Lexical denotational and connotational component (Denotation and connotation).

The denotational meaning makes communication possible. It partially and incompletely describes the meaning of the corresponding words, to give full picture of the meaning of the word.

• Lonely adj – alone without company

• Notorious adj – widely known

• To glare – to look

The connotational component denotes supplementary meaning or complementary semantic/ stylistic shape, which services to express all sorts of emotional expressive evaluative overtone.

So, many words not only refer to some object but have aura of associations expressing the attitude of the speaker. Connotation is what the word conveys about the speakers attitude to the social circumstances and the appropriate functional style.

The 4 main types of connotation

1. Stylistic. When association concern the situation in which the word is uttered the social circumstances (formal, familiar…), the social relationships between the interlocutors (polite, rough…), the type of purpose of communication (poetic, official…) Eg.: horse - neutral, steed – poetic, nag – slang, geegee – baby language.

2. Emotional. Is acquired by the word as a result of its frequent use in context corresponding to emotional situation.

3. Evaluative. Expresses approval/disapproval.

4. Expressive/ intensifying.

Polysemy

Polysemy means that a word has two or more meaning. If it has only one meaning it’s called mono-semantic. Polisementic words are greater in number. Polysemy is explained by the following: the word names an object of reality according to some of its quality or characteristic of its object.

Very often the quality of one object are identical with a quality of another object, because of this one the same word is used to denote this object. EG: The word “glass” has the meanings “стакан, зеркало”, they are interconnected because both the object are made of the same material.

This very idea may be expressed differently: The world around us is varied and its objects are many.

The means of the language on the other hand are limited, so one word denotes several objects. All the meanings of the word taken together make up its symantic structure. As a rule context shows us which of the meanings of the word is used. EG: blind… 1.) handwriting – неразборчивый почерк 2.) man – слепой человек.

Polysemy and semantic structure (all the lexical & lexico-gr-cal variants of a word taken together) exist only in language, not in speech. Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language because in every particular case the situation and context cancel all the unnecessary meanings and make speech unambiguous.

Polysemous forms can be divided into words that show regular and irregular polysemy.

Regular polysemy is systematic polysemy that recurs in the language. The words have a systematic relationship between them.

EG: in the English word girl can mean both small female child and girlfriend

In irregular polysemy the systematic relationship between the different meanings does not exist.

It can also be divided into subcategories. These categories are radial polysemy and chain polysemy.

In radial polysemy, you have one specific definition of the term at the center of a whole group of other meanings. This meaning connects all the other ones to each other.

EG: the world field («поле» - «пространство», «участок», «место сражения», месторождение», «сфера деятельности»)

In chain polysemy, the different definitions one word has form a chain that connects each definition to the previous and next one. The first and last meaning might not have all that much in common.

EG: the word bleak: «незащищенный от ветра» (bleak hillside) →«холодный, суровый» (bleak wind) → «унылый, печальный, мрачный» (bleak prospects).

Homonymy

Homonymy. Different in meaning, but identical in sound or spelling form.

Sources (origin):

1. The result of split of polysemy (capital – столица, заглавная буква)

Homonymy differs from polysemy because there is no semantic bond (связь) between homonyms; it has been lost & doesn’t exist.

2. as the result of leveling of grammar in flections, when different parts of speech become identical in their forms. Care (in OE) - caru(n), care (OE) – carian (v)

3. By conversion (slim – to slim, water – to water)

4. With the help of the same suffix fro the same stem (основа). Reader – the person who reads/a book for reading.

5. Accidentally. Native words can coincide in their form beran – to bear, bera (animal) – to bear

6. Shortening of different words. Cab (cabriolet, cabbage, cabin)

Homonyms can be of 3 kinds:

1. Homonyms proper (the sound & the spelling are identical) bat – bat – flying animal (летучая мышь) - cricket bat (бита, back - part of body, away from the front, go to back

2. Homophones (the same sound form but different spelling) flower – flour, sole – soul, rain – reign, bye-by-buy

3. Homographs (the same spelling) tear [iə] – tear [εə, lead [i:] – lead [e]

 

 

#6 Paradigmatic relations of words in English.

Ways to classify words

· Non-semantic grouping

· Morphological

· Grammatical

· Semantic

Non-semantic grouping

· Alphabethical order

· Reverse order and rhyme

· Length of words

· Statistical frequency of words

Alphabethical order. The sound is taken into consideration. Outcome is almost null with few exceptions of etymological value. For instance, words beginning with w are mostly native. Many words beginning with ph [f] and ps [s] are Greek (philology, psychology). Those beginning with sk [sk] are of Scandinavian origin (sky, skate, ski) and not palatalized, but the ones with sh [⌠] are native and palatalized (shirt);

(Alphabetic organization is the simplest and most universal grouping of written words used in most dictionaries. Grouping according to the words’ final letters is used in inverse dictionaries and helps to make lists of words with similar suffixes or rhymin words.)

Reverse order and rhyme. The sound is taken into consideration but the other way round (game, fame);

Length of words. The number of letters is taken into consideration. Important for lexicostatistics, communication engineering. The number of letters and esp. syllables correlates to the word frequency, the number of meanings and stylistic characteristics of the lexical item.

(The number of letters is taken into consideration. Important for lexicostatistics, communication engineering. The number of letters and esp. syllables correlates to the word frequency, the number of meanings and stylistic characteristics of the lexical item.)

Statistical frequency of words. Grouping according to the words’ frequency is based on statistical counts. It is used for practical purposes in lexicography, language teaching and shorthand. It is also important theoretically – the most frequent words are polysemantic and stylistically neutral.

(This approach is very important for lexicography and language teaching. The most frequent words are polysemantic and stylistically neutral.)

Morphological grouping

· Root or morpheme words: their stem contains one free morpheme (dog)

· Derivatives: they contain no less than two morphemes of which at least one is bound (dogged, doggedly)

· Compound words consist of not less than two free morphemes, the presence of bound morphemes is also possible (dog-days ’hottest part of the year’)

· Compound derivatives: contain not less than two free morphemes and one bound morpheme referring to the whole combination (dog-legged)