame; the antonym is praise; when the meaning is - writing critical essays, it can have no antonym. Also in different meanings a word may have different antonyms. E.g: a short story - a long story but a short man- a tall man, to be short with somebody- to be civil with somebody.

Some scholars considered the problem of antonymy to be extralinguistic, as antonyms deal mostly with logical associations and notions. A.I.Smirnitsky suggested excluding them from the scope of lexicology. But today linguists speak about special antonymic connotations,which are realized in the meanings of the words themselves. E.g. friend – also not an enemy.

LECTURE V.

Poeticizms

The idea of a special poetic style in English is contradictory. I.R.Galperin distinguishes it as a substyle of the belles-lettres style, I.V.Arnold opposes his opinion. In any case within the English vocabulary there is a set of words, traditionally used only in poetry and different from others because they have poetic connotations. Their usage was typical of the poetry of the past. These words are not only more lofty but also as a rule more abstract in their denota­tive meaning than their neutral synonyms. E.g. brow -forehead; gore -blood; steed -horse. Sometimes not the word as a whole is poetic but one of its variants. It may be semantic: e.g. the words fair (прекрасный), flood( поток) have a poetical meaning, it may be also a phonetical variant: morn - morning; oft - often.

Colloquial words

The term colloquial is quite old. It was used by S. Johnson, the great English lexicographer. But he didn`t approve of it. S.Johnson thought colloquial words inconsistent with good usage and ad­vised “to clear English from colloquial barbarisms”.

Today colloquial does not nec­essarily mean ‘slangy’ or ‘vulgar’. L iterary colloquial is the vocabu­lary used by educated people in ordinary conversation or written communication with intimate friends. Familiar (special)colloquial words are more emotional and care­less than literary colloquial. Low colloquial is a term used for illiterate popular speech. It is very difficult to establish the boundary between these 3 types of colloquial language.

Colloquial speech is characterized by such features as 1 )substantivized adjectives: e.g. constitutional -walk, daily -woman who comes daily to help with the household chores. 2) formations from phrasal verbs: carry-on - way of behaving, let-down - an unexpected disap­pointment, make-up - cosmetics, break-through- solution to the problem; 3) compounds coined by back-formation: to baby-sit - from baby-sitter. 4) lexical intensifiers and words easily acquiring new meanings and valency. E.g. to do a museum. 5) lexical expressions of modality. E.g. definitely; up to a point, in a way, exactly.

Slang.

Within colloquial vocabulary there are layers which should be discussed: slang, argot, cant, jargon. They should be distinguished from dialects as they have only lexical peculiarities and grammar formation. Argot should be distinguished from slang: the first term serves to denote a special vocabulary, used by a particular social or age group, especially the so-called underworld (the criminal circles). Its main point is to be unintelligible to outsiders. Cant is conversational words used by members of particular occupation. Jargon is a technical vocabulary of a professional subgroup.

There is no exact definition of slang. The subject of slang has been discussed for many years and very different opinions of its nature, its boundaries and the attitude towards it have been expressed. The best-known English lexicographer and scholar who studied slang was E. Partridge.

Slang words are identified and distinguished by contrasting them to standard literary vocabulary. They are expressive, mostly ironical words serving to create fresh names for some things that are frequent topics of discourse. Sometimes they sound vulgar, cynical and harsh, e.g. vivid examples are slang words for money: beans, brass, dough - mone y; saucers - eyes ; to leg -to walk.The lexical meaning of a slang word contains not only the denotational component but also different types of connotation.

Many scholars consider that slang after it has been used in speech for a certain period of time, comes to just colloquial or even literary vocabulary, e.g. bet, shabby, sham, snob, trip. The bulk of slang is formed by short-lived words.They may denote a new and notion and enrich the vocabulary or make addition to a cluster of synonyms.

Slang words can be classified into general slang and special slang. General slang includes words that are not specific for any social or pro­fessional group, special slang is peculiar for some such group: teenager slang, university slang, public school slang, Air Force slang, football slang, sea slang. etc. Some authors consider argot, cant, jargon to belong here. I.V.Arnold contradicts this idea saying that essential difference between them is in the fact that slang has an expressive function, but the other gropus aim secrecy. Slang words are clearly motivated, e.g. cradle-snatcher - an old man who marries or courts a much younger woman. Argot words on the contrary do not show their motivation, e.g. book -a life sentence.

Another group within the colloquial layer is professional words which are sometimes also considered within slang or jargons. Professional words should not be confused with terms. When the word is the only name for some special notion it belongs to terminology. If it is a jocular name for something that can be described in a different way, it is a professional word. Terms are literary words and can be understood by anybody while professional words are colloquial and belong to some professional community and may not be understood by other people, e.g. tinfish - submarine; piper - a person, who decorates cakes.

There are cases when professional words pass on into general slang, e.g. the expression to be on the beam was first used by pilots about the beam of the radio beacon indicating the proper course for the aircraft to follow. Now figuratively to be on the beam means ‘to be right’, to be off the beam means ‘to be wrong’ or ‘to be at a loss’.

A great deal of slang comes from the USA, but slang is not always American in its origin.

Neologisms

The vocabulary of any language constantly changes. New notions appear and new words come to the language to name them. On the other hand, some notions and things become outdated and the words that denote them drop out of the language. In the former case we speak about neologisms, in the latter about obsolete and archaic words.

Sometimes a new name is introduced for a thing or notion that continues to exist, and the older name disappears. Still many new words come into a language and function there as its permanent units. N.Gvishiani gives such recent examples as hypertext, compact video etc. The term neologism appeared in the 18^th century (1755) in French from which it came to English in the 19^th century (after 1800) for denoting new words and notions.

I.V.Arnold defines n eologisms as words or set expression, formed ac­cording to the productive structural patterns or borrowed from another language and felt by the speakers as something new.

Neologisms have a close link with a certain time period, which is taken arbitrary. In recent years some scholars chose the end of World War II, others the start of space exploration or some other important moment.

Among foreign scholars E.Partridge and Fowler [] studied neologisms.

The spheres in which new words most frequently appear are: science and technology(according to E.M. Dubenets mostly from computing technologies), medicine, social sphere and economics and everyday life(mostly clothes).

1) computers a) types of computers: super-computer, multi-user. b) parts of computers: hardware, software, gimmicks (additional parts of acomputer) c) computer language: Fortran, basic; d) work on computers: to computereize, to blitz out(to ruin data in a computer`s memory).

2) social sphere and economics: youthquake (rebellions among young people); pussy-footer (a politician ready to compromise), belonger (a conservative person of the middle class), yuppi (young professional people).

3 ) everyday life a) food: starter (hos d`oeuvres ), macrobiotics (raw vegetables); b) clothing: catsuit (a clinging suit;камбинезон); hipster (a skirt(trousers) with the belt on hips; completenik (a long sweater for trouthers), bloomers (lady`s sport trousers); c) footwear: thongs (open sandals, d) bags: sling bag(a bag with a long belt).

Neologisms can come into a language in different ways. 1) absolutely new words can be built according to some patterns for denoting new objects (proper neologisms). 2) already existing words can develop new meanings and be used for denotind new objects (semantic neologisms) 3) a new word can appear for an old object (transnomination).

1)Proper neologisms are most frequent, which is also connected with science development: e.g. to telework ( to work at home, using a computer), telecommuter (a consultant, connected with the firm by a computer). 2) Semantic neologisms can develop in 2 ways. a) the old meaning of the word can disappear and the word can be used only in the new one, e.g. sophisticated equipment; “ sophisticated” meant “artificial”. The word retains the old meaning, but a new one appears, e.g. summit, mafia -any society, cosmetic -deceiving .3) transnomination is often used to create a word with emotial connotation, such words are mostly colloquial, for example slang, professional words etc. e.g. air-brained -light-minded, burned-out -deadly-tired.

According to the way of formation neologisms can be classified into phonological, syntactical and borrowings.

1) phonological neologisms are made of sound or imitate sounds, e.g. zizz -to sleep short, to whee -to be excited.

2) syntactical neologisms can be morphological and phraseological. The former are often compound words, e.g. long-timer – a person whoworks for the same company long, snack-abuse -eating too much of snacks; but may be formed by means of usual suffixes added to new stems, e.g. filmdom -cinemaworld, standee - a passenger standing in transport, gloomster -pessimist. Conversion is quite frequent, e.g. to orbit the moon, to garage a car, to service a car. Phraseological neologisms are to nose out -learn, a whiz kid -a young man, successful in his career.

3) borrowings come from different languages, e.g. Japanese- karaoke, karoshi (death caused by overworking).

A new word can be accepted into the language and stop being new, or it may vanish from the language. It may serve as a basis for further word-formation, e.g. zip -an imitative word denoting a certain type of fastener is not new, but its derivatives are, e.g. to zip (to zip from one place to another) and the corresponding noun zipper.

Obsolete and archaic words

In the stock of the words of the language there are those which may drop out of the language altogether. There are three terms we speak about in this connection: obsolete words, archaisms and historisms (historical words). The disappearance of words may be caused by linguistic factors, when a new name appears for an old notion. It is often difficult to say whether such words still belong to the present-day English vocabulary or they are obsolete. Sometimes names for obsolete notions remain in the language in their figurative meaning.

I.R. Galperin distinguishes 3 stages in the aging process of words.

1) obsolescent words, which are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use. Here, in his opinion, belong morphological forms, which were used in the earlier periods of the development of the language, pronouns: thou-thee, thy, thine;the verbal endings:est, eth (he maketh);the verb-forms: art.

To this category of words belong many French borrowings: to emplume- to adorn with feathers;garniture - furniture.

2) obsolete words, which have already dropped out of use but are still recognized by native speakers: nay– no;methinks - it seems to me.

3) archaic words proper are words no more recognizable in modern English. e.g. troth – faith; losel - a lazy fellow. I.V. Arnold gives it in a different way.In her opinion,when a word is no longer in general use but not absolutely obsolete, we call it an archaism.

There is another class of words, which is called historical (historisms). They should not be confused with archaic. Here not the words, but the phenomena themselves (denotations, referents)have disappeared from today`s life. e.g.: yeomen, manor etc. Historical words have no synonyms, but archaic words have been replaced by modern synonyms. In scientific style the use of such words will bear no stylistic function. But in historical novels the above groups have their stylistic function and are used mostly in the creation of a realistic historical background. On the whole the characters of historical novels speak the language of the period the writer lives in, and his task is colour the language with archaic forms, which will be interlaced with the texture of the modern sense.

W. Scott was a master of creating historical colour in his novels. He managed to introduce several elements more or less obsolete and it was enough to convey the desired effect. Archaic words are also used in poetry (many poetic words are archaic) and for satirical purposes.

Archaic words can be found in the style of official documents as terms of some special field of activity, e.g. law, diplomatic relations etc.

Assimilation of loans

The term assimilation of a loan word is used to denote a partial or total conformation to the phonetical, graphical and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system. The degree of assimilation depends upon the length of the period of usage of the word in the receiving language, its importance for communication purpose and its frequency. Oral borrow­ings are assimilated more completely and more rapidly than borrowings through written speech.

A classification of loan words according to the degree of assimilation is general as no proper criteria have been developed. There are 3 groups: 1)com­pletely assimilated loan words; 2)partially assimi­lated loan words and 3)unassimilated loan words or barbarisms.

1)completely assimilated words are found in all the layers of older borrowings. They may belong to the first layer of Latin borrowings, e.g. cheese, street, wall or wine. Among Scandinavian loan words there are such nouns as husband, fellow, gate, root, wing. Com­pletely assimilated French words are numerous: chair, face and figure, finish and matter.

2)partially assimilated words can be non-assimilated phonetically: prestige, regime, memoir and grammatically: crisis-crises, formula-formulae, phenomenon-phenomena.

3) unassimilated loan words or barbarisms: hos d`oeuvres.

Etymological doublets are words of the same language which were derived by different routes from the same basic word. They differ to a certain degree in form, meaning and current usage. Sometimes these words were originally been dialectal variants of the same word: shirt-skirt come of the same root, but shirt – a native word, while skirt – a Scandinavian borrowing; canal (latin)- channel (French). Some words were borrowed from the same language twice at different periods: cavalry (Norm. French) - chivalry (French); Ther are even tpiplets: hospita l(Latin)- hostel (Norman)- hotel (French); to capture (Latin)- to catch (Norman)- to chase (French).

LECTURE VI

Compound words

Shortenings

Conversion

Affixation.

Unlike roots, affixes are always bound forms. According to their position,affixes are subdivided into prefixes, suffixes and infixes.

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, the suffix also serves to differentiate between lexico-grammatical classes by rendering some very general lexico-grammatical meaning. For instance, both -ify and -er are verb suffixes, but the first characterizes causative verbs, such horrify, purify, while the second shows frequency: flicker, shimmer, twitter.

A prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning, e.g. to hearten — to dishearten. Usually words stay within the same part of speech. It is only with verbs and statives that a prefix may serve to distinguish one part of speech from another, like in earth – to unearth, sleep — asleep (stative).

Preceding a verb stem, some prefixes express the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb: stay and outstay smb. Prefixes can modify the stem for time (pre-, post-), place (in; ad-), negation (un; dis-).

An infix is an affix placed within the word, like -n- in stand. The type is not productive in English.

An affix should not be confused with a combining form and a semiaffix. A combining form is also a bound form but it can be distinguished from an affix historically by the fact that it is always borrowed from another language, namely, from Latin or Greek, in which it existed as a free form, i.e. a separate word, or also as a combining form. E.M.Dubenets calls them completives. Thus, the combining form cyclo - and its variant cycl - are derived from the Greek word kuklos 'circle', giving the English word cycli. There are words in which both elements- completives: astronaut; claustrophobia, megalopolis; and words in which the 1^st – completive, the 2^nd- a free stem: macrocontract; multimedia; megadebte r.

Besides, the problem of semi –affixes should be mentioned. There are cases where it is difficult to draw a line between roots and affixes on the one hand, and derivational affixes and inflexional formatives on the other. They are called semi-affixes. They determine the lexico-grammatical class the word belongs to. E.g. sailor - seaman, where -man is a semi-affix.

Speaking about morphemes we also speak about the allomorph, which is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme appearing in a specific environment. They say that it is characterized by complementary distribution. Complementary distribution takes place when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment, e.g. stems ending in consonants take the suffix - ation (liberation); stems ending in pt, take -tion (corruption). Different morphemes are characterized by contrastive distribution. It means that if they occur in the same environment they signal different meanings: -able and –ed are different morphemes, not allomorphs, because adjectives in -able mean 'capable of doing': e.g. measurable, while -ed is a suffix meaning a result: e.g. measured.

In American descriptive linguistics allomorphs are treated from a semantic point of view, so that not only [iz] in dishes, [z] in dreams and [s] in books, but also [en] in oxen, the vowel modification in tooth - teeth and zero suffix in many sheep are allomophs. I.V. Arnold and other Russian scholars criticised the approach, because then morphemes become pure abstractions.

Classification of suffixes

Depending on different principles various classifications of derivational af­fixes are suggested. They are classified according to 5 principles: parts of speech they served to form, their meaning (semantic classification), their frequency, productivity, accor­ding to their origin, and other characteristics. Within the parts of speech suffixes have been classified semantically according to lexico-grammatical groups, and according to the types of stems they are added to.

Classification of prefixes

Both the simple word and its prefixed derivative mostly belong to the same part of speech: e.g. the prefix mis - when added to verbs, conveys the meaning 'wrongly', 'badly', behave - misbehave, pronounce - mispronounce. There may be other cases where the semantic rela­tionship is slightly different but the general lexico-grammatical meaning remains: giving - misgiving

To some extent the semantic effect of a prefix may be called adverbial because it modifies the idea of manner, time, place, degree and so on.

The prefixes pre - and post - refer to time. E.g. historic - prehisto­ric, pay - prepray, view - preview.

The prefixes in, a,ab - modify the root for place: e.g. in