Introduction to

English Lexicology
Table of content

Unit 1 - What is lexicology? – 3 - 18

Unit 2 – Methods of lexicological research – 19- 31

Unit 3 – Word as a structure – 32 – 47

Unit 4 – Classification of compound words – 48 - 70

Unit 5 – Types of lexical opposition – 71 - 83

Unit 6 – Semantic structure of words – 84 - 96

Unit 7 – Semantic structure of words – 97 - 122

Unit 8 – Phraseological units – 123 - 142

Unit 9 – Homonyms, Antonyms, Synonyms – 143 - 155

Unit 10 – English Language Lexis as a system – 156 - 169

Unit 11 – Stylistically marked and neutral lexis – 170 - 184

Unit 12 – Transformation of English Vocabulary – 185 – 200

Bibliography – 201-202

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 Unit 1

What is lexicology?

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics, the science of language. The term Lexicology is

composed of two Greek morphemes: lexis meaning ‘word, phrase’ (hence lexicos ‘having
to do with words’) and logos which denotes ‘learning, a department of knowledge’. Thus,
the literal meaning of the term Lexiсolоgу is ‘the science of the word’. The literal
meaning, however, gives only a general notion of the aims and the subject-matter of this
branch of linguistic science, since all its other branches also take account of words in one
way or another approaching them from different angles. Phonetics, for instance,
investigating the phonetic structure of language, i.e. its system of phonemes and
intonation patterns, is concerned with the study of the outer sound form of the word.
Grammar, which is inseparably bound up with Lexicology, is the study of the
grammatical structure of language. It is concerned with the various means of expressing
grammatical relations between words and with the patterns after which words are
combined into word-groups and sentences.

Lexicology as a branch of linguistics has its own aims and methods of scientific
research, its basic task being a study and systematic description of vocabulary in respect to
its origin, development and current use. Lexicology is concerned with words, variable
word-groups, phraseological units, and with morphemes which make up words.

Distinction is naturally made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology.

General Lexicology is part of General Linguistics; it is concerned with the study of

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vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. Special
Lexicology is the Lexicology of a particular language (e.g. English, Russian, etc.), i.e. the
study and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units, primarily words as the main
units of language. Needless to say that every Special Lexicology is based on the principles
worked out and laid down by General Lexicology, a general theory of vocabulary.

There is also a close relationship between Lexicology and Stylistics or, to be more
exact, Linguo-Stylistics (Linguistic Stylistics). Linguo-Stylistics is concerned with the
study of the nature, functions and structure of stylistic devices, on the one hand, and with
the investigation of each style of language, on the other, i.e. with its aim, its structure, its
characteristic features and the effect it produces as well as its interrelation with the other
styles of language.

There are two principal approaches in linguistic science to the study of language
material, namely the synchronic (Gr. syn — ‘together, with’ and chronos — ‘time’) and
the diachronic (Gr. dia — ‘through’) approach. With regard to Special Lexicology the
synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given
time, for instance, at the present time.

Descriptive Lexicology that deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a
particular language at a certain time. A Course in Modern English Lexicology is therefore
a course in Special Descriptive Lexicology, its object of study being the English
vocabulary as it exists at the present 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 evolution of the vocabulary units of a language as time goes by. An
English Historical Lexicology would be concerned, therefore, with the origin of English
vocabulary units, their change and development, the linguistic and extralinguistic factors
modifying their structure, meaning and usage within the history of the English language.

It should be emphatically stressed that the distinction between the synchronic and the
diachronic study is merely a difference of approach separating for the purposes of
investigation what in real language is inseparable. The two approaches should not be
contrasted, or set one against the other; in fact, they are intrinsically interconnected and
interdependent: every linguistic structure and system actually 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 evolution, of its historical development.

A good example illustrating both the distinction between the two approaches and
their interconnection is furnished by the words to beg and beggar.

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 Synchronically, the words to beg and beggar are related as a simple and a derived
word, the noun beggar being the derived member of the pair, for the derivative
correlation between the two is the same as in the case of to sing — singer, to teach —
teacher, etc. When we approach the problem diachronically, however, we learn that the
noun beggar was borrowed from Old French and only presumed to have been derived
from a shorter word, namely the verb to beg, as in the English language agent nouns are
commonly derived from verbs with the help of the agent suffix -er.

Closely connected with 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. Needless to say, one can hardly overestimate the importance
of Contrastive Lexicology as well as of Comparative Linguistics in general for the purpose
of class-room teaching of foreign languages. Of primary importance in this respect is the
comparison of the foreign language with the mother tongue.

It is a matter of common knowledge that the vocabulary of any language is never

stable, never static, but is constantly changing, growing and decaying. The changes in the
vocabulary of a language are due both to linguistic and extralinguistic causes or to a
combination of both. The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the
language. In this respect there is a tremendous difference between Lexicology, on the one
hand, and Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, on the other. A word, to a far greater
degree than sounds, grammatical forms, or syntactical arrangements, are subject to
change, for the word-stock of a language directly and immediately react to changes in
social life, to whatever happens in the life of the speech community in question. To
illustrate the immediate connection between the development of vocabulary and the
extra-linguistic causes a few examples will suffice.

The intense development of science and technology has lately given birth to a great
number of new words such as computer, cyclotron, radar, psycholinguistics, etc.; the
conquest and research of outer space started by the Soviet people contributed words like
sputnik, lunokhod, babymoon, moon-car, spaceship, etc. It is significant that the suffix -
nik occurring in the noun sputnik is freely applied to new words of various kinds, e.g.
flopnik, mousenik, woofnik, etc.

The factor of the social need also manifests itself in the mechanism of word-
formation. Among the adjectives with the suffix -y derived from noun stems denoting
fabrics (cf. silky, velvety, woolly, etc.) the adjective tweedy stands out as meaning not
merely resembling or like tweed but rather ‘of sports style’. It is used to describe the type
of appearance (or style of clothes) which is characteristic of a definite social group,

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namely people going in for country sports. Thus, the adjective tweedy in this meaning
defines a notion which is specific for the speech community in question and is, therefore,
sociolinguistically conditioned.

From the above-adduced examples it follows that in contrast with Phonology,

Morphology and Syntax, Lexicology is essentially a sociolinguistic science. The
lexicologist should always take into account correlations between purely linguistic facts
and the underlying social facts which brought them into existence, his research should be
based on establishing scientifically grounded interrelation and points of contact which
have come into existence between the language and the social life of the speech
community in question.

It was pointed out above that Lexicology studies various lexical units: morphemes,
words, variable word-groups and phraseological units. We proceed from the assumption
that the word is the basic unit of language system, the largest on the morphologic and the
smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis. The word is a structural and
semantic entity within the language system.

It should be pointed out that there is another approach to the concept of the basic
language unit. The criticism of this viewpoint cannot be discussed within the framework
of the present study. Suffice it to say that here we consistently proceed from the concept
of the word as the basic unit in all the branches of Lexicology. Both words and
phraseological units are names for things, namely the names of actions, objects, qualities,
etc. Unlike words proper, however, phraseological units are word-groups consisting of
two or more words whose combination is integrated as a unit with a specialised meaning
of the whole. To illustrate, the lexical or to be more exact the vocabulary units tattle,
wall, taxi are words denoting various objects of the outer world; the vocabulary units
black frost, red tape, a skeleton in the cupboard are phraseological units: each is a word-
group with a specialised meaning of the whole, namely black frost is ‘frost without snow
or rime’, red tape denotes bureaucratic methods, a skeleton in the cupboard refers to a
fact of which a family is ashamed and which it tries to hide.

Although the ordinary ’speaker is acutely word-conscious and usually finds no

difficulty either in isolating words from an utterance or in identifying them in the process
of communication, the precise linguistic definition of a word is far from easy to state; no
exhaustive definition of the word has yet been given by linguists.

The word as well as any linguistic sign is a two-facet unit possessing both form and
content or, to be more exact, soundform and meaning. Neither can exist without the
other. For example, [θimbl] is a word within the framework of the English language

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primarily because it has the lexical meaning — ‘a small cap of metal, plastic, etc. worn on
the finger in sewing.. .'1 (Russ. наперсток) and the grammatical meaning of the Common
case, singular. In other languages it is not a word, but a meaningless sound-cluster.

When used in actual speech the word undergoes certain modification and functions in
one of its forms.

The system showing a word in all its word-forms is called its paradigm.2 The lexical
meaning оf а word is the same throughout the paradigm, i.e. all the word-forms of one
and the same word are lexically identical. The grammatical meaning varies from one form
to another (cf. to take, takes, took, taking or singer, singer’s, singers, singers’). Therefore,
when we speak of the word singer or the word take as used in actual utterances (cf., His
brother is a well-known singer or I wonder who has taken my umbrella) we use the term
word conventionally, because what is manifested in the speech event is not the word as a
whole but one of its forms which is identified as belonging to one definite paradigm.

There are two approaches to the paradigm: (a) as a system of forms of one word it
reveals the differences and relationships between them; (b) in abstraction from concrete
words it is treated as a pattern on which every word of one part of speech models its
forms, thus serving to distinguish.-

Each part of speech is characterised by a paradigm of its own. Nouns are declined,
verbs conjugated, qualitative adjectives have degrees of comparison. Some adverbs also
have degrees of comparison (e.g. well, badly, etc.), others are immutable (e.g. here, there,
never). Word-forms constituting a paradigm may be both synthetic and analytic. Unlike
synthetic forms an analytic form is composed of two separate components (cf. (he) takes
... and (he) has taken ...). In some cases the system of word-forms combines different roots
(cf. to go — went — gone; good — better — best). Cf. the noun paradigm — ( ), -’s, -s, -s’
as distinct from that of the regular verb — ( ) ,-s, -ed1, -ed2, -ing, etc.1

Besides the grammatical forms of words, i.e. word-forms, some scholars distinguish
lexical varieties which they term variants of words. Distinction is made between two
basic groups of variants of words.

In actual speech a word or to be more exact a polysemantic word is used in, one of its
meanings. Such a word in one of its meanings is described as lexico-semantic variant.
Thus Group One comprises lexico-semantic variants, i.e. polysemantic words in each of
their meanings, as exemplified by the meaning of the verb to learn in word-groups like to
learn at school, cf. to learn about (of) smth, etc.

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 Group Two comprises phonetic and morphological variants. As examples of phonetic
variants the pronouncing variants of the adverbs often and again can be given, cf. ['o:fn]
and ['o:ftэn], [э'gein] and [э'gen]. The two variant forms of the past indefinite tense of
verbs like to learn illustrate morphological variants, cf. learned [-d] and learnt [-t].
Parallel formations of the geologic — geological, phonetic — phonetical type also enter
the group of morphological variants.2

It may be easily observed that the most essential feature of variants of words of both
groups is that a slight change in the morphemic or phonemic composition of a word is not
connected with any modification of its meaning and, vice versa, a change in meaning is
not followed by any structural changes, either morphemic or phonetic. Like word-forms
variants of words are identified in the process of communication as making up one and
the same word. Thus, within the language system the word exists as a system and unity of
all its forms and variants.

Modern English Lexicology aims at giving a systematic description of the word-stock

of Modern English. Words, their component parts — morphemes — and various types of
word-groups, are subjected to structural and semantic analysis primarily from the
synchronic angle. In other words, 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.

It also studies the relations existing between various lexical layers of the English
vocabulary and the specific laws and regulations that govern its development at the
present time. The source and growth of the English vocabulary, the changes it has
undergone in its history are also dwelt upon, as the diachronic approach revealing the
vocabulary in the making cannot but contribute to the understanding of its workings at
the present time.

It has now become a tradition to include in a Course of Lexicology a short section

dealing with Lexicography, the science and art of dictionary-compiling, because
Lexicography is a practical application of Lexicology so that the dictionary-maker is
inevitably guided in his work by the principles laid down by the lexicologist as a result of
his investigations. It is common knowledge that in his investigation the lexicologist
makes use of various methods. An acquaintance with these methods is an indispensable
part of a course of lexicology.

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 Modern English Lexicology as a subject of study forms part of the Theoretical Course
of Modern English and as such is inseparable from its other component parts, i.e.
Grammar, Phonetics, Stylistics, on the one hand, and the Course of History of the English
Language, on the other.

The language learner will find the Course of Modern English Lexicology of great
practical importance. He will obtain much valuable information concerning the English
wordstock and the laws and regulations governing the formation and usage of English
words and word-groups. Besides, the Course 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
observed. The knowledge the students gain from the Course of Modern English
Lexicology will guide them in all their dealings with the English word-stock and help
them apply this information to the solution of practical problems that may face them in
class-room teaching. Teachers should always remember that practical command alone
does not qualify a person to teach a language.

This textbook treats the following basic problems:

1. Semasiology and semantic classifications of words;

2. Word-groups and phraseological units;

3. Word-structure;

4. Word-formation;

5. Etymological survey of the English word-stock;

6. Various aspects of vocabulary units and replenishment of Modern English word-

stock;

7. Variants and dialects of Modern English;

8. Fundamentals of English Lexicography;

9. Methods and Procedures of Lexicological Analysis.

All sections end with a paragraph entitled “Summary and Conclusions". The aim of
these paragraphs is to summarise in brief the contents of the preceding section, thus
enabling the student to go over the chief points of the exposition of problem or problems
under consideration. Material for Reference at the end of the book and the footnotes,

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though by no means exhaustive, may be helpful to those who wish to attain a more
complete and thorough view of the lexicological problems.

The Connection of Lexicology with Other Branches of Linguistics

The treatment of words in lexicology cannot be divorced from the study of all the
other elements in the language system to which words belong. It should be always borne
in mind that in reality, in the actual process of communication, all these elements are
interdependent and stand in definite relations to one another. We separate them for
convenience of study, and yet to separate them for analysis is pointless, unless we are
afterwards able to put them back together to achieve a synthesis and see their
interdependence and development in the language system as a whole.

The word, as it has already been stated, is studied in several branches of linguistics
and not in lexicology only, and the latter, in its turn, is closely connected with general
linguistics, the history of the language, phonetics, stylistics, grammar and such new
branches of our science as sociolinguistics, paralinguistics, pragma linguistics and some
others.1

The importance of the connection between lexicology and phonetics stands explained
if we remember that a word is an association of a given group of sounds with a given
meaning, so that top is one word, and tip is another. Phonemes have no meaning of their
own but they serve to distinguish between meanings. Their function is building up
morphemes, and it is on the level of morphemes that the form-meaning unity is

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introduced into language. We may say therefore that phonemes participate in
signification.

Word-unity is conditioned by a number of phonological features. Phonemes follow

each other in a fixed sequence so that [pit] is different from [tip]. The importance of the
phonemic make-up may be revealed by the substitution test which isolates the central
phoneme of hope by setting it against hop, hoop, heap or hip.

An accidental or jocular transposition of the initial sounds of two or more words, the
so-called spoonerisms illustrate the same

Paralinguistics — the study of non-verbal means of communication (gestures, facial

expressions, eye-contact, etc.).

Pragmalinguistics — the branch of linguistics concerned with the relation of speech

and its users and the influence of speech upon listeners. See: Leech G. Principles of
Pragmatics. London, 1985.

point. Cf. our queer old dean for our dear old queen, sin twister for twin sister, May I
sew you to a sheet? for May I show you to a seat?, a half-warmed fish for a half-formed
wish, etc.

Discrimination between the words may be based upon stress: the word ‘import is
recognised as a noun and distinguished from the verb im'port due to the position of stress.
Stress also distinguishes compounds from otherwise homonymous word-groups:
‘blackbird : : ‘black ‘bird. Each language also possesses certain phonological features
marking word-limits.

Historical phonetics and historical phonology can be of great use in the diachronic
study of synonyms, homonyms and polysemy. When sound changes loosen the ties
between members of the same word-family, this is an important factor in facilitating
semantic changes.

The words whole, heal, hail, for instance, are etymologically related.2 The word
whole originally meant ‘unharmed’, ;unwounded’. The early verb whole meant 4to make
whole’, hence ‘heal’. Its sense of ‘healthy’ led to its use as a salutation, as in hail! Having
in the course of historical development lost their phonetic similarity, these words cannot
now exercise any restrictive influence upon one another’s semantic development. Thus,
hail occurs now in the meaning of ‘call’, even with the purpose to stop and arrest (used by
sentinels).

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 Meaning in its turn is indispensable to phonemic analysis because to establish the
phonemic difference between [ou] and [o] it is sufficient to know that [houp] means
something different from [hop].

All these considerations are not meant to be in any way exhaustive, they can only give
a general idea of the possible interdependence of the two branches of linguistics.

Stylistics, although from a different angle, studies many problems treated in

lexicology. These are the problems of meaning, connotations, synonymy, functional
differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication and some other
issues. For a reader without some awareness of the connotations and history of words, the
images hidden in their root and their stylistic properties, a substantial part of the meaning
of a literary text, whether prosaic or poetic, may be lost.

Thus, for instance, the mood of despair in O. Wilde’s poem “Taedium Vitae”
(Weariness of Life) is felt due to an accumulation of epithets expressed by words with
negative, derogatory connotations, such as: desperate, paltry, gaudy, base, lackeyed,
slanderous, lowliest, meanest.

An awareness of all the characteristic features of words is not only rewarded because
one can feel the effect of hidden connotations and imagery, but because without it one
cannot grasp the whole essence of the message the poem has to convey.

Spoonerism — from the name of W.A. Spooner, warden of a college at Oxford, who
was known for such slips.

Etymology that branch of linguistics which deals with the origin and history of words,
tracing them to their earliest determinable base.

The difference and interconnection between grammar and lexicology is one of the
important controversial issues in linguistics and as it is basic to the problems under
discussion in this book, it is necessary to dwell upon it a little more than has been done
for phonetics and stylistics.

A close connection between lexicology and grammar is conditioned by the manifold

and inseverable ties between the objects of their study. Even isolated words as presented
in a dictionary bear a definite relation to the grammatical system of the language because
they belong to some part of speech and conform to some lexico-grammatical
characteristics of the word class to which they belong. Words seldom occur in isolation.
They are arranged in certain patterns conveying the relations between the things for
which they stand, therefore alongside with their lexical meaning they possess some
grammatical meaning. Сf. head of the committee and to head a committee.

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 The two kinds of meaning are often interdependent. That is to say, certain
grammatical functions and meanings are possible only for the words whose lexical
meaning makes them fit for these functions, and, on the other hand, some lexical
meanings in some words occur only in definite grammatical functions and forms and in
definite grammatical patterns.

For example, the functions of a link verb with a predicative expressed by an adjective
cannot be fulfilled by every intransitive verb but are often taken up by verbs of motion:
come true, fall ill, go wrong, turn red, run dry and other similar combinations all render
the meaning of ‘become sth’. The function is of long standing in English and can be
illustrated by a line from A. Pope who, protesting against blank verse, wrote: It is not
poetry, but prose run mad.1

On the other hand the grammatical form and function of the word affect its lexical
meaning. A well-known example is the same verb go when in the continuous tenses,
followed by to and an infinitive (except go and come), it serves to express an action in the
near and immediate future, or an intention of future action: You're not going to sit there
saying nothing all the evening, both of you, are you? (Simpson)

Participle II of the same verb following the link verb be denotes absence: The house is
gone.

In subordinate clauses after as the verb go implies comparison with the average: ...
how a novel that has now had a fairly long life, as novels go, has come to be written
(Maugham). The subject of the verb go in this construction is as a rule an inanimate noun.

The adjective hard followed by the infinitive of any verb means ‘difficult’: One of the
hardest things to remember is that a man’s merit in one sphere is no guarantee of his
merit in another.

Lexical meanings in the above cases are said to be grammatically.

A modern ‘invasion’ of grammar into lexicological ‘territory’ is a new and promising

trend referred to as semantic syntax, in which a lexico-semantic approach is introduced
into syntactic description. See, for example, the works by T.B. Alisova, V.V. Bogdanov,
V.G. Gak, I.P. Sousov. Compare also communicative syntax as studied by L.P. Chakhoyan
and G.G. Poсheptsov.

The number of words in each language being very great, any lexical meaning has a
much lower probability of occurrence than grammatical meanings and therefore carries
the greatest amount of information in any discourse determining what the sentence is
about.

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 W. Chafe, whose influence in the present-day semantic syntax is quite considerable,
points out the many constraints which limit the co-occurrence of words. He considers the
verb as of paramount importance in sentence semantic structure, and argues that it is the
verb that dictates the presence and character of the noun as its subject or object. Thus, the
verbs frighten, amuse and awaken can have only animate nouns as their objects.

The constraint is even narrower if we take the verbs say, talk or think for which only
animate human subjects are possible. It is obvious that not all animate nouns are human.

This view is, however, if not mistaken, at least one-sided, because the opposite is also
true: it may happen that the same verb changes its meaning, when used with personal
(human) names and with names of objects. Compare: The new girl gave him a strange
smile (she smiled at him) and The new teeth gave him a strange smile.

These are by no means the only relations of vocabulary and grammar. We shall not
attempt to enumerate all the possible problems. Let us turn now to another point of
interest, namely the survival of two grammatically equivalent forms of the same word
when they help to distinguish between its lexical meanings. Some nouns, for instance,
have two separate plurals, one keeping the etymological plural form, and the other with
the usual English ending -s. For example, the form brothers is used to express the family
relationship, whereas the old form brethren survives in ecclesiastical usage or serves to
indicate the members of some club or society; the scientific plural of index, is usually
indices, in more general senses the plural is indexes. The plural of genius meaning a
person of exceptional intellect is geniuses, genius in the sense of evil or good spirit has the
plural form genii.

It may also happen that a form that originally expressed grammatical meaning, for
example, the plural of nouns, becomes a basis for a new grammatically conditioned lexical
meaning. In this new meaning it is isolated from the paradigm, so that a new word comes
into being. Arms, the plural of the noun arm, for instance, has come to mean ‘weapon’.
E.g. to take arms against a sea of troubles (Shakespeare). The grammatical form is
lexicalised; the new word shows itself capable of further development, a new
grammatically conditioned meaning appears, namely, with the verb in the singular arms
metonymically denotes the military profession. The abstract noun authority becomes a
collective in the term authorities and denotes ‘a group of persons having the right to
control and govern’. Compare also colours, customs, looks, manners, pictures, works
which are the best known examples of this isolation, or, as it is also called, lexicalisation
of a grammatical form. In all these words the suffix -s signals a new word with a new
meaning.

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 It is also worthy of note that grammar and vocabulary make use of the same
technique, i.e. the formal distinctive features of some derivational oppositions between
different words are the same as those of oppositions contrasting different grammatical
forms (in affixation, juxtaposition of stems and sound interchange). Compare, for
example, the oppositions occurring in the lexical system, such as work :: worker, power ::
will-power, food :: feed with grammatical oppositions: work (Inf.) :: worked (Past Ind.),
power (Inf.) :: will power (Put. Ind.), feed (Inf.) :: fed (Past Ind.). Not only are the
methods and patterns similar, but the very morphemes are often homonymous. For
example, alongside the derivational suffixes -en, one of which occurs in adjectives
(wooden), and the other in verbs (strengthen), there are two functional suffixes, one for
Participle II (written), the other for the archaic plural form (oxen).

Furthermore, one and the same word may in some of its meanings function as a
notional word, while in others it may be a form word, i.e. it may serve to indicate the
relationships and functions of other words. Compare, for instance, the notional and the
auxiliary do in the following: What you do’s nothing to do with me, it doesn’t interest
me.

Last but not least all grammatical meanings have a lexical counterpart that expresses
the same concept. The concept of futurity may be lexically expressed in the words future,
tomorrow, by and by, time to come, hereafter or grammatically in the verbal forms shall
come and will come. Also plurality may be described by plural forms of various words:
houses, boys, books or lexically by the words: crowd, party, company, group, set, etc.

The ties between lexicology and grammar are particularly strong in the sphere of
word-formation which before lexicology became a separate branch of linguistics had even
been considered as part of grammar. The characteristic features of English word-building,
the morphological structure of the English word are dependent upon the peculiarity of
the English grammatical system. The analytical character of the language is largely
responsible for the wide spread of conversion1 and for the remarkable flexibility of the
vocabulary manifest in the ease with which many nonce-words2 are formed on the spur
of the moment.

This brief account of the interdependence between the two important parts of
linguistics must suffice for the present. In future we shall have to return to the problem
and treat some parts of it more extensively.

The Theoretical and Practical Value of Lexicology

The importance of English lexicology is based not on the size of its vocabulary,
however big it is, but on the fact that at present it is the world’s most widely used

15
language. One of the most fundamental works on the English language of the present —
“A Grammar of Contemporary English” by R. Quirk, S. Greenbaum, G. Leech and J.
Svartvik (1978) — gives the following data: it is spoken as a native language by nearly
three hundred million people in Britain, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada,
New Zealand, South Africa and some other countries. The knowledge of English is widely
spread geographically — it is in fact used in all continents. It is also spoken in many
countries as a second language and used in official and business activities there. This is the
case in India, Pakistan and many other former British colonies. English is also one of the
working languages of the United Nations and the universal language of international
aviation. More than a half world’s scientific literature is published in English and 60% of
the world’s radio broadcasts are in English. For all these reasons it is widely studied all
over the world as a foreign language.

The theoretical value of lexicology becomes obvious if we realise that it forms the
study of one of the three main aspects of language, i.e. its vocabulary, the other two being
its grammar and sound system. The theory of meaning was originally developed within
the limits of philosophical science. The relationship between the name and the thing
named has in the course of history constituted one of the key questions in gnostic
theories and therefore in the struggle of materialistic and idealistic trends. The idealistic
point of view assumes that the earlier forms of words disclose their real correct meaning,
and that originally language was created by some superior reason so that later changes of
any kind are looked upon as distortions and corruption.

The materialistic approach considers the origin, development and current use of
words as depending upon the needs of social communication. The dialectics of its growth
is determined by its interaction with the development of human practice and mind.
Words serve as names for things, actions, qualities, etc. and by their modification become
better adapted to the needs of the speakers. This proves the fallacy of one of the
characteristic trends in modern idealistic linguistics, the so-called Sapir-Whorf thesis
according to which the linguistic system of one’s native language not only expresses one’s
thoughts but also determines them. This view is incorrect, because our mind reflects the
surrounding world not only through language but also directly.

Lexicology came into being to meet the demands of many different branches of
applied linguistics, namely of lexicography, standardisation of terminology, information
retrieval, literary criticism and especially of foreign language teaching.

Its importance in training a would-be teacher of languages is of a quite special

character and cannot be overestimated as it helps to stimulate a systematic approach to
the facts of vocabulary and an organised comparison of the foreign and native language. It

16
is particularly useful in building up the learner’s vocabulary by an effective selection,
grouping and analysis of new words. New words are better remembered if they are given
not at random but organised in thematic groups, word-families, synonymic series, etc.

A good knowledge of the system of word-formation furnishes a tool helping the

student to guess and retain in his memory the meaning of new words on the basis of their
motivation and by comparing and contrasting them with the previously learned elements
and patterns.

The knowledge, for instance, of the meaning of negative, reversative and pejorative
prefixes and patterns of derivation may be helpful in understanding new words. For
example such words as immovable a, deforestation n and miscalculate v will be readily
understood as ‘that cannot be moved’, ‘clearing land from forests’ and ‘to calculate
wrongly’.

A working knowledge and understanding of functional styles and stylistic synonyms

is indispensable when literary texts are used as a basis for acquiring oral skills, for
analytical reading, discussing fiction and translation. Lexicology not only gives a
systematic description of the present make-up of the vocabulary, but also helps students
to master the literary standards of word usage. The correct use of words is an important
counterpart of expressive and effective speech.

An exact knowledge of the vocabulary system is also necessary in connection with

technical teaching means.

Lexicology plays a prominent part in the general linguistic training of every

philologist by summing up the knowledge acquired during all his years at the foreign
language faculty. It also imparts the necessary skills of using different kinds of dictionaries
and reference books, and prepares for future independent work on increasing and
improving one’s vocabulary.

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 Unit 2

Methods of Lexicological Research

18
 Research Methods

To understand the use of statistics, one needs to know a little bit about experimental
design or how a researcher conducts investigations. A little knowledge about
methodology will provide us with a place to hang our statistics. In other words, statistics
are not numbers that just appear out of nowhere. Rather, the numbers (data) are
generated out of research. Statistics are merely a tool to help us answer research
questions. As such, an understanding of methodology will facilitate our understanding of
basic statistics.

A key concept relevant to a discussion of research methodology is that of validity.

When an individual asks, "Is this study valid?", they are questioning the validity of at least
one aspect of the study. There are four types of validity that can be discussed in relation
to research and statistics. Thus, when discussing the validity of a study, one must be
specific as to which type of validity is under discussion. Therefore, the answer to the
question asked above might be that the study is valid in relation to one type of validity
but invalid in relation to another type of validity.

Each of the four types of validity will be briefly defined and described below. Be
aware that this represents a cursory discussion of the concept of validity. Each type of
validity has many threats which can pose a problem in a research study. Examples, but
not an exhaustive discussion, of threats to each validity will be provided. For a

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comprehensive discussion of the four types of validity, the threats associated with each
type of validity, and additional validity issues see Cook and Campbell (1979).

Statistical Conclusion Validity: Unfortunately, without a background in basic

statistics, this type of validity is difficult to understand. According to Cook and Campbell
(1979), "statistical conclusion validity refers to inferences about whether it is reasonable
to presume covariation given a specified alpha level and the obtained variances (p. 41)."
Essentially, the question that is being asked is - "Are the variables under study related?" or
"Is variable A correlated (does it covary) with Variable B?". If a study has good statistical
conclusion validity, we should be relatively certain that the answer to these questions is
"yes". Examples of issues or problems that would threaten statistical conclusion validity
would be random heterogeneity of the research subjects (the subjects represent a diverse
group - this increases statistical error) and small sample size (more difficult to find
meaningful relationships with a small number of subjects).

Internal Validity: Once it has been determined that the two variables (A & B) are
related, the next issue to be determined is one of causality. Does A cause B? If a study is
lacking internal validity, one can not make cause and effect statements based on the
research; the study would be descriptive but not causal. There are many potential threats
to internal validity. For example, if a study has a pretest, an experimental treatment, and a
follow-up posttest, history is a threat to internal validity. If a difference is found between
the pretest and posttest, it might be due to the experimental treatment but it might also
be due to any other event that subjects experienced between the two times of testing (for
example, a historical event, a change in weather, etc.).

Construct Validity: One is examining the issue of construct validity when one is
asking the questions "Am I really measuring the construct that I want to study?" or "Is my
study confounded (Am I confusing constructs)?". For example, if I want to know a
particular drug (Variable A) will be effective for treating depression (Variable B) , I will
need at least one measure of depression. If that measure does not truly reflect depression
levels but rather anxiety levels (Confounding Variable X), than my study will be lacking
construct validity. Thus, good construct validity means the we will be relatively sure that
Construct A is related to Construct B and that this is possibly a causal relationship.
Examples of other threats to construct validity include subjects apprehension about being
evaluated, hypothesis guessing on the part of subjects, and bias introduced in a study by
expectencies on the part of the experimenter.

External Validity: External validity addresses the issue of being able to generalize the
results of your study to other times, places, and persons. For example, if you conduct a
study looking at heart disease in men, can these results be generalized to women?

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Therefore, one needs to ask the following questions to determine if a threat to the
external validity exists: "Would I find these same results with a difference sample?",
"Would I get these same results if I conducted my study in a different setting?", and
"Would I get these same results if I had conducted this study in the past or if I redo this
study in the future?" If I can not answer "yes" to each of these questions, then the external
validity of my study is threatened.

Types of Research Studies

There are four major classifications of research designs. These include observational
research, correlational research, true experiments, and quasi-experiments. Each of these
will be discussed further below.

Observational research: There are many types of studies which could be defined as
observational research including case studies, ethnographic studies, ethological studies,
etc. The primary characteristic of each of these types of studies is that phenomena are
being observed and recorded. Often times, the studies are qualitative in nature. For
example, a psychological case study would entail extensive notes based on observations of
and interviews with the client. A detailed report with analysis would be written and
reported constituting the study of this individual case. These studies may also be
qualitative in nature or include qualitative components in the research. For example, an
ethological study of primate behavior in the wild may include measures of behavior
durations ie. the amount of time an animal engaged in a specified behavior. This measure
of time would be qualitative.

Surveys are often classified as a type of observational research.

Correlational research: In general, correlational research examines the covariation of

two or more variables. For example, the early research on cigarette smoking examine the
covariation of cigarette smoking and a variety of lung diseases. These two variable,
smoking and lung disease were found to covary together.

Correlational research can be accomplished by a variety of techniques which include

the collection of empirical data. Often times, correlational research is considered type of
observational research as nothing is manipulated by the experimenter or individual
conducting the research. For example, the early studies on cigarette smoking did not
manipulate how many cigarettes were smoked. The researcher only collected the data on
the two variables. Nothing was controlled by the researchers.

Correlational research is not causal research. In other words, we cannot make

statements concerning cause and effect on the basis of this type of research. There are two

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major reasons why we cannot make cause and effect statements. First, we don¹t know
the direction of the cause. Second, a third variable may be involved of which we are not
aware. An example may help clarify these points.

In major clinical depressions, the neurotransmitters serotonin and/or norepinephrine

have been found to be depleted (Coppen, 1967; Schildkraut & Kety, 1967). In other
words, low levels of these two neurotransmitters have been found to be associated with
increased levels of clinical depression. However, while we know that the two variables
covary - a relationship exists - we do not know if a causal relationship exists. Thus, it is
unclear whether a depletion in serotonin/norepinephrine cause depression or whether
depression causes a depletion is neurotransmitter levels. This demonstrates the first
problem with correlational research; we don't know the direction of the cause. Second, a
third variable has been uncovered which may be affecting both of the variables under
study. The number of receptors on the postsynaptic neuron has been found to be
increased in depression. Thus, it is possible that the increased number of receptors on the
postsynaptic neuron is actually responsible for the relationship between neurotransmitter
levels and depression. As you can see from the discussion above, one can not make a
simple cause and effect statement concerning neurotransmitter levels and depression
based on correlational research. To reiterate, it is inappropriate in correlational research
to make statements concerning cause and effect.

Correlational research is often conducted as exploratory or beginning research. Once

variables have been identified and defined, experiments are conductible.

True Experiments: The true experiment is often thought of as a laboratory study.

However, this is not always the case. A true experiment is defined as an experiment
conducted where an effort is made to impose control over all other variables except the
one under study. It is often easier to impose this sort of control in a laboratory setting.
Thus, true experiments have often been erroneously identified as laboratory studies.

To understand the nature of the experiment, we must first define a few terms:

Experimental or treatment group - this is the group that receives the experimental
treatment, manipulation, or is different from the control group on the variable under
study.

Control group - this group is used to produce comparisons. The treatment of interest is
deliberately withheld or manipulated to provide a baseline performance with which to
compare the experimental or treatment group's performance.

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 Independent variable - this is the variable that the experimenter manipulates in a
study. It can be any aspect of the environment that is empirically investigated for the
purpose of examining its influence on the dependent variable.

Dependent variable - the variable that is measured in a study. The experimenter does
not control this variable.

Random assignment - in a study, each subject has an equal probability of being

selected for either the treatment or control group.

Double blind - neither the subject nor the experimenter knows whether the subject is
in the treatment of the control condition.

Now that we have these terms defined, we can examine further the structure of the
true experiment. First, every experiment must have at least two groups: an experimental
and a control group. Each group will receive a level of the independent variable. The
dependent variable will be measured to determine if the independent variable has an
effect. As stated previously, the control group will provide us with a baseline for
comparison. All subjects should be randomly assigned to groups, be tested a
simultaneously as possible, and the experiment should be conducted double blind.
Perhaps an example will help clarify these points.

Wolfer and Visintainer (1975) examined the effects of systematic preparation and
support on children who were scheduled for inpatient minor surgery. The hypothesis was
that such preparation would reduce the amount of psychological upset and increase the
amount of cooperation among thee young patients. Eighty children were selected to
participate in the study. Children were randomly assigned to either the treatment or the
control condition. During their hospitalization the treatment group received the special
program and the control group did not. Care was take such that kids in the treatment and
the control groups were not roomed together. Measures that were taken included heart
rates before and after blood tests, ease of fluid intake, and self-report anxiety measures.
The study demonstrated that the systematic preparation and support reduced the
difficulties of being in the hospital for these kids.

Let us examine now the features of the experiment described above. First, there was a
treatment and control group. If we had had only the treatment group, we would have no
way of knowing whether the reduced anxiety was due to the treatment or the weather,
new hospital food, etc. The control group provides us with the basis to make comparisons
The independent variable in this study was the presence or absence of the systematic
preparation program. The dependent variable consisted of the heart rates, fluid intake,
and anxiety measures. The scores on these measures were influenced by and depended on

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whether the child was in the treatment or control group. The children were randomly
assigned to either group. If the "friendly" children had been placed in the treatment group
we would have no way of knowing whether they were less anxious and more cooperative
because of the treatment or because they were "friendly". In theory, the random
assignment should balance the number of "friendly" children between the two groups.
The two groups were also tested at about the same time. In other words, one group was
not measured during the summer and the other during the winter. By testing the two
groups as simultaneously as possible, we can rule out any bias due to time. Finally, the
children were unaware that they were participants in an experiment (the parents had
agreed to their children's participation in research and the program), thus making the
study single blind. If the individuals who were responsible for the dependent measures
were also unaware of whether the child was in the treatment or control group, then the
experiment would have been double blind.

A special case of the true experiment is the clinical trial. A clinical trial is defined as a
carefully designed experiment that seeks to determine the clinical efficacy of a new
treatment or drug. The design of a clinical trial is very similar to that of a true
experiment. Once again, there are two groups: a treatment group (the group that receives
the therapeutic agent) and a control group (the group that receives the placebo). The
control group is often called the placebo group. The independent variable in the clinical
trial is the level of the therapeutic agent. Once again, subjects are randomly assigned to
groups, they are tested simultaneously, and the experiment should be conducted double
blind. In other words, neither the patient or the person administering the drug should
know whether the patient is receiving the drug or the placebo.

Quasi-Experiments: Quasi-experiments are very similar to true experiments but use

naturally formed or pre-existing groups. For example, if we wanted to compare young
and old subjects on lung capacity, it is impossible to randomly assign subjects to either the
young or old group (naturally formed groups). Therefore, this can not be a true
experiment. When one has naturally formed groups, the variable under study is a subject
variable (in this case - age) as opposed to an independent variable. As such, it also limits
the conclusions we can draw from such an research study. If we were to conduct the
quasi-experiment, we would find that the older group had less lung capacity as compared
to the younger group. We might conclude that old age thus results in less lung capacity.
But other variables might also account for this result. It might be that repeated exposure
to pollutants as opposed to age has caused the difference in lung capacity. It could also be
a generational factor. Perhaps more of the older group smoked in their early years as
compared to the younger group due to increased awareness of the hazards of cigarettes.
The point is that there are many differences between the groups that we can not control

24
that could account for differences in our dependent measures. Thus, we must be careful
concerning making statement of causality with quasi-experimental designs.

Quasi-experiments may result from studying the differences between naturally

formed groups (ie. young & old; men & women). However, there are also instances when
a researcher designs a study as a traditional experiment only to discover that random
assignment to groups is restricted by outside factors. The researcher is forced to divide
groups according to some pre-existing criteria. For example, if a corporation wanted to
test the effectiveness of a new wellness program, they might decide to implement their
program at one site and use a comporable site (no wellness program) as a control. As the
employees are not shuffled and randomly assigned to work at each site, the study has pre-
existing groups. After a few months of study, the researchers could then see if the
wellness site had less absenteeism and lower health costs than the non-wellness site. The
results are again restricted due to the quasi-correlational nature of the study. As the study
has pre-existing groups, there may be other differences between those groups than just
the presence or absence of a wellness program. For example, the wellness program may be
in a significantly newer, more attractive building, or the manager from hell may work at
the nonwellness program site. Either way, it a difference is found between the two sites it
may or may not be due to the presence/absence of the wellness program.

To summarize, quasi-experiments may result from either studying naturally formed

groups or use of pre-existing groups. When the study includes naturally formed groups,
the variable under study is a subject variable. When a study uses pre-existing groups that
are not naturally formed, the variable that is manipulated between the two groups is an
independent variable (With the exception of no random assignment, the study looks
similar in form to a true experiment). As no random assignment exists in a quasi-
experiment, no causal statements can be made based on the results of the study.

When conducting research, one must often use a sample of the population as opposed
to using the entire population. Before we go further into the reasons why, let us first
discuss what differentiates between a population and a sample.

A population can be defined as any set of persons/subjects having a common

observable characteristic. For example, all individuals who reside in the United States
make up a population. Also, all pregnant women make up a population. The
characteristics of a population are called a parameter. A statistic can be defined as any
subset of the population. The characteristics of a sample are called a statistic.

Why Sample?

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 This brings us to the question of why sample. Why should we not use the population
as the focus of study. There are at least four major reasons to sample.

First, it is usually too costly to test the entire population. The United States
government spends millions of dollars to conduct the U.S. Census every ten years. While
the U.S. government may have that kind of money, most researchers do not.

The second reason to sample is that it may be impossible to test the entire population.
For example, let us say that we wanted to test the 5-HIAA (a serotonergic metabolite)
levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of depressed individuals. There are far too many
individuals who do not make it into the mental health system to even be identified as
depressed, let alone to test their CSF.

The third reason to sample is that testing the entire population often produces error.
Thus, sampling may be more accurate. Perhaps an example will help clarify this point.
Say researchers wanted to examine the effectiveness of a new drug on Alzheimer's
disease. One dependent variable that could be used is an Activities of Daily Living
Checklist. In other words, it is a measure of functioning o a day to day basis. In this
experiment, it would make sense to have as few of people rating the patients as possible.
If one individual rates the entire sample, there will be some measure of consistency from
one patient to the next. If many raters are used, this introduces a source of error. These
raters may all use a slightly different criteria for judging Activities of Daily Living. Thus,
as in this example, it would be problematic to study an entire population.

The final reason to sample is that testing may be destructive. It makes no sense to
lesion the lateral hypothalamus of all rats to determine if it has an effect on food intake.
We can get that information from operating on a small sample of rats. Also, you probably
would not want to buy a car that had the door slammed five hundred thousand time or
had been crash tested. Rather, you probably would want to purchase the car that did not
make it into either of those samples.

Types of Sampling Procedures

As stated above, a sample consists of a subset of the population. Any member of the
defined population can be included in a sample. A theoretical list (an actual list may not
exist) of individuals or elements who make up a population is called a sampling frame.
There are five major sampling procedures.

The first sampling procedure is convenience. Volunteers, members of a class,

individuals in the hospital with the specific diagnosis being studied are examples of often
used convenience samples. This is by far the most often used sample procedure. It is also

26
by far the most biases sampling procedure as it is not random (not everyone in the
population has an equal chance of being selected to participate in the study). Thus,
individuals who volunteer to participate in an exersise study may be different that
individuals who do not volunteer.

Another form of sampling is the simple random sample. In this method, all subject or
elements have an equal probability of being selected. There are two major ways of
conducting a random sample. The first is to consult a random number table, and the
second is to have the computer select a random sample.

A systematic sample is conducted by randomly selecting a first case on a list of the

population and then proceeding every Nth case until your sample is selected. This is
particularly useful if your list of the population is long. For example, if your list was the
phone book, it would be easiest to start at perhaps the 17th person, and then select every
50th person from that point on.

Stratified sampling makes up the fourth sampling strategy. In a stratified sample, we

sample either proportionately or equally to represent various strata or subpopulations. For
example if our strata were states we would make sure and sample from each of the fifty
states. If our strata were religious affiliation, stratified sampling would ensure sampling
from every religious block or grouping. If our strata were gender, we would sample both
men and women.

Cluster sampling makes up the final sampling procedure. In cluster sampling we take a
random sample of strata and then survey every member of the group. For example, if our
strata were individuals schools in the St. Louis Public School System, we would randomly
select perhaps 20 schools and then test all of the students within those schools.

Sampling Problems

There are several potential sampling problems. When designing a study, a sampling
procedure is also developed including the potential sampling frame. Several problems
may exist within the sampling frame. First, there may be missing elements - individuals
who should be on your list but for some reason are not on the list. For example, if my
population consists of all individuals living in a particular city and I use the phone
directory as my sampling frame or list, I will miss individuals with unlisted numbers or
who can not afford a phone.

Foreign elements make up my second sampling problem. Elements which should not
be included in my population and sample appear on my sampling list. Thus, if I were to
use property records to create my list of individuals living within a particular city,

27
landlords who live elsewhere would be foreign elements. In this case, renters would be
missing elements.

Duplicates represent the third sampling problem. These are elements who appear
more than once on the sampling frame. For example, if I am a researcher studying patient
satisfaction with emergency room care, I may potentially include the same patient more
than once in my study. If the patients are completing a patient satisfaction questionnaire,
I need to make sure that patients are aware that if they have completed the questionnaire
previously, they should not complete it again. If they complete it more that once, their
second set of data respresents a duplicate.

Methods of Lexicological Research

a) The diachronic approach;

b) The synchronic approach;

c) Statistical methods;

Diachronic Approach

The research methods used in Lexicology have always been closely connected with
the general trends in Linguistics. The principles of comparative linguistics have played an
important role in the development of a scientific approach to historical word study.

They have brought everything in order and classified information about the English
vocabulary in their proper perspective.

The methods applied consisted in observation of speech, mostly written, collection

and classification of data, hypotheses and systematic statements. Particular stress was put
on the refinement of methods for collecting and classifying facts. The study of vocabulary
became scientific.

The 19th century language study has recognized variety and change in language.
Comparative philology insisted on reconstruction of the fundamental forms and meanings
which have not come down to us. It was realized that the only basis for correctness is the
usage of the native speakers of each language. They destroyed the myth of a Golden Age
when all the words had their primary “correct” meaning and when the language was in a
state of perfection from which it has deteriorated. It became clear from intensive work on
the great historical dictionaries that multiple meaning for words is normal, not an
“exception”. Comparative studies show that, save for specific technical terms, there are no
two words in two languages that cover precisely the same area.

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 The greatest contribution, as far as English is concerned, were the Oxford English
Dictionary and Data on the English vocabulary in works by H.Sweet, O.Jesperson,
H.Poutsma, and others. Most of them were published in the 20th century but the main
principles on which they were based were worked out in the 19th century.

In the beginning of the 20th century vocabulary study was still mainly concentrated
on historical problems. In connection with the so-called word-and-thing method the
study of words became a tool for the study of civilization.

A wide historical context was, in its turn, found indispensable in explaining

vocabulary changes. In the process of studying some words or work, the linguists
collected accurately chosen examples of usage, and arranged them according to the
periods of language history (and for OE and ME according to dialects). These data were
compared. As to conclusions about the meaning, they were drawn from the context and
from what was known about the realia of the period.

Comparing words and morphemes with those from which they were derived it was
possible to describe the processes at work in vocabulary development.

The synchronic approach

The centre of interest has shifted to the synchronic level, the spoken utterance and
structure. Lexicologists are now describing what the vocabulary of the language is like,
rather than how it came to be that way.

The new trend has received the name structural (descriptive) linguistics. Its
methodological principles can be summarized as follows: Language is to be analyzed by
specifically linguistic methods, according to the specifically linguistic criteria, not as a
combination of psychological, physiological and physical phenomenon. This analysis
arrives at a definite number of discrete units, interdependent parts of relational structure,
and each language is characterized by an internal structure of its own.

Descriptive linguistics can not be simply a list of elements, it must show how these
elements are combined.

Structural linguistic has many varieties and schools. The main schools are those of
Prague, the United States, Copenhagen, and more presently, London and Moscow.

A major achievements of the Prague school is represented in N.S.Trubetzkoy’s

classical work, and means in the first place a particular approach to phonology (the theory
of oppositions).

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 The typically American developments of linguistic theory resulted from practical
tasks: the study of the America Indian languages, teaching of foreign languages, and
recently, machine translation. Books by L.Bloomfield, E.Nida, B.Bloch, Z.Harris and
others mark stages in the development of structuralist theory in the United States.

The main achievements of the American schools are the analysis into immediate
constituents, substitution, distributional and transformational analysis.

Immediate constituents (IC) are the two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic
unity. The IC of bluish are blue- and –ish.

Substitution is testing of similarity by placing into identical environment:

It is reddish – it is some what red.

Substitution is also necessary for determining classes for words.

E.g. the words family, boy, and house all belong to different classes of nouns, as they
are differently substituted:

I like this family – I like them

I like this boy – I like him

I like this house – I like it.

This linguistic feature and not the difference between the objects the words serve to
denote, is the basis for their subdivision into collective, personal and object nouns.

The term distribution is used to denote the possible variants of the immediate lexical,
grammatical and phonetical environment of a linguistic unit.

According to Z.Harris, “the distribution of an element is the total of all environments

in which it occurs, i.e. the sum of all the positions of an element relative to the
occurrence of other elements”.

E.g. she made him a good wife – she made a good wife for him.

Statistical methods

Modern structural ways of analysis are often combined with statistical procedures.
Statistics describes how things are on the average. For a modern linguist it is not enough
to know that it is allowable for a given structure to appear, he is interested in its
frequency, in how often it appears.

30
 Every lexicological research is based on collecting linguistic evidence, i.e. examples.

Having determined the object of research, the problem to be investigated and the set
of units or phenomena to be described, the linguist proceeds to choose his method and
collect and classify his data. He must have at hand a sufficiently wide choice of contexts
so that his results might be statistically reliable. To know how many examples are
necessary to make the conclusion, one must determine the relative frequency of the
phenomenon or unit studied.

Mathematical statistics supplies the research workers with formulas showing the
necessary scope of material depending on the amount of error they are prepared to
tolerate.

When using a statistical method, it is true that some details are lost because statistical
study is necessarily simplifying and abstract. G.Miller gives a clear picture of the situation
when he says “At one time we look at the talker as generator of sound waves, and at
another time he seems a fountain of prepositional phrases. The choice depends upon the
interest”.

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 UNIT 3

Word as a structure

In linguistics, a word is the smallest element that can be uttered in isolation with
objective or practical meaning.

This contrasts deeply with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but
will not necessarily stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme (for
example: oh!, rock, red, quick, run, expect), or several (rocks, redness, quickly, running,
unexpected), whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word (in the
words just mentioned, these are -s, -ness, -ly, -ing, un-, -ed). A complex word will
typically include a root and one or more affixes (rock-s, red-ness, quick-ly, run-ning, un-
expect-ed), or more than one root in a compound (black-board, sand-box). Words can be
put together to build larger elements of language, such as phrases (a red rock, put up
with), clauses (I threw a rock), and sentences (He threw a rock too, but he missed).

The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the
abstract concept behind either. Spoken words are made up of units of sound called

32
phonemes, and written words of symbols called graphemes, such as the letters of the
English alphabet.

Semantic definition

Leonard Bloomfield introduced the concept of "Minimal Free Forms" in 1926. Words
are thought of as the smallest meaningful unit of speech that can stand by themselves.
This correlates phonemes (units of sound) to lexemes (units of meaning). However, some
written words are not minimal free forms as they make no sense by themselves (for
example, the and of).

Some semanticists have put forward a theory of so-called semantic primitives or

semantic primes, indefinable words representing fundamental concepts that are
intuitively meaningful. According to this theory, semantic primes serve as the basis for
describing the meaning, without circularity, of other words and their associated
conceptual denotations.

Features

In the Minimalist school of theoretical syntax, words (also called lexical items in the
literature) are construed as "bundles" of linguistic features that are united into a structure
with form and meaning. For example, the word "koalas" has semantic features (it denotes
real-world objects, koalas), category features (it is a noun), number features (it is plural
and must agree with verbs, pronouns, and demonstratives in its domain), phonological
features (it is pronounced a certain way), etc.

Word boundaries

The task of defining what constitutes a "word" involves determining where one word
ends and another word begins—in other words, identifying word boundaries. There are
several ways to determine where the word boundaries of spoken language should be
placed:

Potential pause: A speaker is told to repeat a given sentence slowly, allowing for
pauses. The speaker will tend to insert pauses at the word boundaries. However, this
method is not foolproof: the speaker could easily break up polysyllabic words, or fail to
separate two or more closely linked words (e.g. "to a" in "He went to a house").

Indivisibility: A speaker is told to say a sentence out loud, and then is told to say the
sentence again with extra words added to it. Thus, I have lived in this village for ten years
might become My family and I have lived in this little village for about ten or so years.
These extra words will tend to be added in the word boundaries of the original sentence.

33
However, some languages have infixes, which are put inside a word. Similarly, some have
separable affixes; in the German sentence "Ich komme gut zu Hause an", the verb
ankommen is separated.

Phonetic boundaries: Some languages have particular rules of pronunciation that

make it easy to spot where a word boundary should be. For example, in a language that
regularly stresses the last syllable of a word, a word boundary is likely to fall after each
stressed syllable. Another example can be seen in a language that has vowel harmony
(like Turkish):[7] the vowels within a given word share the same quality, so a word
boundary is likely to occur whenever the vowel quality changes. Nevertheless, not all
languages have such convenient phonetic rules, and even those that do present the
occasional exceptions.

Orthography

In languages with a literary tradition, there is interrelation between orthography and

the question of what is considered a single word. Word separators (typically spaces) are
common in modern orthography of languages using alphabetic scripts, but these are
(excepting isolated precedents) a relatively modern development.

In English orthography, compound expressions may contain spaces. For example, ice
cream, air raid shelter and get up each are generally considered to consist of more than
one word (as each of the components are free forms, with the possible exception of get).

Sometimes, languages which are extremely close grammatically will consider the same
order of words in different ways. For example, reflexive verbs in the French infinitive are
separate from their respective particle, e.g. se laver ("to wash oneself"), whereas in
Portuguese they are hyphenated, e.g. lavar-se, and in Spanish they are joined, e.g. lavarse.

Morphological Analysis

There are two complementary approaches to morphology, analytic and synthetic.

The linguist needs both. The analytic approach has to do with breaking words down, and
it is usually associated with American structuralist linguistics of the first half of the
twentieth century. There is a good reason for this. These linguists were often dealing with
languages that they had never encountered before, and there were no written grammars
of these languages to guide them. It was therefore crucial that they should have very
explicit methods of linguistic analysis. No matter what language we’re looking at, we
need analytic methods that will be independent of the structures we are examining;
preconceived notions might interfere with an objective, scientific analysis. This is
especially true when dealing with unfamiliar languages. The second approach to

34
morphology is more often associated with theory than with methodology, perhaps
unfairly. This is the synthetic approach. It basically says, “I have a lot of little pieces here.
How do I put them together?” This question presupposes that you already know what the
pieces are. So in a sense, analysis in some way must precede synthesis. Say that you’ve
broken a clock and taken it apart, and now you have to put all the little pieces back
together. There’s a catch: you don’t know how. You could always go by trial and error.
But the most efficient way would be to have some theory of how the clock goes together.
Synthesis really involves theory construction. From a morphological point of view, the
synthetic question you ask is, “How does a speaker of a language produce a grammatically
complex word when needed?” This question already assumes that you know what kinds
of elementary pieces you are making the complex word out of. We think that one of the
real problems of a morphological theory is that we don’t always have a good idea of what
the pieces are. Syntacticians can supply us with some tools: case and number, for example,
are ancient syntactic notions that we can use in our morphology. But the primary way in
which morphologists determine the pieces they are dealing with is by examination of
language data. They must pull words apart carefully, taking great care to note where each
piece came from to begin with. We have described analysis and synthesis in terms of the
morphologist studying language, but the two notions are equally applicable to speakers
themselves. Speakers apply morphological analysis when they read or hear a complex
word that they have never encountered before. In order to understand it, they pull it
apart and ask themselves whether they recognize any of the pieces. Speakers use synthesis
whenever they create new forms from pre-existing pieces.

Before we encounter any actual problems, we would like to give you some basic
analytic principles used in morphology. They are taken from Eugene Nida’s (1949; revised
edition 1965) textbook Morphology.

Principle 1

Forms with the same meaning and the same sound shape in all their occurrences are
instances of the same morpheme.

Step one in morphological analysis is to look for elements that have the same form
and the same meaning. This is the basic type-token problem.

Let’s say that we have a bunch of coins. Each is a token, a form. If we look at them
carefully, we see that three of them look very much the same (they are all nickels), and
two of them are identical – they both say 1997. These two coins are tokens of exactly the
same type: they have identical forms and identical values. We may further say that the
three coins are all tokens of a larger type that includes all nickels, not just those minted in

35
1997. But five pennies, though they have the same value as a nickel, do not together
comprise the same type as the nickel, because, although identical in value to the nickel,
they are different in form.

To apply this distinction between types and tokens to the morphological analysis of
words, consider the Spanish words buenísimo ‘very good’ (< bueno ‘good’), riquísimo
‘very delicious’ (< rico ‘delicious’), and utilísimo ‘very useful’ (< útil ‘useful’). In each case,
the suffix -ísimo contributes the same superlative meaning, and it has the same shape. We
logically conclude that the suffix is the same for all three words. Note that we presented
three words, all with the same suffix. It is not enough to look at one form when
attempting to break it up into its smaller parts. One thing that makes a morpheme a
morpheme is that it recurs, and thus speakers are able to identify it and give it a meaning.

Principle 2

Forms with the same meaning but different sound shapes may be instances of the same
morpheme if their distributions do not overlap.

In Kujamaat Jóola, for example, the stem /baj-/ has two possible shapes, [baj-] and
[b@j-], but their distributions don’t overlap. [b@j-] occurs in the presence of a morpheme
with an underlyingly tense vowel, but [baj-] does not. This non-overlapping distribution
allows us to conclude that the two forms are instances of the same morpheme. When two
or more instances of a given morpheme occur with different shapes, we call them
allomorphs.

The regular plural marker in English has several allomorphs – voiceless alveolar
fricative /s/, voiced alveolar fricative /z/, schwa plus voiced alveolar fricative /z/, syllabic
alveolar nasal /n/, and Ø – as shown in (16):

(16) seat-/s/ shade-/z/ hedg-/@z/ ox-/y/ fish-Ø

As in the previous example, the distributions of these forms do not overlap, and they
all have the same meaning. We can infer that they are instances of the same morpheme.

Principle 3

Not all morphemes are segmental.

Normally, when we think of morphemes, we think of forms that can be pronounced

in some sense, e.g., chicken, the, un-, -ize. But some morphemes can’t be pronounced on
their own. They are dependent on other morphemes for their realization. In English, for
example, vowel alternations may serve to differentiate basic and past forms of the verb.
We refer to these alternations as ablaut (as in 18):

36
 run ran

speak spoke

eat ate

We know that there is a past tense marker distinguishing the words in the second
column from those in the first. But what is it? It is not the /æ/ of ran or the /o/ of spoke
but rather the difference between these vowels and the vowels of the basic verb, which is
not segmental at all. We must look at both the present and past tense forms of these
verbs, because it is the contrast between them that is important. Another type of
nonsegmental morpheme in English is shown in (19):

breathN breatheV

clothN clotheV

houseN houseV

In each pair, the noun ends in a voiceless fricative ([T, s]), while the verb ends in a
voiced fricative ([D, z]). Assuming that the noun is basic, we say that the morpheme that
marks the verbs consists of the phonological feature [+voice].

It is nonetheless the case that doing so is awkward. Pairs like run∼ran or

breath∼breathe are more easily explained as processes than as concatenation of
morphemes.

Principle 4

A morpheme may have zero as one of its allomorphs provided it has a non-zero
allomorph.

Fish is an example of a word with a zero plural: one fish, two fish-Ø. We can say that
it has a zero plural, and that this zero plural is an allomorph of the usual plural [z],
because other words in the language, like frogs, have non-zero plurals. This is an analytic
procedure, not a theoretical point. We cannot posit a zero unless it contrasts with some

Answers to morpheme-breakup exercise:

a. pass/word

b. spray/able

c. child/hood/s

37
 d. auto/bio/graph/y

e. co-/educ/at/ion/al

The problem of prefix and suffix classification

The English language contains an enormous and ever-growing number of words.

Enhancing your vocabulary by learning new words can seem overwhelming, but if you
know the common prefixes and suffixes of English, you will understand many more
words.

Mastering common prefixes and suffixes is like learning a code. Once you crack the
code, you can not only spell words more correctly but also recognize and perhaps even
define unfamiliar words.

Prefixes

A prefix is a word part added to the beginning of a word to create a new meaning.
Study the common prefixes in Table 4.2 “Common Prefixes”.
The main rule to remember when adding a prefix to a word is not to add letters or
leave out any letters. See Table 4.2 “Common Prefixes” for examples of this rule.

Common Prefixes
Prefix Meaning Example

not,
dis dis + satisfied = dissatisfied
opposite of

mis wrongly mis + spell = misspell

un not un + acceptable = unacceptable

re again re + election = reelection

inter between inter + related = interrelated

pre before pre + pay = prepay

non not non + sense = nonsense

super above super + script = superscript

sub under sub + merge = submerge

38
 Prefix Meaning Example

against,
anti anti + bacterial = antibacterial
opposing

Exercise 1
Identify the five words with prefixes in the following paragraph, and write their
meanings on a separate sheet of paper.
At first, I thought one of my fuzzy, orange socks disappeared in the dryer, but I could
not find it in there. Because it was my favorite pair, nothing was going to prevent me
from finding that sock. I looked all around my bedroom, under the bed, on top of the bed,
and in my closet, but I still could not find it. I did not know that I would discover the
answer just as I gave up my search. As I sat down on the couch in the family room, my
Dad was reclining on his chair. I laughed when I saw that one of his feet was orange and
the other blue! I forgot that he was color-blind. Next time he does laundry I will have to
supervise him while he folds the socks so that he does not accidentally take one of mine!

Collaboration
Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

Exercise 2
Add the correct prefix to the word to complete each sentence. Write the word on
your own sheet of paper.
1. I wanted to ease my stomach ________comfort, so I drank some ginger root
tea.
2. Lenny looked funny in his ________matched shirt and pants.
3. Penelope felt ________glamorous at the party because she was the only one
not wearing a dress.
4. My mother said those ________aging creams do not work, so I should not
waste my money on them.
5. The child’s ________standard performance on the test alarmed his parents.
6. When my sister first saw the meteor, she thought it was a ________natural
phenomenon.
7. Even though she got an excellent job offer, Cherie did not want to
________locate to a different country.
8. With a small class size, the students get to ________act with the teacher
more frequently.

39
 9. I slipped on the ice because I did not heed the ________cautions about
watching my step.
10. A ________combatant is another word for civilian.

Suffixes
A suffix is a word part added to the end of a word to create a new meaning. Study the
suffix rules in the following boxes.
Rule 1
When adding the suffixes –ness and –ly to a word, the spelling of the word does not
change.
Examples:
 dark + ness = darkness
 scholar + ly = scholarly
Exceptions to Rule 1
When the word ends in y, change the y to i before adding –ness and –ly.
Examples:
 ready + ly = readily
 happy + ness = happiness

Rule 2
When the suffix begins with a vowel, drop the silent e in the root word.
Examples:
 care + ing = caring
 use + able = usable
Exceptions to Rule 2
When the word ends in ce or ge, keep the silent e if the suffix begins with a or o.
Examples:
 replace + able = replaceable
 courage + ous = courageous

Rule 3
When the suffix begins with a consonant, keep the silent e in the original word.
Examples:
 care + ful = careful
 care + less = careless
Exceptions to Rule 3
Examples:
 true + ly = truly
 argue + ment = argument

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 Rule 4
When the word ends in a consonant plus y, change the y to i before any suffix not
beginning with i.
Examples:
 sunny + er = sunnier
 hurry + ing = hurrying

Rule 5
When the suffix begins with a vowel, double the final consonant only if (1) the word
has only one syllable or is accented on the last syllable and (2) the word ends in a single
vowel followed by a single consonant.
Examples:
 tan + ing = tanning (one syllable word)
 regret + ing = regretting (The accent is on the last syllable; the word ends in
a single vowel followed by a single consonant.)
 cancel + ed = canceled (The accent is not on the last syllable.)
 prefer + ed = preferred

Exercise 3
On your own sheet of paper, write correctly the forms of the words with their
suffixes.
1. refer + ed
2. refer + ence
3. mope + ing
4. approve + al
5. green + ness
6. benefit + ed
7. resubmit + ing
8. use + age
9. greedy + ly
10. excite + ment

Exercise 4

Put the words in brackets in the appropriate form (use prefixes or a suffix):

41
 1. He was acting in a very way. (child)
2. She looked .She started to cry. (happy)
3. He passed his exam. He was for the second time. (succeed)
4. The team that he supported was able to win the . (champion)
5. I couldn't find any in his theory. (weak)
6. He wants to be a when he grows up. (mathematics)
7. There were only a of people at the match. (hand)
8. The road was too narrow, so they had to it. (wide)
9. I think that you should your decision. It may not be the best
thing to do. (consider)
10. You need a of motivation, organization and hard work to realize
your dreams.(combine

Exercise 5

Use a prefix or a suffix to make a new word out of the word in brackets . Complete the
sentence with it.

1. I can't answer this question. It's (POSSIBLE).

2. Don't stand near the water. It's too (DANGER).
3. I don't like this fish. It's not very well (COOK).
4. Kate started crying because she was so (HAPPY)
5. If you have a haircut it will change your (APPEAR)
6. Paul never waits in queues. He is too (PATIENT)
7. Thank you for your advice. You have been very (HELP).
8. Stealing other people's money is (HONEST)
9. Our science is very young . (TEACH)
10. Harry didn't think the book was very (INTEREST).
11. A million pounds was given to the hospital by an person
(KNOWN)
12. When you this paragraph, make it a bit shorter (WRITE)
13. Mary was wearing a/an hat (USUAL)
14. That was a great film. It was really (ENJOY)
15. I like this town. The people are very (FRIEND)

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 16. I don't think you're right. I with you completely
(AGREE)

Affixation. Classifications of affixes. Productive and non-productive affixes, dead and

living affixes.

Affixation is a morphological process whereby a bound morpheme, an affix, is

attached to a morphological base. Diachronically, the English word affix was first used as
a verb and has its origin in Latin: affixus, past participle of the verb affigere, ad- ‘to’ +
figere ‘to fix’. Affixation falls in the scope of Morphology where bound morphemes are
either roots or affixes. Prefixes (affixes that precede the root) and suffixes (affixes that
follow the root) are the most common types of affixes cross-linguistically. Affixes mark
derivational (-er in teach-er) and inflectional (-s in teacher-s) changes, and affixation is
the most common strategy that human languages employ for derivation of new words and
word forms. However, languages vary in the ways they express the same semantics, and if
in English the noun biolog-ist is derived from biology through the addition of the suffix -
ist, in Russian (and other Slavic languages) the same derivation does not involve the
addition of an affix but subtraction of form: biolog-ija ‘biology’ → biolog ‘biologist’. Most
languages make an extensive use of affixes (most European, African, Australian, and
Amerindian languages are of this type), whereas others (e.g., Vietnamese), hardly do. In
languages that use affixes, there is a general preference for suffixes over prefixes.

Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes; does not change part
of speech; is more typical of verb-formation (42%), e.g. a pretest, to coexist, to undo,
impossible, asleep, to rewrite etc.

Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes; can change part of
speech; is characteristic of noun-, adjective- and adverb-formation, e.g. an employee,
childish, quietly, to specify etc.

Types of affixes According to the position in a word, affixational morphemes fall into:

prefixes – derivational affixes standing before the stem and modifying its meaning,
e.g. ex-minister, in-sensitive, re-read etc.; about 51 in the system of Modern English;

suffixes – derivational affixes following the stem and forming a new derivative
within the same part of speech (e.g. king-dom, book-let, child-hood etc.) or in a different
word class (e.g. do-er, wash-able, sharp-en etc.);

infixes – affixational morphemes placed within a word, e.g –n– in stand.

43
 Synchronic vs diachronic differentiation of affixes:

living affixes are easily separated from the stem, e.g. re-, -ful, -ly, un-, -ion, de- etc.;

dead affixes have become fully merged with the stem and can be singled out by a
diachronic analysis of the development of the word, e.g. admit < Lat. ad+mittere;

Productive vs non-productive affixes:

productive affixes take part in word-formation in modern English, e.g. -er, -ing, -
ness, -ism, -ance, un-, re-, dis-, -y, -ish, -able, -ise, -ate;

non-productive affixes are not active in word-formation in modern English, e.g. –th,
-hood, -some, -en;

non-productive affix == dead affix

Language is taken for granted in everyday life and so the words that represent a
certain language. It is probably so because either language in general or words that
represent language are always present and exist around us no matter what we do. But
both language and words represent a very important part of the human life because they
are used to express our ideas, thoughts, wishes, emotions, etc. and to send them to other
persons expecting a kind of reaction and in such a way producing communication
between human beings. That is why language with its words is described in the simplest
way as the basic means of communication.

There are a lot of different identifications of what is language; i.e. Edward Sapir
defines language as a method of communicating desires, ideas, etc. by means of using
symbols among which words exist and Otto Jespersen says that language represents a set
of human habits that express thoughts and feeling. Being present in everyday life,
language is not only a linguistic matter. Other sciences try to define language from their
point of view and by using their methods and techniques. Pedagogy, for example, treats
language as a medium for adopting knowledge or learning and an important part of
human culture and education. It is obvious that language cannot exist without words and
that is why, in order to understand words, let us mention some general remarks about
language, or better to say – English language. The method of diachronic is not always
necessary, or even popular in scientific researches, but considering words in English it
would be applied in this paper for better understanding of their the structure and
meaning.

Nobody knows for sure how language began, or whether it began just once, or at
number of different times and places. The only certain thing is that language is a living

44
matter which constantly changes and develops. Since all linguistic efforts to reveal the
origin of language remained useless, most of the linguists redirected their attention back
to the individual language, trying to trace the signs of their origin and development as far
back in the past as possible. It was thus discovered that certain groups of languages
showed common origin. But since no written record is older than a thousand years, an
evidence to prove the existence of a single parent or proto-languages to all the existing
languages in the world may never be found.

Still, thanking to words basically, it can be concluded that there are related languages
in the world originating from the same proto-language; i.e. the English word father
corresponds to Gothic fader, or Greek pater, Dutch wader, Sanskrit pitar-, old Irish athir
and Germinate; or English brother, German bruder, Greek phrater, Sanskrit bhratar-, old
Slavic bratu and Irish brathair. These examples prove the hypothesis that related
languages can be put into the same family. One of the world’s largest families to which
most of the languages of Europe, America and part of Asia belong is known as Indo-
European family. Vocabulary and grammar show a lot of similarities between the
languages belonging to it.

English is shown even by the example where the word English or Welsh originate
from. German invaders called the native Celts weal as (foreigners), so the name Welsh
derived from it. The Celts called all invaders Saxons, and this term was used till the end of
the sixth century, when the term Angli, Anglorum, Anglia started to be in use by
Romans. Old English word Engle derived from them, while in the different texts English,
nowadays English, appeared.

On the other hand the word England originates from England – a land of Engles.
Although the evolution of English became a continuous process, three major periods of its
historical development with a great impact to English words too can be distinguished.

Old English period (OE) 450 – 1150, also called Anglo-Saxon, was a period of full
inflection. This language was rich with morphological characteristics. Words were spelled
as they were pronounced and characterized by the inflectional forms to indicate
grammatical characteristics of case, gender, number and comparison.

Middle English period (ME) 1150 – 1500 was the period of leveled inflection, because
some inflectional endings of OE were lost, and some remained. Nouns lost the case
suffixes, and infinitival verbal ending –an was lost an replaced by “to” particle that was
used in front of a verb base to indicate infinitive. Comparative and superlative degrees in
adjectives and adverbs were marked by –er and –est, while most of the pronouns stayed
unchanged.

45
 Modern English period (Mode) 1500 – till now is known as a period of lost inflection.
It is spoken since the Great Vowel Shift that was completed in 1550. It is divided into
Early Mode or Elizabethan English and Late Mode nowadays.

As it can be seen, the reduction of the inflectional endings is the most significant
characteristic of the development of English. There were, for example, between eight and
twelve declinations in OE, the only surviving suffixes of which are –s1, -s2 and –s3 and
the so called irregular plural forms like ox – oxen (OE oxa – oxan), child – children (OE
cild – cildru),sheep – sheep (OE sceap – sceap), goose – geese (OE gos – ges) and some
others. The Saxon genitive case is the only surviving inflective case and OE grammatical
gender is completely lost. Nowadays, grammatical characteristic of gender is related to
the biological sex, so only living beings naturally characterized by female sex are
feminine gender and by male sex masculine gender. Non-living objects that are not
characterized by the biological sex are neuter. The verbal inflectional system was
increasingly simplified; the only surviving personal ending is the –s3. Almost the third of
the so-called strong verbs forming the Preterit by mutation of the middle bowel like
sing/sang became weak forming the Preterit by addition of the dental suffix t/d, like
work/worked. Apart from the weak Preterit suffix – ed1, all other verbal endings
disappeared including the infinitival suffix –an, the past participle prefix ge-, and present
participle suffix –ende (the gerundial suffix –ing took over its function).

The process of reducing the inflectional system, that began at the end of the OE
period and continued throughout the ME period, resulted in the comparative simplicity
of the grammatical system of English, a bit alike to the Chinese one, but so exceptional
among IE languages. The Slavic languages, for instance, preserved almost full IE
inflectional system.

All these morphological changes are strictly the matter of the internal language
history.

English, however, was strongly affected by the external history, too. Some three
hundred years after the West Germanic tribes had settled in England, there was another
wave of invasion, this time by Scandinavians, or the “Danes” as they are often called,
whose dialectics belonged to the Northern group of Germanic languages. Since the large
number of Danes also settled in England, many Scandinavian words entered English
language. Some of them like sky, skin, skill, skirt, etc, can easily be identified as the
naturalized foreigners, because the OE consonantal group sc was pronounced /sh/, and
not /sk/, but for many others only a historian of language would dare say that they were
not genuine English words, like get, give, die, take, call, sister, they, them, are, low,

46
down, window, fellow, dirt, birth, guess, leg, trust, ill, want, weak, lift, raise, cow, bull,
seat, kid, odd, etc.

Another important linguistic consequence of building a colonial Empire lies in he

fact that English sprung all over the planet – it is spoken by over 300 million people in
the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Britain itself, not to
mention the former African and Asiatic colonies where it is used as the official language.
Apart from the doubtless significance of British English (BE), the North American variant
became increasingly important after the WW II. The difference between these two
variants is not a large one, and is mainly reflected in pronunciation, spelling and lexis, for
example BE railway, lorry, post, petrol, nappy, elevator, etc – AE railroad, truck, mail,
gasoline, diaper, lift, etc.

There are some other characteristics of prefixes that are important for the process of
prefixation. One and the same prefix can precede different word classes. By adding a
prefix, a word does not change its class. They can be productive or non-productive.
Prefixes usually carry the secondary, rather mild stress, and they are much more
independent than suffixes, even leading to new words.

47
 Unit 4

Classification of Compound Words

Word-composition is the type of word-formation, in which new words are produced

by combining two or more Immediate Constituents (ICs), which are both derivational
bases. *(The procedure generally employed for the purposes of segmenting words into the
constituent morphemes is known as 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 (ICs). ICs – any of the two
meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unit. Each IC at the next stage of analysis is in
its turn broken into smaller meaningful elements.

This analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further

division, i.e. morphemes. These morphemes are referred to as the Ultimate Constituents
(UCs). For example, the noun friendliness is the first segmented into the ICs 1) friendly-
(recurring in the adjectives friendly and friendly-looking) and 2) –ness (found in a
countless number of nouns, e.g. happiness, darkness).

The IC –ness is at the same time AUC of the noun, as it cannot be broken into any
smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. The IC friendly- is next
broken into the ICs 1) friend- (recurring in friendship, unfriendly) and 2) –ly (recurring
in wifely, brotherly). The ICs friend- and –ly are both UCs of the word under analysis.).*
*(A derivational base is the part of the word, which establishes connection with the
lexical unit that motivates the derivative and determines its individual lexical meaning
describing the difference between words in one and the same derivational set. For
example, the individual lexical meaning of the words singer, writer, teacher which denote

48
active doers of the action, is signaled by the lexical meaning of the derivational bases:
sing-, write-, teach-).

The ICs of compound words represent bases of all three structural types: 1) bases that
coincide with morphological stems; 2) bases that coincide with word-forms; 3) bases that
coincide with word-groups. The bases built on stems may be of different degrees of
complexity: 1) simple, e.g. week-end; 2) derived, e.g. letter-writer; 3) compound, e.g.
aircraft-carrier.

Compound words can be classified according to different principles.

1. According to the relations between the ICs compound words fall into two classes:
1) coordinative compounds and 2) subordinative compounds.

In coordinative compounds the two ICs are semantically equally important. The
coordinative compounds fall into three groups:

a) reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base,
e.g. pooh-pooh, fifty-fifty;

b) compounds formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms, e.g.
chit-chat (with the same initial consonants but different vowels); walkie-talkie, clap-trap
(with different initial consonants but the same vowels);

c) additive compounds which are built on stems of the independently functioning

words of the same part of speech, e.g. actor-manager, queen-bee.

In subordinative compounds the components are neither structurally nor

semantically equal in importance but are based on the domination of the head-member
which is, as a rule, the second IC, e.g. stone-deaf, age-long. The second IC preconditions
the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound.

2. According to the part of speech compounds represent they fall into:

1) compound nouns, e.g. sunbeam, maidservant;

2) compound adjectives, e.g. heart-free, far-reaching;

3) compound pronouns, e.g. somebody, nothing;

4) compound adverbs, e.g. nowhere, inside;

5) compound verbs, e.g. to offset, to bypass, to mass-produce.

3. According to the means of composition compound words are classified into:

49
 1) compounds composed without connecting elements, e.g. heartache, dog-house;

2) compounds composed with the help of a vowel or a consonant as a linking

element, e.g. handicraft, statesman;

3) compounds composed with the help of linking elements represented by

preposition or conjunction stems, e.g. son-in-law, pepper-and-salt.

4. According to the type of bases that form compounds the following classes can be
singled out:

1) compounds proper that are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or
on the word-forms with or without a linking element, e.g. door-step, street-fighting;

2) derivational compounds that are formed by joining affixes to the bases built on the
word-groups or by converting the bases built on the word-groups into other parts of
speech, e.g. long-legged – (long legs)+-ed; a turnkey – (to turn key)+conversion.

Compound Word List #1

lifetime elsewhere upside grandmother

cannot baseball fireworks passport

together become became sunflower

crosswalk sweetmea
basketball superstructure
t

moonlight football railroad rattlesnake

weatherm throwbac
anybody skateboard
an k

earthquak everythin
meantime herein
e g

sometimes also backward schoolhouse

butterflies upstream nowhere bypass

somewher
fireflies because spearmint
e

50
something another somewhat airport

anyone today himself grasshopper

themselve
inside playthings footprints
s

therefore uplift supergiant homemade

without backbone scapegoat peppermint

Compound Word List # 2

eyeballs longhouse forget afternoon

southwest northeast alongside meanwhile

keyboard whatever blacksmith diskdrive

herself nobody seashore nearby

watchmake
silversmith subway horseback
r

headquarte
itself sandstone limestone
rs

glassmakin
underground riverbanks touchdown
g

honeymoon bootstrap toothpick toothpaste

dishwasher household township shadyside

popcorn airplane pickup housekeeper

bookcase babysitter saucepan lukewarm

bluefish hamburger honeydew raincheck

thunderstor spokesperso widespread weekend

51
m n

commonpla
hometown moreover pacemaker
ce

Compound Word List # 3

supermarket supermen supernatural superpower
somebody someday somehow someone
anymore anyplace anytime anyway
backhand watchdog backlog backpack
backstage waterfall backtrack noisemaker
underage underbelly underbid undercharge
bookworm bookstore bookshelf bookend
superscript supersonic superstar supersensitive
bookkeeper bookmark bookmobile forgive
forklift format fortnight honeycomb
honeysuckle honeybee keyhole keynote
keyway keyword lifeblood lifeboat
lifeguard lifelike lifeline lifelong
forefinger forefather forehand forehead

Compound Word List # 4

onetime supercargo supercharge overabundance
backside backslap backspace backspin
undercut underdevelop underdog underestimate
superstrong supertanker superweapon superwoman
underexpose underfoot however eyesight
airfield sidekick crossover sunbathe
anywhere anyhow backache backbite
backbreaker backdrop backfire background
textbook underachieve underact underarm

52
keypad keypunch keystone keystroke
upstairs softball uptight upstate
supercool superego superfine superhero
foreleg foreman foresee oneself

Compound Word List # 5

washroom blackbird blackboard blackberries

upend blacktop whitecap whitefish

whitewall whitewash friendship pancake

daytime upbringing upbeat upcoming

repairman firefighter standby bedroom

blackjack blacklist blackmail blackout

uphill waterline upkeep upland

firehouse teenager carpool bellbottom

ballroom brainchild pinstripe bodywork

upward upwind upturn storerooms

deadline rainbow watermelon waterway

daybreak daybook daydream daylight

update upgrade upheaval upheld

Compound Word List # 6

upload washstand upon upperclassman

lifesaver forearm forbearer forbid

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carhop carload carport carpetbagger

wastepaper upshot uplink upstage

newspaper grandchild grandparent grandchildren

fishpond fishtail hookup eye-catching

taxicab taxpayer teacup teamwork

uppercut uppercase uppermost uprising

newsreel newsstand newsworthy granddaughter

grandfather grandmaster grandaunt grandnephew

upright uproar uproot upstart

grandnieces grandson grandstand granduncle

boldface bankbook bankroll dishcloth

dishpan dishwater cardboard carefree

Compound Word List # 7

caretaker carsick carfare cargo

uptake upthrust newsroom uptime

carryall cartwheel wheelbase wheelbarrow

washcloth fishlike waterproof fishnet

newsdealer watershed newsman snowdrift

intake courtyard overflow cornmeal

underclothes overcoat undercover undercurrent

takeover talebearer taleteller tapeworm

superhuman wasteland superman superhighways

afterlife setback overland highway

mainland caveman drawbridge lifework

firebomb someplace passbook passkey

54
airtime firecracker sidewalk fireball

allover notebook throwaway fireproof

buttermilk footnote moonbeam Sunday

Compound Word List # 8

handmade candlelight firearm airline

crossbow sideshow software sunfish

moonstruck rattletrap weatherproof earthworm

schoolboy sweetheart butternut hereafter

playback foothill eyelid southeast

horseplay headache blueprint raindrop

weekday hammerhead foreclose foreclosure

slowdown skyscraper motherhood fatherland

forecast highball forebear mainline

slumlord snowball snakeskin soundproof

firebreak aircraft crosscut railway

earthward buttercup allspice noteworthy

playboy footlocker handgun horsepower

rainstorm bluegrass cheeseburger weeknight

headlight bedrock standoff commonwealth

55
 Compound Word List # 9

cancan fireboat airlift Passover

crossbreed sideburns sunbaked moonshine

schoolbook hereby playhouse butterfingers

footlights handbook backslide eyelash

steamship headline spillway houseboat

longhand horsehair standpipe whatsoever

foresight soybean bookseller blueberry

cheesecake raincoat thunderbolt standpoint

bedroll cardsharp bellboy brainwash

bodyguard pinhole ponytail newsboy

careworn duckpin duckbill hookworm

courthouse afterimage highchair mothball

sixfold skintight skylight slapstick

snowbank standout handout eyeglasses

footrest stepson stockroom stonewall

56
 Compound Word List # 10

sailboat watchword timesaving timeshare

salesclerk showoff sharecropper sheepskin

candlestick newsbreak newscaster newsprint

butterscotch turnabout turnaround turnbuckle

eyewitness starfish stagehand spacewalk

shoemaker turndown turnkey turnoff

horsefly comedown comeback cabdriver

bluebird tablespoon tabletop tableware

stoplight sunlit sandlot snowbird

bluebell wheelhouse fishhook fishbowl

stronghold tailgate taillight taillike

pinup tailspin takeoff takeout

57
bellhop taproot target taskmaster

steamboat dairymaid teaspoon daisywheel

pinwheel telltale tenderfoot tenfold

Compound Word List # 11

timekeeper watchword timesaving timeshare

shoelace showoff sharecropper sheepskin

newfound newsbreak newscaster newsprint

timetable turnabout turnaround turnbuckle

sharpshooter starfish stagehand spacewalk

turncoat turndown turnkey turnoff

aboveboard comedown comeback cabdriver

tablecloth tablespoon tabletop tableware

sundial sunlit sandlot snowbird

58
wheelchair wheelhouse fishhook fishbowl

tagalong tailgate taillight taillike

tailpiece tailspin takeoff takeout

taproom taproot target taskmaster

teammate dairymaid teaspoon daisywheel

showplace telltale tenderfoot tenfold

Compound Word List # 12

shortbread teapot timesaving timeshare

firewater airmen sharecropper sheepskin

moonscape schoolwork newscaster newsprint

hereupon weathercock turnaround turnbuckle

handcuff headdress stagehand spacewalk

housetop forever turnkey turnoff

59
tailcoat bedclothes comeback cabdriver

upstanding fisheye tabletop tableware

afterglow highland sandlot snowbird

sisterhood skylark fishhook fishbowl

waistline walkways taillight taillike

walleyed wallpaper takeoff takeout

wardroom warehouse target taskmaster

warlike warmblooded teaspoon daisywheel

warpath telltale tenderfoot tenfold

Compound Word List # 13

around washbowl fisherman schoolbus

ashtray washboard beachcomb washout

blackball upmarket washtub wastebasket

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sunroof sundown snowshovel sunup

upset wastewater superimpose watchband

jailbait jetliner dogwood downbeat

atchcase backlash watchman below

jetport boardwalk jackpot ballpark

watchtower timepieces watercolor watercooler

gumball goodbye nevermore coffeemaker

watercraft backstroke waterfront waterlog

moonwalk woodshop jellyfish waterfowl

uphold watermark fishmonger waterpower

shipbottom goodnight nutcracker racquetball

waterscape newsletter waterside waterspout

Compound Word List # 14

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scarecrow toolbox gearshift tailbone

watertight waterworks waterwheel wavelength

thunderbird bugspray overshoes paycheck

wavelike warfare waxwork waybill

bowtie crewcut typewriter jumpshot

wayfarer waylaid wayward wayside

deadend eardrum postcard fruitcup

overboard jellybean centercut rubberband

sunray clockwise downunder earache

turntable driveway matchbox motorcycle

nightfall graveyard carrack doorstop

tadpole eggshell stopwatch limelight

ironwork cattail nursemaid sunglasses

wipeout egghead eardrop earthbound

daybed earring housework haircut

62
 Nouns

In informal definitions of nouns, it is said that they refer to things: objects, persons,
places, events, substances, etc. However, linguists are in general not satisfied with this
kind of description, since it is difficult to specify a complete list of categories.
Furthermore, the definition uses abstract nouns to define the very notion of a noun,
which makes it slightly circular.

There also exist abstract nouns that have no physical referents, for example law,
retirement, inflation, and mind. Lyons distinguishes three fundamental “orders”: (1)
physical objects; (2) events, processes, states-of-affairs; and (3) propositions, schemas, etc.
that “are outside space and time”. One of the main communicative uses of the abstract
nouns in Lyons’s second and third orders is as “hidden variables” in causal explanations.
For example, the sentence “the economy is stagnating because the government cannot
control inflation” expresses a causal relation between three abstract nouns.

Names can be seen as special cases of nouns. The difference is that names typically
pick out a unique referent. If the basic communicative function of a noun is to express a
referent and names identify a unique referent, why then does not everything have a
name? It would seem that if every object had a name, this would eliminate many
ambiguities.

The reason why nouns are needed is one of cognitive economy (see for example,
Kemp and Regier 2012). Our memory is severely constrained and it would be impossible
to learn and remember a name for all objects one wants to communicate about. Nouns

63
referring to basic-level categories group objects in categories that are suitably large for
communications that ambiguities become sufficiently rare. The cognitive solution is a
balance between the precision of the noun and the numbered words that have to be
remembered.

Adjectives

My account of the semantics of adjectives will be based on my notion of properties.

The key idea is that adjectives express properties. This generates the following thesis:
Single-domain thesis for adjectives: The meaning of an adjective can be represented as a
convex region in a single domain.

For many adjectives, the single-domain thesis seems to be valid, in particular for
adjectives that relate to domains that are acquired early in language learning. In
particular, I conjectured (Gärdenfors 2000)that all color terms in natural languages
express convex regions with respect to the color dimensions of hue, saturation, and
brightness.

This means, for example, that there should be no language that has single word for
the colors denoted by green and orange in English (and which includes no other colors),
since such a word would represent two disjoint areas in the color space. Strong support
for this conjecture has been obtained by Jäger (2010).

Adjectives are also used for comparing things: Many languages have comparatives
such as taller and smarter that can be used both as specifications (“the taller woman”) and
predicatively (“Victoria is smarter than Oscar”). Many languages also have superlatives,
for example, tallest and smartest, which again can be used as specifications and
predicatively.

64
 Nouns seldom allow comparisons (Schwarzschild 2008: 319): Expressions like
*dogger, *more dog are hardly used. Why do nouns not allow comparatives, when
adjectives do? A comparison requires a well-defined dimension along which the
comparison is made. Since many adjectives are based on one-dimensional domains, a
comparative (and a superlative) then simply involves a comparison of the values along
this dimension:

For example, “Oscar is taller than Victoria” means that Oscar’s coordinate on the
length dimension is greater than that for Victoria.

If the adjective is based on a multidimensional domain, the situation becomes more

complex. In general the comparative means “closer to the prototype for the adjective”:
Greener means closer to the green prototype in color space, healthier means lower value
on some of the dimensions involved in illness.

Nouns refer to things and verbs say something about what happens to things. So why
are there adjectives in language?

Firstly, an adjective can be used as a specification of a noun (or noun phrase) that
helps in identifying a referent. For example, if you want somebody to fetch you a
particular book and there are several books present in the context, you specify it further
by saying “the green book” or “the big book.”

Here, the goal is not a particular object, but something that has a desired property.
Secondly, a typical function of an adjective is predicative. You can utter “The stove is hot”
as a warning. Linguistically, the adjective is then a complement to a copula (“is”) or an
intransitive verb (“the meal tastes wonderful”). The specification function and the
predicative function may very well be cognitively separated. Therefore, it is not obvious
that these functions should be expressed by only one word class. Dixon(2004: 30) notes
that some languages indeed have two different word classes, one fulfilling the first
function and another fulfilling the second.

Actually, some words classified as adjectives in English only have one of the
functions: Afraid and alive can only be used predicatively and absolute and main can only
be used as specifications (attributively)(Paradis 2005). The specification function can also
be fulfilled by a noun. For example “The silk scarf” can be used to distinguish among
several scarves.

65
 Verbs

In linguistics, the semantic role of verbs has been described as predication (for
example, Croft 2001). However, the notion of predication is rather abstract—it derives
from the Fregean view of language—and it does not capture the communicative role of
verbs. Also within philosophy, there is recent criticism of the general use of predication.

There has been discussion as to whether there are languages without adjectives.

Modifiers can be found in all languages. He writes: “In some languages, adjectives
have similar grammatical properties to nouns, in some to verbs, in some to both nouns
and verbs, and in some to neither. I suggest that there are always some grammatical
criteria—sometimes rather subtle—for distinguishing the adjective class from other
classes” (Dixon 2004: 1).

66
 Ben-Yami (2004: 142–143) points out that the common semantic content of what is
called predication is minimal. He writes the following about Frege’s notion of predication:

Ironically, Frege was mislead into a mistaken view of concepts, […] by what he time
and again warned against: mistaking mere grammatical uniformity for a logical and
semantic one. The semantic diversity of predication, acknowledged by logicians from
Aristotle’s Categories on, disappeared under Frege’s pseudo-homogenous semantic
relation of falling under a concept. (Ben-Yami 2004: 143)

Furthermore, adjectives are used predicatively too, so the notion does not
characterize the use of verbs. Verbs are necessary components in linguistic descriptions of
events. Gärdenfors and Warglien (2012) and Warglien et al. (2012) describe events as
complex structures built up from an agent, an action, a patient, and a result. Agents and
patients are objects with different properties.

It is assumed that the agent is able to act, which in the proposed framework amounts
to exerting a force (Gärdenfors 2007, Gärdenfors and Warglien 2012).10 An action is
modelled as a force vector (or a sequence of force vectors as in walking). The result of an
event is modeled as a change vector representing the change of properties before and after
the event. When the result vector is just a point, that is, when the result is no change,
then the event is a state.

Elsewhere, I have proposed that when we describe an event at least one of the force
and result vectors and at least one of the patient and the agent are part of the description
(Warglien et al. (2012), Gärdenfors 2014). When describing an event, agents and patients
are typically expressed by noun phrases and actions and results by verb phrases.

Given this suggestion for event expressions, the model thus explains the linguistically
basic distinction between nouns phrases and verb phrases. In contrast to mainstream
linguistics, this distinction is made on a semantic basis derived from the cognitive
representation of events.

Verbs cannot mean just anything. Kiparsky (1997) proposed that a verb can express
inherently at most one semantic role, such as theme, instrument, direction, manner, or
path. Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2010: 25) strengthened this by associating semantic
roles with argument and modifier positions in an event schema, and proposed that ”a root
can only be associated with one primitive predicate in an event schema, as either an
argument or a modifier”. By using the cognitive notion of a domain, I can refine and
strengthen the constraints proposed by Kiparsky and by Rappaport Hovav and Levin:

There exist events without agents such as event of falling, dying, and growing.

67
 Single-domain thesis for verbs: The meaning of a verb (verb root) is a convex region
of vectors that depends only on a single domain.

For example, push refers to the force vector of an event (and thus the force domain),
move refers to changes in the spatial domain of the result vector and heat refers to
changes in the temperature domain.

The single-domain thesis for verbs is analogous to the single domain thesis for
adjectives. The thesis entails that there are no verbs that mean ‘walk and burn’ (multiple
domains) and there are no verbs that mean ‘crawl or run’ (not convex).

Since the model requires that an event always contains two vectors, the constraint
entails that a single verb cannot completely describe an event, but only bring out an
aspect of it. However, the two-vector model has the testable consequence that a construal
can always be expanded to contain references to both the force and result vectors. More
precisely, for any utterance based on a construal involving only a force vector, one can
always meaningfully ask “What happened?”; and for any utterance based on a construal
involving only a result vector one can always ask “How did it come about?”

According to the model, verbs have two main roles: (1) To describe what has
happened (or will happen); and (2) to describe how it happened (or will happen). This is
reflected linguistically by the distinction between result verbs, for example, run, hit, and
wipe, and manner verbs, for example, fall, boil, and clean (Rappaport Hovav and Levin
2010; Warglien et. al 2012). A special case is when nothing happens, that is, when the
event is a state. Verbs describing states such as stay, live and the most general is are all
result verbs.

Words and their characteristics

• Internal stability

– insertions made between, not within words

• External independence

– phonologically: may be preceded or followed

by pauses

– orthographically: separation by spaces or

punctuation marks

– syntactically: may be used alone as a single

68
 utterance

– semantically: can be assigned meaning(s)

Word classes

• A word class: A group of words, which from a grammatical point of view behave in
the same way:

– morphologically: they show which class they belong to by using same endings e.g. -
s, -ing for verbs, -ly, for adverbs.

– Syntactically: show the class they belong - used in the same way in a sentence e.g.
adjectives: used the and a noun, or after any form of be

Major word classes

• Classification based on main functions and grammatical behaviour

– Lexical words

• main carriers of meaning

• numerous and members of open classes

• have complex internal structure

• can be heads of phrases - they include: – nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs

The structure of words

• Morphology: the study of the structure of words

• Domains

– Lexical/derivational morphology: how new vocabulary items are built out of

combination of elements e.g. in-describ-able

– Inflectional morphology: the way words vary in their form to express grammatical
contrast e.g. horse-s

69
 Elements in word construction

• Base form: words which cannot be broken down into grammatical parts e.g. yes,
boy,

• affixes: meaningful dependent elements added before or after the base form –
prefixes: pure lexical role; allow construction of many new words

– suffixes: most purely lexical: change meaning of base form e.g. -ness, -ship, -able

• few are purely grammatical: show how words must be used in sentences e.g. plural -
s, past tense -ed

70
 Unit 5

Types of lexical opposition

Word
Minor types of lexical oppositions:

a) Sound interchange;

b) Distinctive stress;

c) Sound imitation;

d) Back-formation.

Word-building process involves not only qualitative but also quantitative changes.
Thus derivation and compounding present addition, as affixes, and free stems. Shortening
on the other hand may be represented as significant subtraction, in which part of the
original word is taken away.

The spoken and the written forms of the English language have each their own
patterns of shortening. But as there is a constant exchange between the two spheres it is
very difficult to say where a given shortening really originated.

As a type of word building shortening of spoken words is also called clipping or

curtailment; Newly shortened words appear continuously; this is testified by numerous
neologisms, such as dub (v), a cinema term meaning “to make another recording of the
sound-track in a film in a different language” (from double); frig or frige (n) from
refrigerator; mike (n) from microphone, or telly or TV from television, vac – from
vacuum cleaner, etc.

Some authors consider the main reason for the development of shortening – “the
strain of modern life”, but it’s only one of the reasons. There are purely linguistic factors
which shouldn’t be overlooked. Among the major forces are the demands of rhythm,
which are more readily satisfied when the words are monosyllabic.

71
 When dealing with words of long duration, one will also note that a high percentage
of English shortenings is involved into the process of loan words assimilation.

Shortening of spoken words consists in the reduction of the word to one of its parts
(whether or not this part has previously been a morpheme), as a result of which a new
form acquires some linguistic value of its own.

The part retained doesn’t change phonetically, hence the necessity of spelling
changes in some of the examples above (dub – double; mike – mick). The change is not
only quantitative: a shortened word is not merely a word that has lost its initial, middle or
final part. Nor it is possible to treat shortening as just using a part for the whole as
Hockett suggests, because a shortened word is always in some way different from its
prototype in meaning and usage. Moreover, every kind of shortening differs from
derivation, composition and conversion in being not a new arrangement of existing
morphemes, but often a source of new ones.

So, shortening may be regarded as a type of root creation because the resulting new
morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combine with bound forms. They
can also take functional suffixes; bike – bikes, vac –vacking (PI) – vacked (PII). They also
serve as basis for further word formation: fancy (n) – from fantasy – fancy (v), fancier (n),
fanciful (adj.), fancifully (adv.), fancifulness (n), fancy-ball (n), fancy-dress (n), fancy-
work (n) etc.

It is interesting in this connection to compare the morphemes tele – in television and

telecast. They are homonymous but not identical. Tele – in television means “far”, vision
at a distance, such as in telephone, telescope, telecommunication.

Tele – in telecast doesn’t mean “far”. It is a new development – the shortened variant
of television rendering a special new notion. Let’s try to follow the transformation:
television – vision at a distance; telecast – a broad cast at a distance – tele (broad) cast - a
television broadcast. In this new capacity tele – enters many combinations: telefilm,
teleprompter, telestar, televiewer, etc.- something connected with television.

The correlation between a clipped word and its prototype is of great interest. Two
possible developments should be noted:

1) the clipped form may be regarded as a variant or a synonym differing from the full
form quantitatively, stylistically and emotionally, the prototype being stylistically and
emotionally neutral: doc-doctor, exam –examination, etc.

The missing part is possible to be supplied, and the connection between the
prototype and shortening is not lost.

72
 2) When the connection can be established only etymologically. The meaning may
have changed so much that the clipping becomes a separate word.

E.g. chap – chapman (a pedlar); fan – fanatic (for a football fan is not good fanatic);
fancy – fantasy, etc.

Typical characteristics of curtailed words:

1) they can render only one of the secondary meanings of a polysemantic word:

E.g. double – “to multiply by two” when used by musicians – “to add the same note
in a higher or lower octave”; in military context – “to move in double time”, but dub has
only one meaning.

2) they may be homonymous:

E.g. Gym for gymnastics and for gymnasium;

Tele for television and for telecast.

3) when shortening takes place, it produces new words in the same part of speech.
The bulk of curtailed words is constituted by nouns. Verbs are hardly ever shortened in
present-day English. Rev – from revolve and tab – from tabulate may be considered
exceptions (if we have verbs to phone, to vac, to vet – are not shortenings though may be
considered as such).

Shortening adjectives are very few and mostly reveal a combined effect of shortening
and suffixation.

Mizzi – miserable, comfy – comfortable, dilly – delightful, which occur in schoolgirl

slang.

Various classifications of shortened words have been or may be offered. The

generally accepted one is that based on the position of the clipped part. According to
whether it is the final, initial or middle part of the word that is cut off we distinguish: 1)
final clipping; 2) initial clipping (aphesis); 3)medial clipping (syncope).

1.ad, advert; coke – coca-cola; ed –editor.

2.Cute – acute; mend – amend; story – history.

3.Maths – mathematics, specs – spectacles, fancy – fantasy.

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

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

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

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

Sound imitation

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds.

There are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation

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

sneeze, to whistle etc.

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

moo, to twitter etc.

c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as : to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to

bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc.

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

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

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

Back formation

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final

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

As we can notice in cases of back formation the part-of-speech meaning of the

primary word is changed, verbs are formed from nouns.

Conversion

In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation, is a kind of word formation

involving the creation of a word (of a new word class) from an existing word (of a
different word class) without any change in form, which is to say, derivation using only

75
zero. For example, the noun green in golf (referring to a putting-green) is derived
ultimately from the adjective green.

Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and
unnotable in English; much more remarked upon is the creation of a verb by converting a
noun or other word (e.g., the adjective clean becomes the verb to clean).

n English, verbification typically involves simple conversion of a non-verb to a verb.

The verbs to verbify and to verb, the first by derivation with an affix and the second by
zero derivation, are themselves products of verbification (see autological word), and, as
might be guessed, the term to verb is often used more specifically, to refer only to
verbification that does not involve a change in form. (Verbing in this specific sense is
therefore a kind of anthimeria.)

Examples of verbification in the English language number in the thousands,

including some of the most common words such as mail and e-mail, strike, talk, salt,
pepper, switch, bed, sleep, ship, train, stop, drink, cup, lure, mutter, dress, dizzy, divorce,
fool, merge, to be found on virtually every page in the dictionary. Thus, verbification is
by no means confined to slang and has furnished English with countless new expressions:
"access", as in "access the file", which was previously only a noun, as in "gain access to the
file". Similar mainstream examples include "host", as in "host a party", and "chair", as in
"chair the meeting". Other formations, such as "gift", are less widespread but nevertheless
mainstream.

Verbification may have a bad reputation with some English users because it is such a
potent source of neologisms. Although some neologistic products of verbification may
meet considerable opposition from prescriptivist authorities (the verb sense of impact is a
well-known example), most such derivations have become so central to the language after
several centuries of use that they no longer draw notice.

In many cases, the verbs were distinct from their noun counterparts in Old English,
and regular sound change has made them the same form: these can be reanalysed as
conversion. "Don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk" is an example of a sentence
using those forms.

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 Types of collocations

In corpus linguistics, a collocation is a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more

often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, collocation is a sub-type of
phraseme. An example of a phraseological collocation, as propounded by Michael
Halliday,[1] is the expression strong tea. While the same meaning could be conveyed by
the roughly equivalent powerful tea, this expression is considered excessive and awkward
by English speakers. Conversely, the corresponding expression in technology, powerful
computer is preferred over strong computer. Phraseological collocations should not be
confused with idioms, where an idiom's meaning is derived from its convention as a
stand-in for something else while collocation is a mere popular composition.

There are about six main types of collocations: adjective+noun, noun+noun (such as
collective nouns), verb+noun, adverb+adjective, verbs+prepositional phrase (phrasal
verbs), and verb+adverb.

Collocation extraction is a computational technique that finds collocations in a

document or corpus, using various computational linguistics elements resembling data
mining.

Collocations are partly or fully fixed expressions that become established through
repeated context-dependent use. Such terms as 'crystal clear', 'middle management',
'nuclear family', and 'cosmetic surgery' are examples of collocated pairs of words.

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 Collocations can be in a syntactic relation (such as verb–object: 'make' and
'decision'), lexical relation (such as antonymy), or they can be in no linguistically defined
relation. Knowledge of collocations is vital for the competent use of a language: a
grammatically correct sentence will stand out as awkward if collocational preferences are
violated. This makes collocation an interesting area for language teaching. Recently, a
mobile version of Collocation Dictionary was published on Google Play.

Corpus linguists specify a key word in context (KWIC) and identify the words
immediately surrounding them. This gives an idea of the way words are used.

The processing of collocations involves a number of parameters, the most important

of which is the measure of association, which evaluates whether the co-occurrence is
purely by chance or statistically significant. Due to the non-random nature of language,
most collocations are classed as significant, and the association scores are simply used to
rank the results. Commonly used measures of association include mutual information, t
scores, and log-likelihood.

Rather than select a single definition, Gledhill[5] proposes that collocation involves
at least three different perspectives: (i) co-occurrence, a statistical view, which sees
collocation as the recurrent appearance in a text of a node and its collocates,(ii)
construction, which sees collocation either as a correlation between a lexeme and a
lexical-grammatical pattern, or as a relation between a base and its collocative
partnersand (iii) expression, a pragmatic view of collocation as a conventional unit of
expression, regardless of form. It should be pointed out here that these different
perspectives contrast with the usual way of presenting collocation in phraseological
studies. Traditionally speaking, collocation is explained in terms of all three perspectives
at once, in a continuum:

'Free Combination' ↔ 'Bound Collocation' ↔ 'Frozen Idiom'

Collocation Examples

Here are a number of common collocations in English:

make the bed -> I need to make the bed every day.
do the homework -> My son does his homework after dinner.
take a risk -> Some people don't take enough risks in life.
give someone advice -> The teacher gave us some advice on taking tests.

Here are some business collocations. These collocations are used for specific
situations in business.

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 open an account -> Would you like to open an account at our bank?
forgive a debt -> Do you think the bank would forgive a debt?
land a deal -> We landed a deal worth $3 million.
receive a discount -> If you buy three computers you'll receive a discount.

Verb Collocations

Some of the most common collocations involve verb + noun collocations used in
everyday situations.

Here are some examples of the types of verb collocations you will need to learn as
you continue learning English.:

to feel free
to come prepared
to save time
to find a replacement
to make progress
to do the washing up

Please feel free to take a seat and enjoy the show.

Make sure to come prepared for the test tomorrow.
You'll save time if you turn off your smart phone and concentrate on the lesson.
We need to find a replacement for Jim as soon as possible.
We're making progress on the project at work.
I'll do the washing up and you can put Johnny to bed.

Business Collocations

Collocations are often used in business and work settings. There are a number of
forms including adjectives, nouns and other verbs that combine with keywords to form
business expressions. Here are some of the collocation examples you will find on these
pages:

to key in a PIN
to deposit a check
hard-earned money
to close a deal
write up a contract
counterfeit money

Just key in your PIN at the ATM and you can make a deposit.
I'd like to deposit this check for $100.
Once you get a job, you'll know what hard-earned money really is.
I closed a deal on a new account last week.

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Let's write up your contract.
Be on the lookout for counterfeit money in circulation.

Here are two pages that provide a wide range of collocations include examples.

 Collocations with Money

 Collocations with Equipment

Common Expressions

Collocations are often used as short expressions to describe how someone feels about
a situation. In this case, collocations can be used in the adjective form, or also as emphatic
expressions using an intensifier and a verb. Here are a few examples using some of
common business collocations:

positively encourage someone to do something

deeply regret the loss of someone / something
to be in an utter fury over something
to go to great lengths to do something

We'd like to positively encourage you to buy this stock.

I deeply regret the loss of your loved one.
Tom's in an utter fury over the misunderstanding with his wife.
He went to a great length to explain the situation.

Semantic relationships in conversion

The change in syntactic function and paradigm, i.e. in distribution, that the stem
undergoes in conversion is obvious from the examples. As to the semantic changes, they
are at first sight somewhat chaotic. Many authors have pointed out that dust v means lto
remove dust from smth* and also the opposite, i.e. 'to powder', 'to cover with smth' (e. g.
to dust a cake with sugar); stone v means 'to throw stones at1, 'to put to death by
throwing stones at1 and also 'to remove the stones' (from fruit).

A closer investigation will show, however, some signs of patterned relationships,

especially if one observes semantically related groups. The lexical meaning of the verb
points out the instrument, the agent, the place, the cause, the result and the time of
action. The examples below serve only to illustrate this, the classification
beingfarfromexhaustive.lt should be also borne in mind that the verbs are mostly
polysemantic and have other meanings in addition to those indicated. Like other verbs
creating a vivid image they often receive a permanent metaphorical meaning.

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 Verbs based on nouns denoting some part of the human body will show a regularity
of instrumental meaning, even though the polyse-mantic ones among them will render
other meanings as well, e. g. eye 'to watch carefully' (with eyes); finger 'to touch with the
fingers1; hand lto give or help with the hand": elbow *to push or force one's way with the
elbows'; toe 'to touch, reach or kick with the toes'. The verb head conforms to this
pattern too as alongside its most frequent meaning 'to be at the head of, and many
others,it possesses the meaning 'to strike with one's head' (as in football).

The same type of instrumental relations will be noted in stems de-noting various
tools, machines and weapons: to hammer, to knife, to ma-chine-gun, to pivot, to pump, to
rivet, to sandpaper, to saw, to spur,to flash-light, to wheel, to free-wheel (said about a car
going with the engine switched off), or more often 'to travel on a bicycle without
pedalling (usually downhill)', etc.

Sometimes the noun names the agent of the action expressed in the verb, the action
being characteristic of what is named by the noun: crowd 'to come together in large
numbers'; flock 'to gather in flocks'; herd 'to gather into a herd'; swarm 'to occur or come
in swarms'. The group of verbs based on the names of animals may be called
metaphorical, as their meaning implies comparison. They are also agential, in so far as the
verb denotes the behaviour considered characteristic of this or that animal (as an agent),
e. g. ape 'to imitate in a foolish way as an ape does'; dog 'to follow close behind as a dog
does*; monkey 'to mimick, mock or play mischievous tricks like those of a monkey'; wolf
(down) 'to eat quickly and greedily like a wolf. A smaller subgroup might be classified
under the heading of resultative relations with the formulas: 'to hunt some animal' and
4to give birth to some animal', e. g. to fox, to rabbit, to rat, to foal.

With nouns denoting places, buildings, containers and the like the meaning of the
converted verb will be locative: bag 'to put in a bag'; bottle 'to store in bottles'; can 'to put
into cans'; corner 'to set in a cor-ner'; floor 'to bring to the floor*; garage 'to put (a car) in
a garage'; pocket 'to put into one's pocket'.

Verbs with adjective stems, such as blind, calm, clean, empty, idle% lame, loose, tidy,
total show fairly regular semantic relationships with the corresponding adjectives. Like
verbs with adjective stems that had been formerly suffixed and lost their endings (e. g. to
thin<OE thyn-nian) they denote change of state. If they are used intransitively, they
mean 'to become blind, calm, clean, empty, etc.', their formula as tran-sitive verbs is: 'to
make blind, calm, clean, etc.'.

Deverbal nouns formed by conversion follow the regular semantic correlations

observed in nouns formed with verbal stems by means of derivation. They fall, among

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others, under the categories of process, result, place or agent. Thus, for instance, go, hiss,
hunt, knock name the process, the act or a specific instance of what the verbal stem
ex-presses. The result or the object of the verbal action is denoted in such nouns as burn,
catch, cut, find, lift, offer, tear, e. g.: ... he stood up and said he must go. There were
protests, offers of a lift back into town and invitations (McCrone).1 Tory cuts were
announced ("Morning Star").

The place where the action occurs is named by the nouns drive, forge, stand, walk,
and some others.

H. Marchand2 points out a very interesting detail, namely, that the deverbal personal
nouns formed by means of conversion and denoting the doer are mostly derogatory. This
statement may be illustrated by the following examples: bore, cheat, flirt, scold 'a scolding
woman*, tease 'a person who teases'. E. g.: But as soon as he (Wagner) puts his Wotans
and Siegfrieds and Parcivals on the stage, so many heavy men, who stand in one place for
an hour heavily wrestling with a narrative that nobody can understand, he is the very
emperor of the bores (Priest-ley).

This is significant as it shows that the language has in store some pat-terned
morphological ways to convey emotional meaning; these ways can form a parallel to the
suffixes denoting deprecation, such as -ard, -ling, -ster.1

The list of sense groups mentioned above is by no means exhaustive, there are many
more that are difficult to systematize or are less numer-ous, such as, for instance,
instrumental relations.

Nouns may be formed by conversion from any other part of speech as well, for
instance from adverbs: ... the bounding vitality which had carried her through what had
been a life of quite sharp ups and downs (Mc-Crone).

Alongside these regular formations many occasional ones are coined every day as
nonce-words. Sometimes, though not necessarily, they display emotional colouring, give
a jocular ring to the utterance or sound as colloquialisms. E. g.: "Now then, Eeyore/' he
said. "Don't bus-tle me," said Eeyore, getting up slowly. "Don't now-then me.'* (Milne)
This rough approximation to a patterned system should not be over-emphasized. As a
matter of fact, words formed by conversion readily adapt themselves to various semantic
development and readily acquire figurative meanings; on the other hand, there are many
cases of repeat-ed formations from the same polysemantic source, each new formation
being based on a different meaning. Interesting examples of these were investigated by
S.M. Kostenko.

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 The polysemantic noun bank was used as a basis for conversion sev-eral times. Bank
4to contain as a bank', 'to enclose with a bank' (1590) is derived from the meaning 'the
margin of a river, lake, etc.'; bank (earth or snow) lto pile up1 (1833) is derived from the
meaning 'a mound'; bank (a car) 'to tilt in turning1, 'to travel with one side higher' is
coined metonymically, because in motor car racing the cars performed the turn on the
raised bank at the end of the racing ground. Later on the word was borrowed into
aviation terminology where it is used about air-craft both transitively and intransitively
with the same meaning 'to tilt in turning'.

All the above listed meanings of bank n and bank v exist in the Eng-lish vocabulary
today, which brings us to a conclusion of great impor-tance. It shows that a polysemantic
verb (or noun) formed by conver-sion is not structured semantically as a separate unit and
does not con-stitute a system of meanings, because its separate meanings are not
con-ditioned by each other but by respective meanings of the prototype. If we take the
semantic aspect as the level of contents, and the phonetic aspect of the word as the level
of expression, we shall see one semantic structure corresponding to the phonetic complex
Ibaerjkl and not two semantic structures, one corresponding to the noun and the other to
the verb, like the two morphological paradigms.

It goes without saying that very much yet remains to be done in elu-cidating these
complex relationships.

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 Unit 6

Semantic structure of words

In everyday language the words “meaning” and “sense” are used interchangeably. In
linguistics, however, these two words are differentiated. The sense of a word is its
cognitive meaning as determined by its place within the semantic system of the language.
Thus, the word “comedy” means a funny play (film, story) in contrast with “tragedy” that
is a serious play dealing with the bad, violent, or harmful side of human nature, while
“opera” refers to a play in which all the words are sung, and “musical” means a play in
which singing is combined with dancing and speaking of the actors to tell, as a rule, a
romantic story. According to Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners the
meaning of a word is defined as the thing, action, feeling, idea that a word represents and
according to J.R. Firth, it almost always depends on the perceived situation.

The two main types of meaning are the grammatical and lexical meanings of a word.
The gram-matical meaning of a word deals with the expression in speech of relationship
between words. The lexical meaning of the word is the realization of the notion by means
of a definite language system.

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 Such word-forms such as “tables, chairs, bushes” though denoting widely different
objects of reality have something in common. This common element is the grammatical
meaning of plurality. Thus, grammatical meaning may be defined as the component of
meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words. e.g.: the tense
meaning in the word-forms of verbs (asked, spoke) or the case meaning in the word-
forms of various nouns (the girl’s, the night’s). In modern linguistics it is commonly held
that some elements of grammatical meaning can be identified by their distribution. The
word-forms “asks, speaks” have the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in
identical distribution (e.g. only after the pronouns he, she but before such adverbs and
phrases as yesterday, last month, etc.). It follows that a certain component of the meaning
of a word is described when you identify it as a part of speech, since different parts of
speech are distributionally different. The part-of-speech meaning of the words that
possesses but one form, as prepositions, is observed only in their distribution (cf: to come
in (here) and in (on, under) the table).

Unlike the grammatical meaning this component of meaning is identical in all the
forms of the word. e.g.: the words “write – writes – wrote – written” possess different
grammatical meanings of tense, person but in each of these forms we find the same
semantic component denoting the process of putting words on the paper. This is the
lexical meaning of the word which may be described as a linguistic unit recurrent in all
the forms of the word and in all possible distributions of these forms.

The lexical meaning of the word can be of two types: denotational and connotational.

One of the functions of the words is to denote things, concepts, etc. Users of a
language cannot have any knowledge or thought of the objects or phenomena of the real
world around them unless this knowledge is ultimately embodied in words which have
essentially the same meaning for all speakers of that language. This is the denotational
meaning, i.e. the component of the lexical meaning which makes communication
possible. The denotative meaning is the notional content of a word. A word’s denotation
is its relationship to a substance (or its certain characteristics) of the outer world. The
denotative meaning of the word “cat” is a small domestic animal with soft fur kept as a pet
or for catching mice.

The connotational meaning of a word is the component which has some stylistic
value of the word, its emotive charge is connected the emotive association that a word
evokes. It is the expressive part of meaning, though it is not necessarily present in the
word.

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 Many connotations associated with names of animals, birds, insects are universally
understood and used.e.g.: calf (теля) – a young inexperienced person; donkey (осел)– a
foolish person; monkey (мавпа) – a mischievous child; serpent (змія)– a treacherous,
malicious person.

But different peoples structure the world differently. E.g.: the word “bug” has such
figurative meanings in the English language as a crazy, foolish person and an enthusiast,
the word “shark” means a swindler. In the Ukrainian language the words “жук” and
“акула” do not have such meanings.

Sometimes words in different languages can have different meanings.

e.g.: the word “gull” means a fool, a swindler, in the Ukrainian language the word
“чайка” can be applied to a woman or a girl. The word “hawk” possesses a negative
meaning in the English language (a deceiver), the word “сокіл” is applied to a handsome
and strong young man.

Metals possess well-established connotations, derived from their individual qualities.

The word “gold” is associated with great worth. Iron and steel connote strength, brass –
audacity, lead – sluggishness or weight.

II. Semantics is the study of meaning, which is a complex matter in that it involves
the relationship between words, ideas and things as well as the relationship between
words of similar meaning. A distinction is often made in this respect between reference,
or the relations between language and the world, and sense, or the relationship between
words of similar meaning. Semantics also examines how sets of words are used to classify
our experi­ence. Geoffrey Hughes notes that in English “black” and “blue” designate
differ-ent colours, whereas in Old Norse the term bla served for both; in Russian,
however, there are two distinct terms for “blue” – голубой for light blue and синий for
dark blue, like azure and violet. The prism of colour terms tends to open up with time
and cultural contacts: historically black, white, red, yel-low, and green are Anglo-Saxon
in origin, but blue, brown, orange, azure mid violet entered the vocabulary from Norman
French.

The semantic structure of a word is complicated and may include, among others, the
following oppositions of its meanings:

· direct meaning :: figurative meaning. The meaning is direct when the word
names the thing without the help of context and can be viewed as a certain label
for the thing (a “word thing” connection). The mean-ing is figurative when the
thing named gets some additional charac-teristics through comparison or

86
 confrontation with another thing to make a description more impressive or
interesting. For instance, in the sentence My mother died of stomach cancer the
verb died is used in its direct meaning of “to stop being alive”, whereas in the
sentence I laughed until I died it is used figuratively, meaning that the person
laughed a lot.
· main meaning:: secondary meaning. The distinction between the two
meanings lies in the frequency rate of a certain meaning of the word. The most
frequently used meaning is labeled “main”, whereas the others are thought to be
“secondary”. Compare the uses of the adjec­tive “high” in the sentences that
follow: (1) These mountains are too high to climb and (2) These socks are a bit
high. In sentence (1) the adjective high is used in its main meaning – “large in size
from the top to the ground”, whereas in sentence (2) it is used in one of its
secondary meanings – “to have an unpleasant smell”.

From the diachronic perspective it is possible to point out the dated (or old-
fashioned) and present-day uses of the word. Thus, for instance, the noun “cobbler” in its
old-fashioned meaning denotes someone whose job is to repair shoes, whereas at present
it is used to refer to a type of food consisting of vegetables or fruit covered with a soft
thick layer of pastry.

Stylistic differentiation of the vocabulary makes it possible to speak of stylistically

neutral and stylistically coloured uses of the word. The latter include, among others,
formal and informal uses, spoken (colloquial), offen-sive and impolite uses, etc. Thus, the
verb “to steal something” is more common in speech than in writing and is not used in
formal situations, hence its label informal. The verb “elucidate” which has the meaning
“to clarify, to make something easier to understand by giving more information” is
labeled as formal since it is not characteristic of ordinary conversation or everyday
writing.

Stylistically coloured words are classified into bookish and colloquial, bookish styles
in their turn may be general, poetical, scientific or learned, while colloquial styles are
subdivided into literary colloquial, familiar colloquial and slang.

III. Language is never static. Nor is society, for any changes of the latter can’t but be
reflected in language, precisely in its word-stock. Words may acquire new meanings that
usually coexist with the old.

Among causes of semantic change we should list historic changes in the society.
Thus, in the feudal system “a knight” was a military servant of his lord; nowadays the

87
word has a new significance: the title “knight” is con­ferred on a man by the British
monarch in recognition of personal merit or services to the state.

Technological changes may affect meanings. A vivid example is the word

“manufacture”. The etymology of the word (borrowed from Latin) specifies that the work
was done by hand, and that was the first use of the word in English, but when it became
usual for the production of goods and materials to be performed by machines, the
common use of “manufacture” and its derivatives excluded work by hand.

Scientific developments can also be causes of semantic change. Thus, “germ” was
used vaguely for something that causes a disease; it now more specifically refers to a
micro-organism.

Changes of meaning can occur in two directions: 1) narrowing of meaning, and 2)

widening of meaning.

Narrowing of meaning, or special-ization, is the process of meaning change in which

a word in the course of time begins to have fewer referents than it used to have. For
instance, in Old English the noun “hund” meant a dog, but nowadays “hound” stands for a
dog used for hunting other animals or for racing. The verb “starve” originally meant to die
by any means, now it has restricted its meaning to die because of a lack of food.

Widening of meaning,or generalization, is the opposite process: a word extends its

use and begins to include a wider scope of the new notion.

“Season” once had the meaning spring, time for sowing. Now it embraces all parts of
the year. “Salary” once had the meaning the money to buy salt for. Now it means money
to buy anything. “Town” once meant fence.

There are two more types of extension of the semantic volume of a word:
metaphorical and metonymical. The former is more common and is based on the
similarity of the objects compared, e.g. hand (of a clock), face (the front of a clock). A
metonymic extension occurs when a word acquires a new meaning on the basis of
contiguity between certain things, e.g hand stands for someone who does physical work
(It was a large farm, with over 20 hired hands, and face may be used instead of person: a
new face, a familiar face.

A shift in social evaluation and emotional tone may also bring about the change of
meaning of a word. The process of moving to a less favour-able connotation with the
corresponding derogatory emotive tone is called pejoration of meaning. As an example,
let’s take the adjective “crafty”. In Old English the word had the favourable sense of
skillful, but in Modem English it is used to describe a dishonest action or behaviour of a

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person. The reverse process is called amelioration (or elevation) of meaning, which
consists in moving to a more favourable connotation. Thus, the adjective “wicked”,
meaning morally wrong and deliberately intending to hurt, in Modern English is also
used (by young people) in the sense “very good”.

Semantic relationships between words are various. Words can be arranged into
groups headed by a general term. For instance, the nouns day-light, moonlight, sunlight,
glare, glow refer to a type of light, so the noun light is regarded to be a more general
term, called in linguistics hypernym.The words semantically “subordinated” to the
hypernym are called hyponyms. Thus, the nouns in the above mentioned chain are
hyponyms of light. In the chain of words to drink, to sip, to gulp down the first verb is
hypernym whereas the others are hyponyms of it. The nouns ballet, disco, foxtrot,
lambada, tango, twist, and waltz are all hyponyms of a more general dance.

However, we should not confuse hypernymic-hyponymic relations between words

with those of the part-of-the-whole type. The latter can be illustrated with the following
example: root, trunk, bough, branch, twig, bark, leaf are words denoting certain parts of
the whole – a tree, but these words cannot be considered hyponyms of the noun tree.
Taken together, they con­stitute a unity, a complete thing. That’s why we say that these
words are in the part-of-the-whole relation to the head word.

Words can also be arranged into oppositions. A word which means the opposite of
another word is called antonym. For instance, the antonyms of light are dark and heavy
depending on the meaning of the adjective light. We also may say that light and dark, on
the one hand, and light and heavy, on the other, make up antonymous pairs of words.
Antonymous can be not only adjectives (e.g. huge - tiny; hot - cold; tall - short; shadowy -
sunlit; dry - wet; smooth - rough), but words of other parts of speech, e.g. nouns: friend-
enemy; birth - death; verbs: differentiate - associate; love - hate; stop -start; prepositions:
up - down; into - out of; behind- in front (of); pronouns (quantifiers): many - few; much -
little; etc.

The opposite meaning in words can be obtained by adding a negative affix to it.
There are a number of negative prefixes in Modem English, among them: a- (‘without’):
amoral, apolitical', anti- (‘against’): anti-ageing, anti-freeze, anti-cyclone-, de- (‘opposite’):
decaffeinated, decipher, deform; il- (‘not’, used before 1): illegal, illogical, illiteracy; im-
(‘not’, before b, m, p): imbalance, immature, imperfect', in- (‘not’): incapable,
incompetence, incorrect', ir- (‘not’, before r): irrational, irrelevance', mis- (‘wrongly’):
misconduct, misunderstand, mislead', non- (‘not’, used with adjectives and nouns): non-
fiction, nonsense, non-alcoholic, un- (‘not’): unaided, unaccus­tomed, unaffected. The
suffixes of opposite meaning are -ful and -less, as in careful - careless; useful - useless.

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 On the contrary, words associated in meaning, i.e. having almost the same meaning,
are called synonyms. For instance, frightened and afraid are synonymous words.
Synonyms are similar but not identical in meaning. Moreover, there are, as a rule, slight
differences in connotation, stylistic us-age, semantic valency and/ or distribution of
synonymous words; hence, the latter are seldom interchangeable. For instance, the
sentences I’m hot and I’m boiling are synonymous in that they denote a certain
(uncomfortable) state of a person, but the latter is more common in spoken English. In
an-other situation they can hardly be considered synonyms: hot water is not the same as
boiling water. The adjectives hungry, starving, ravenous indicate a person’s need to eat
something. They all can fit the predicative position in I’m , however, only hungry is
possible after the adverb very: I’m very hungry (not *I’m very starving or *I’m very
ravenous!). Since most words in English are polysemantic, i.e. have more than one
meaning, they may enter more than one synonymous, as well as antonymous, group.
Take adjective “thin” as an example. In its various meanings, it can be used as a synonym
to many words, among them: attenuated, bony, deficient, delicate, dilute, di-luted,
emaciated, feeble, filmy, fine, flimsy, gaunt, inadequate, insubstantial, insufficient, lanky,
lean, light, meager, narrow, poor, rarefied, runny, scant, scanty, scarce, scattered, see-
through, shallow, sheer, skeletal, skimpy, skin-ny, slender, slight, slim, spare, sparse,
superficial, translucent, transparent, unconvincing, underweight, unsubstantial, washy,
watery, weak.

The list of antonyms of thin includes broad, dense, fat, solid, strong, thick. The
opposite to the adjective in a thin person is fat, but in a thin layer of ice is thick. A thin
explanation does not sound con-vincing, likewise a thin moustache does not look solid, a
thin smile implies insincerity, etc. So, we see that in such cases thin can hardly be
replaced by any word taken at random from the synonymous set given above.

Synonymy in Modem English can be accounted for historically, as a result of mutual

influence and interference between native Germanic (English), on the one hand, and
Scandinavian dialects, French, Latin, etc., on the other.

Nowadays, if the borrowed words co-exist with their native correlates, they,
however, differ stylistically, the native elements being stylistically neutral, the borrowed
elements belonging to the formal speech, e.g. to ask (Anglo- Saxon,) – to question (of
French origin) – to interrogate (Latin).

There are also words having the same outer form, i.e. they are spelt and pronounced
in the same way, but differ in meaning. Such words are called homonyms.For instance,
the noun bank stands for: (a) a financial institution that people or businesses can keep or
borrow money from: the Royal Bank of Scotland; (b) a raised area of land along the side of

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a river: the east bank of the river; (c) a large mass of cloud or fog; (d) a large collection, a
store of something that is available for use when it is needed: a valuable bank of old
documents. Homonyms may belong to the same word class, as

· drill (n) – (1) a tool for making a hole in something (an electric drill); (2) a
way of teaching/ training (grammar drills); (3) a type of strong cotton dress; (4) a
line in the earth in which seeds are planted;
· eye (n) – (1) a body part for seeing; (2) the calm area at the centre of a
storm; (3) the hole at the top of a needle; (4) one of the spots on a potato that new
growth comes from, (5) the part into which a hook fits to fasten clothing;

or may belong to different parts of speech, as

· train (n) – a group of railway vehicles that are connected and pulled by an
engine; and train (v) meaning to teach someone to do a particular job or activity;
· bear (n) – a large wild mammal, and bear (v) –– to carry.

When two words are pronounced in the same way (although their spelling may be
different), they are called homophones.Here are a few examples:

· hole - whole sea - see new - knew

· night - knight one - won hair - hare
· weak - week break - brake right - write

When two words have the same spelling but are pronounced differently, they are
called homographs.To such words belong:

read : [ri:d] - [red] tear: [tia] - [tea]

sow: [ssu] - [sau] lead: [li:d] - [led]

It is not always clear whether the two words are distinct or related. In English words
usually have more than one meaning and they appear in the dictionary within the same
entry. Sometimes these meanings become so dis-tant that certain meanings of the word
get separated and given separate entry/entries in the dictionary. Thus, hand (of a human)
and hand (of a clock) are regarded as polysemes rather than homonyms. Polysemy refers
to the range of meanings denoted by a word. The most frequent words tend to be
polysemantic. Take as an example the verb “get” and in any dictionary you –a great
number of meanings. Polysemy exists only in language. In actual usage, i.e. in speech,
only one meaning of the word is realized. Put differently, the context always unveils
possible ambiguity, foregrounding only one meaning from a range.

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 The branch of Linguistics which studies the meaning of different linguistic units is
called Semantics. The part of Lexicology which studies the meaning and the development
of meaning of words is called Semasiology.

There are different approaches to the problem of word meaning: 1) The referential,
or denotational approach is characterized by the thought that (тем что) the essence (суть)
of meaning lies in the interconnection and interdependence between: the word as the
soundform, the referent, and the concept. Here meaning is the realization of the
concept/notion by means of a definite language system. 2)The functional, or contextual
approach is characterized by the idea that the meaning of a linguistic unit may be studied
only through its relation to other linguistic units. Thus, meaning is understood as the
function of linguistic signs, or their use in context.

Word meaning is represented by different types of meaning: grammatical, lexical,

lexico-grammatical.

Grammatical meaning is the component of word meaning, recurrent in identical sets

of individual forms of different words. It is expressed by:

word-form (such as books, girls, boys – the meaning of plurarity; looked, asked –
tense meaning);

the position of the word in relation to other words (e.g. He sings well, She dances
badly – ‘sings’ and ‘dances’ are found in identical positions between a pronoun and an
adverb, their identical distribution proves that they have identical gr.m.)

Lexico-grammatical meaning of the word is the common denominator to all the

meanings of the words belonging to a certain lexico-grammatical class or group of words.

Lexical meaning is the component of word meaning recurrent in all the forms of the
word. The word forms go, goes, went, gone, going have different gr.m., but they have one
and the same l.m. ‘the process of movement’.

The main component of L.m. are: the denotational meaning of words is the same for
all the speakers. It is the realization of the concept by means of the given language.

The pragmatic aspect of l.m. is the part of meaning, that conveys information on the
situation of communication: information on the ‘time and space’ relationship of the
participants, information on the participants in the given language community,
information on the register of communication.

The connotational meaning conveys the speaker’s attitude toward what he is

speaking about. There are 4 main types of connotations: a) The emotional connotation

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expresses human emotions and feelings (e.g. daddy, father); b) The evaluative connotation
expresses approval or disapproval (e.g. agent and spy, planning and scheming=planning
secretly); c) The intensifying connotation adds emphasis (усиление) to the meaning. (e.g.
enormous, huge, tremendous=very); d) The stylistic connotation determines the
functional speech style characteristic of the word usage (dad-father-parent; colloquial-
neutral-bookish).

Polysemy is the abbility of a word to have more than one m-g. The causes of the
development of polysemy in Eng. are:1) the great amount of monosyllabic root words; 2)
an abundance of words of long duration, which in the course of time were used to express
more new m-gs thus becoming highly polysemantic. Monosemantic words, i.e. words
which have only one m-g form. They are mostly names of birds (blackbird,swallow),
animals (walrus, weasel), fishes (ruff, perch) & special terms (systole, phoneme). The bulk
of Eng. words are polysemantic,i.e. they have several m-gs. The m-g in speech is
contextual. In a definite context any polysemantic word expresses only one m-g. A word
in one of its m-g in which it is used in speech is called a lexico-semantic variant of a
word. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word presents a set of interrelated &
interdependent lexico-semantic variants. WE distinguish on the synchronic level: - the
basic (major) & the minor; - the central & the marginal; -direct & transferred(figurative);
-. Every LSV is connected with the major m-g due to the existence of the common
semantic components/ semes. The seme is the smallest further indivisible unit of m-g, the
smallest unit of the plan of content. The analysis of the m-g into these components, or
semes, is called the componential analysis.

Word meaning. General notion. The branch of linguistics which specializes in the
study of word meaning is called semantics. Meaning can be described as a component of
the word through which a concept is communicated, thus endowing the word with the
ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions and abstract notions.

There are three main approaches to the definition of meaning:

- referential or analytical approach;

- functional or contextual approach;

- operational or information-oriented approach.

The essential characteristic of the Referential Approach is that it distinguishes

between the three components closely connected with meaning: 1) the sound-form of the
linguistic sign; 2) the concept underlying the linguistic sign; 3) the referent, i.e. the object
or fact of objective reality or our experience to which the linguistic sign refers.

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 The referential model of meaning is the so-called ‘basic triangle’ by C.K. Ogden and
I.A. Richards:

The sound-form or symbol is a linguistic element – a lexical item, a word as a

combination of sounds and morphemes, a word-combination, a sentence, an utterance
etc. The referent is an object of our experience, a fact of the outer world which is
encompassed by a given symbol. The concept or the thought of reference is the
permanent bond or association in our mind that mirrors the referent as a generalized
entity, or in other words, provides for our understanding of it. According to this theory,
the relationship between names and things is viewed not as a direct link, but as a link via
concepts of our mind which inevitably involves variation in people’s perceptions and
attitudes.

The diagram implies that meaning is in a way a correlation between the sound-form
of a word, the underlying concept and the concrete object it denotes. There is no direct
connection between the sound-form and the meaning of the word. The connection is
arbitrary and conventional. This can easily be checked if we compare the sound-forms of
different languages which convey one and the same meaning: English [pen] and Russian .
These words have different sound-forms but express the same meaning.

Concepts are categories of human cognition, they are thoughts of objects that single
out their essential features, and thus concepts are the results of abstraction and
generalization. In this respect they are almost the same for the whole of humanity in one
and the same period of its historical development. The meanings of words, however, are
different in different languages, cf. English – ‘a building for human habituation’ – house,
‘fixed residence of family or household’ – home; Russian – both concepts have the same
sound-form, or word – дом. So concepts expressed by one and the same word in one
language can be expressed by several words in another.

Meaning must be distinguished from referent, as meaning belongs to linguistic

categories while the denoted object or referent is beyond the scope of language. One and
the same object may be denoted by more than one word of a different meaning, e.g. the
same boy can be denoted by such words as ‘son, brother, Peter, friend, human being etc’.

The conclusion is that meaning cannot be identified with any of the three points of
the basic triangle – the sound form, the concept and the referent, but is closely connected
with them.

The referential definitions of meaning are usually criticized on the ground that: 1)
they cannot be applied to sentences; 2) they cannot account for certain semantic additions
emerging in the process of communication; 3) they fail to account for the fact that one

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word may denote different objects and phenomena (polysemy) while one and the same
object may be denoted by different words (synonymy).

Functional, or Contextual Approach to Meaning. The functional approach to

meaning maintains that the meaning of a linguistic unit can be studied only through its
relation to other linguistic units. According to it the meanings of the words ‘to entertain’
and ‘entertainment’ are different because they function in speech differently, i.e. occupy
different positions in relation to other words. ‘To entertain’ can be followed by a noun (to
entertain children) and preceded by a noun or a pronoun (we entertained).
‘Entertainment’ may be followed by a preposition (entertainment for the children) and
the particle ‘to’ + infinitive (it was pure entertainment to watch them dance), it may be
preceded by a verb (to provide entertainment). The position of a word to other words is
called distribution of the word. As the distribution of the words ‘to entertain’ and
‘entertainment’ is different they belong to different classes of words and their meanings
are different.

The same is true of different meanings of one and the same word. Analyzing the
function of a word in linguistic contexts and comparing these contexts, we conclude that
meanings are different, e.g. examining the linguistic contexts of the verb ‘to take’, we can
see the difference of its meanings – ‘to take a seat’ (to sit down) and ‘to take to somebody’
(to begin to like someone). The term ‘context’ is defined as the minimum stretch of
speech necessary and sufficient to determine which of the possible meanings of a
polysemantic word is used.

The functional approach is sometimes described as contextual as it is based on the

analysis of different contexts, semantic investigation here is confined to the analysis of
the difference or sameness of meaning, as meaning is understood as the function of a
linguistic unit.

Operational or Information-Oriented Approach to Meaning is centered on defining

meaning through its role in the process of communication. It studies words in action and
is interested in how meaning works and not in what meaning is. Within the framework
of this approach meaning is described as information conveyed from the speaker to the
listener in the process of communication. This definition is applicable to both words and
sentences, so it overcomes one of the alleged drawbacks of the referential approach,
though it also fails to draw a clear distinguishing line between the direct meaning and
implication (additional information). For example, the sentence ‘John came at 6 o’clock’
besides the direct meaning may imply that John ‘was 2 hours late’; failed to keep his
promise’; ‘came though he didn’t want to’; ‘was punctual as usual’ etc. In each case the
implication will depend on the concrete situation of communication and discussing

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meaning as information conveyed would amount to the discussion of an infinite set of
possible communication situations.

Types of Word Meaning. Word-meaning is not homogeneous; it is made up оf

various components which are described as types of meaning.

Three major types of word-meaning are distinguished: grammatical, lexical and part-
of-speech meaning.

The grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationship

between words. It is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual
forms of different words, e.g. the tense meaning in the word-forms of the verbs ‘asked,
wrote, went’; the case-meaning in the word-forms of nouns ‘boy’s, girls’, yesterday’s ‘; or
the meaning of plurality in the word-forms of nouns ‘joys, parrots, days’.

The lexical meaning is the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms
and distributions. The word-forms ‘go, went, goes, going, gone’ possess different
grammatical meanings of tense, person, number, but in each form they have one and the
same semantic meaning denoting the process of movement.

Both lexical and grammatical meanings make up the word-meaning as neither can
exist without the other.

The essence of the part-of-speech meaning of a word is revealed in the classification

of lexical units into major word-classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) and minor
word-classes (articles, prepositions, conjunctions etc).

All members of a major word-class share a distinguishing semantic component,

which may be viewed as the lexical component of part-of-speech meaning. For example,
the meaning of thingness or substantiality may be found in all the nouns – ‘doll,
admiration, salt’ – though they can possess different grammatical meaning of number and
case.

The grammatical aspect of part-of-speech meaning is conveyed as a rule by a set of

forms. Speaking of nouns we understand that they are bound to possess a set of forms to
express the grammatical meaning of number (girl - girls) and case (girl – girl’s).

The part-of-speech meaning of the words that possess only one form, i.e.
prepositions, some adverbs, etc. is observed only in their distribution, e.g. ‘to come in
(here, there); in (on, under) the table’.

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 Unit 7

Semantic structure of words

Semasiology

The branch of the study of language concerned with the meaning of words and word
equivalents is called semasiology. The name comes from the Greek word semasia meaning
signification. As semasiology deals not with every kind of meaning but with the lexical
meaning only, it may be regarded as a branch of Lexicology.

This does not mean that a semasiologist need not pay attention to the grammatical
meaning. On the contrary, the grammatical meaning must be taken into consideration in
so far as it bears a specific influence upon the lexical meaning.

If treated diachronically, semasiology studies the change in meaning which words

undergo. Descriptive synchronic approach demands a study not of individual words but
of semantic structures typical of the language studied and of its general semantic system.

Sometimes the words semasiology and semantics are used indiscriminately. They are
really synonyms but the word semasiology has one meaning, the word semantics has
several meanings.

Academic or pure semantics is a branch of mathematical logic originated by Carnap.

Its aim is to build an abstract theory of relationships between signs and their referents. It
is a part of semiotics – the study of signs and languages in general, including all sorts of
codes (traffic signals, military signals). Unlike linguistic semantics which deals with real
languages, pure semantics has as its subject formalised language.

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 Semasiology is one of the youngest branches of linguistics, although the objects of its
study have attracted the attention of philosophers and grammarians since the times of
antiquity. A thousand years before our era Chinese scholars were interested in semantic
change. We find the problems of word and notion relationship discussed in the works of
Plato and Aristotle and the famous grammarian Panini.

For a very long period of time the study of meaning formed part of philosophy, logic,
psychology, literary criticism and history of the language.

Semasiology came into its own in the 1830’s when a German scholar Karl Reisig,
lecturing in classical philology, suggested that the studies of meaning should be regarded
as an independent branch of knowledge. Reisig’s lectures were published by his pupil F.
Heerdegen in 1839 some years after Reisig’s death. At that time, however, they produced
but little stir. It was Michel Breal, a Frenchman, who played a decisive part in the
creation and development of the new science. His book “Essai de semantique” (Paris,
1897) became widely known and was followed by a considerable number of
investigations and monographs on meaning not only in France, but in other countries as
well.

The treatment of meaning throughout the 19th century and in the first decade of the
20th was purely diachronistic. Attention was concentrated upon the process of semantic
change and the part semantic principles should play in etymology. Semasiology was even
defined at that time as a science dealing with the changes in word meaning, their causes
and classification. The approach was “atomistic”, i.e. semantic changes were traced and
described for isolated words without taking into account the interrelation of structures
existing within each language. Consequently, it was impossible for this approach to
formulate any general tendencies peculiar to the English language.

As to the English vocabulary, the accent in its semantic study, primarily laid upon
philosophy, was in the 19th century shifted to lexicography. The Golden age of English
Lexicography began in the middle of the 19th century, when the tremendous work on the
many volumes of the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language on Historical Principles
was carried out. The English scholars R.C. Trench, J. Murray, W. Skeat constantly
reaffirmed the primary importance of the historical principle, and at the same time
elaborated the contextual principle. They were firmly convinced that the complete
meaning of a word is always contextual, and no study of meaning apart from a complete
context can be taken seriously.

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 Since that time indications of semantic change were found by comparing the
contexts of words in older written records and in contemporary usage, and also by
studying different meanings of cognate words in related languages.

In the 20th century the progress of semasiology was uneven. The 1930’s were said to
be the most crucial time in its whole history. After the work of F. de Saussure the
structural orientation came to the forefront of semasiology when Jost Trier, a German
philologist, offered his theory of semantic fields, treating semantic phenomena
historically and within a definite language system at a definite period of its development.

In the list of current ideas stress is being laid upon synchronic analysis in which
present-day linguists make successful efforts to profit by structuralist procedures
combined with mathematical statistics and symbolic logic.

Semantics

Semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions. The language can be a
natural language, such as English or Navajo, or an artificial language, like a computer
programming language. Meaning in natural languages is mainly studied by linguists. In
fact, semantics is one of the main branches of contemporary linguistics. Theoretical
computer scientists and logicians think about artificial languages. In some areas of
computer science, these divisions are crossed. In machine translation, for instance,
computer scientists may want to relate natural language texts to abstract representations
of their meanings; to do this, they have to design artificial languages for representing
meanings.

There are strong connections to philosophy. Earlier in this century, much work in
semantics was done by philosophers, and some important work is still done by
philosophers.

Anyone who speaks a language has a truly amazing capacity to reason about the
meanings of texts. Take, for instance, the sentence

(S) I can't untie that knot with one hand.

Even though you have probably never seen this sentence, you can easily see things
like the following:

The sentence is about the abilities of whoever spoke or wrote it. (Call this person the
speaker.)

It's also about a knot, maybe one that the speaker is pointing at.

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 The sentence denies that the speaker has a certain ability. (This is the contribution of
the word ‘can't’.)

Untying is a way of making something not tied.

The sentence doesn't mean that the knot has one hand; it has to do with how many
hands are used to do the untying.

The meaning of a sentence is not just an unordered heap of the meanings of its words.
If that were true, then ‘Cowboys ride horses’ and ‘Horses ride cowboys’ would mean the
same thing. So we need to think about arrangements of meanings.

Here is an arrangement that seems to bring out the relationships of the meanings in
sentence (S).

Not [ I [ Able [ [ [Make [Not [Tied]]] [That knot ] ] [With One Hand] ] ] ]

The unit [Make [Not [Tied]] here corresponds to the act of untying; it contains a
subunit corresponding to the state of being untied. Larger units correspond to the act of
untying-that-knot and to the act to-untie-that-knot-with-one-hand. Then this act
combines with Able to make a larger unit, corresponding to the state of being-able-to-
untie-that-knot-with-one-hand. This unit combines with I to make the thought that I
have this state -- that is, the thought that I-am-able-to-untie-that-knot-with-one-hand.
Finally, this combines with Not and we get the denial of that thought.

This idea that meaningful units combine systematically to form larger meaningful
units, and understanding sentences is a way of working out these combinations, has
probably been the most important theme in contemporary semantics.

Linguists who study semantics look for general rules that bring out the relationship
between form, which is the observed arrangement of words in sentences, and meaning.
This is interesting and challenging, because these relationships are so complex.

A semantic rule for English might say that a simple sentence involving the word
‘can't’ always corresponds to a meaning arrangement like

Not [ Able ... ],

but never to one like

Able [ Not ... ].

For instance, ‘I can't dance’ means that I'm unable to dance; it doesn't mean that I'm
able not to dance.

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 To assign meanings to the sentences of a language, you need to know what they are. It
is the job of another area of linguistics, called syntax, to answer this question, by
providing rules that show how sentences and other expressions are built up out of smaller
parts, and eventually out of words. The meaning of a sentence depends not only on the
words it contains, but on its syntactic makeup: the sentence

(S) That can hurt you,

for instance, is ambiguous -- it has two distinct meanings. These correspond to two
distinct syntactic structures. In one structure ‘That’ is the subject and ‘can’ is an auxiliary
verb (meaning “able”), and in the other ‘That can’ is the subject and ‘can’ is a noun
(indicating a sort of container).

Because the meaning of a sentence depends so closely on its syntactic structure,

linguists have given a lot of thought to the relations between syntactic structure and
meaning; in fact, evidence about ambiguity is one way of testing ideas about syntactic
structure.

You would expect an expert in semantics to know a lot about what meanings are. But
linguists haven't directly answered this question very successfully. This may seem like
bad news for semantics, but it is actually not that uncommon for the basic concepts of a
successful science to remain problematic: a physicist will probably have trouble telling
you what time is. The nature of meaning, and the nature of time, are foundational
questions that are debated by philosophers.

We can simplify the problem a little by saying that, whatever meanings are, we are
interested in literal meaning. Often, much more than the meaning of a sentence is
conveyed when someone uses it. Suppose that Carol says ‘I have to study’ in answer to
‘Can you go to the movies tonight?’. She means that she has to study that night, and that
this is a reason why she can't go to the movies. But the sentence she used literally means
only that she has to study. Nonliteral meanings are studied in pragmatics, an area of
linguistics that deals with discourse and contextual effects.

But what is a literal meaning? There are four sorts of answers: (1) you can dodge the
question, or (2) appeal to usage, or (3) appeal to psychology, or (4) treat meanings as real
objects.

(1) The first idea would involve trying to reconstruct semantics so that it can be done
without actually referring to meanings. It turns out to be hard to do this -- at least, if you
want a theory that does what linguistic semanticists would like a theory to do. But the
idea was popular earlier in the twentieth century, especially in the 1940s and 1950s, and

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has been revived several times since then, because many philosophers would prefer to do
without meanings if at all possible. But these attempts tend to ignore the linguistic
requirements, and for various technical reasons have not been very successful.

(2) When an English speaker says ‘It's raining’ and a French speaker says ‘Il pleut’ you
can say that there is a common pattern of usage here. But no one really knows how to
characterize what the two utterances have in common without somehow invoking a
common meaning. (In this case, the meaning that it's raining.) So this idea doesn't seem to
really explain what meanings are.

(3) Here, you would try to explain meanings as ideas. This is an old idea, and is still
popular; nowadays, it takes the form of developing an artificial language that is supposed
to capture the "inner cognitive representations" of an ideal thinking and speaking agent.
The problem with this approach is that the methods of contemporary psychology don't
provide much help in telling us in general what these inner representations are like. This
idea doesn't seem yet to lead to a methodology that can produce a workable semantic
theory.

(4) If you say that the meaning of ‘Mars’ is a certain planet, at least you have a
meaning relation that you can come to grips with. There is the word ‘Mars’ on the one
hand, and on the other hand there is this big ball of matter circling around the sun. This
clarity is good, but it is hard to see how you could cover all of language this way. It
doesn't help us very much in saying what sentences mean, for instance. And what about
the other meaning of ‘Mars’? Do we have to believe in the Roman god to say that ‘Mars’ is
meaningful? And what about ‘the largest number’?

The approach that most semanticists endorse is a combination of (1) and (4). Using
techniques similar to those used by mathematicians, you can build up a complex universe
of abstract objects that can serve as meanings (or denotations) of various sorts of linguistic
expressions. Since sentences can be either true or false, the meanings of sentences usually
involve the two truth values true and false. You can make up artificial languages for
talking about these objects; some semanticists claim that these languages can be used to
capture inner cognitive representations. If so, this would also incorporate elements of (3),
the psychological approach to meanings. Finally, by restricting your attention to selected
parts of natural language, you can often avoid hard questions about what meanings in
general are. This is why this approach to some extent dodges the general question of what
meanings are. The hope would be, however, that as more linguistic constructions are
covered, better and more adequate representations of meaning would emerge.

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 Though "truth values" may seem artificial as components of meaning, they are very
handy in talking about the meaning of things like negation; the semantic rule for negative
sentences says that their meanings are like that of the corresponding positive sentences,
except that the truth value is switched, false for true and true for false. ‘It isn't raining’ is
true if ‘It is raining’ is false, and false if ‘It is raining’ is true.

Truth values also provide a connection to validity and to valid reasoning. (It is valid to
infer a sentence S2 from S1 in case S1 couldn't possibly be true when S2 is false.) This
interest in valid reasoning provides a strong connection to work in the semantics of
artificial languages, since these languages are usually designed with some reasoning task
in mind. Logical languages are designed to model theoretical reasoning such as
mathematical proofs, while computer languages are intended to model a variety of
general and special purpose reasoning tasks. Validity is useful in working with proofs
because it gives us a criterion for correctness. It is useful in much the same way with
computer programs, where it can sometimes be used to either prove a program correct, or
(if the proof fails) to discover flaws in programs.

These ideas (which really come from logic) have proved to be very powerful in
providing a theory of how the meanings of natural-language sentences depend on the
meanings of the words they contain and their syntactic structure. Over the last forty
years or so, there has been a lot of progress in working this out, not only for English, but
for a wide variety of languages. This is made much easier by the fact that human
languages are very similar in the kinds of rules that are needed for projecting meanings
from words to sentences; they mainly differ in their words, and in the details of their
syntactic rules.

Recently, there has been more interest in lexical semantics -- that is, in the semantics
of words. Lexical semantics is not so much a matter of trying to write an "ideal
dictionary". (Dictionaries contain a lot of useful information, but don't really provide a
theory of meaning or good representations of meanings.) Rather, lexical semantics is
concerned with systematic relations in the meanings of words, and in recurring patterns
among different meanings of the same word. It is no accident, for instance, that you can
say ‘Sam ate a grape’ and ‘Sam ate’, the former saying what Sam ate and the latter merely
saying that Sam ate something. This same pattern occurs with many verbs.

Logic is a help in lexical semantics, but lexical semantics is full of cases in which
meanings depend subtly on context, and there are exceptions to many generalizations.
(To undermine something is to mine under it; but to understand something is not to stand
under it.) So logic doesn't carry us as far here as it seems to carry us in the semantics of
sentences.

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 Natural-language semantics is important in trying to make computers better able to
deal directly with human languages. In one typical application, there is a program people
need to use. Running the program requires using an artificial language (usually, a special-
purpose command language or query-language) that tells the computer how to do some
useful reasoning or question-answering task. But it is frustrating and time-consuming to
teach this language to everyone who may want to interact with the program. So it is often
worthwhile to write a second program, a natural language interface, that mediates
between simple commands in a human language and the artificial language that the
computer understands. Here, there is certainly no confusion about what a meaning is; the
meanings you want to attach to natural language commands are the corresponding
expressions of the programming language that the machine understands. Many computer
scientists believe that natural language semantics is useful in designing programs of this
sort. But it is only part of the picture. It turns out that most English sentences are
ambiguous to a depressing extent. (If a sentence has just five words, and each of these
words has four meanings, this alone gives potentially 1,024 possible combined meanings.)
Generally, only a few of these potential meanings will be at all plausible. People are very
good at focusing on these plausible meanings, without being swamped by the unintended
meanings. But this takes common sense, and at present we do not have a very good idea
of how to get computers to imitate this sort of common sense. Researchers in the area of
computer science known as Artificial Intelligence are working on that. Meanwhile, in
building natural-language interfaces, you can exploit the fact that a specific application
(like retrieving answers from a database) constrains the things that a user is likely to say.
Using this, and other clever techniques, it is possible to build special purpose natural-
language interfaces that perform remarkably well, even though we are still a long way
from figuring out how to get computers to do general-purpose natural-language
understanding.

Semantics probably won't help you find out the meaning of a word you don't
understand, though it does have a lot to say about the patterns of meaningfulness that you
find in words. It certainly can't help you understand the meaning of one of Shakespeare's
sonnets, since poetic meaning is so different from literal meaning. But as we learn more
about semantics, we are finding out a lot about how the world's languages match forms to
meanings. And in doing that, we are learning a lot about ourselves and how we think, as
well as acquiring knowledge that is useful in many different fields and applications.

Metaphor and metonymy

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 In his 1930s text, ‘the structure of the unconscious,’ Freud described the unconscious
as “a fact without parallel, which defies all explanation or description.” Construed
through this very mystifying, if not metaphysical, perspective, the unconscious then
remained to be the single most unknowable and more or less untheorizable element of all
observable features of human psychology, and of the psychoanalytic enterprise as such.

Only a few decades later, however, Lacan managed to bring the unconscious to earth
by describing it to be “structured like a language,” and attributing its genesis to a ‘split’
within the developing human subject. “The psychoanalyst,” he wrote, “spots the subject’s
split in the simple recognition of the unconscious.” The Lacanian formulation of the
unconscious was both more theoretically elaborate, and, for a number of reasons,
definitely more successful in seeing the individual in its context and tracing the
social/political in the private/psychological. Chief among those ‘reasons’ would be the
‘linguistic turn’ that his intellectual maneuvers afforded psychoanalytic theory.

One of the very useful terms in which Lacan approached his linguistic/semiotic re-
formulation of the unconscious was a specific type of distinction he proposed between
metaphor and metonymy. The reason I speak of a ‘specific type of distinction’ is that even
though Lacan relied strongly on Saussure’s and Jakobson’s basic descriptive models and
distinctions between the two concepts, he ‘slipped’ significant changes into their ideas,
even where he failed to admit such changes.

Since the distinction between metaphor and metonymy is an important element both
in Lacan’s formulation of the unconscious and in later readings of his work in political
terms, I think we should dedicate a bit of time to that here.

The main difference between metaphor and metonymy, according to Lacan, is that
metaphor functions to suppress, while metonymy functions to combine. He writes: “it is
in the word-to-word connection that metonymy is based,” and then: “one word for
another: that is the formula of metaphor.”

Jakobson, in his Fundamentals of Language had spoken of two aspects (“modes of

arrangement”) of signs: Combination (any sign is made up of constituent signs and/or
occurs only in combination with other signs); and Selection (which implies ‘substitution’,
since selection has to be made between alternatives, i.e. signs that could replace each
other). Jakobson presents what he describes to be Saussure’s understanding of these two
modes (i.e. combination and selection), as follows:

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 F. de Saussure states that the former [combination] “is in presentia: it is based on two
or several terms jointly present in an actual series”, whereas the latter [selection]
“connects terms in absentia as members of a virtual mnemonic series”. That is to say,
selection (and, correspondingly, substitution) deals with entities conjoined in the code
but not in the given message, whereas, in the case of combination, the entities are
conjoined in both, or only in the actual message. The addressee perceives that the given
utterance (message) is a COMBINATION of constituent parts (sentences, words,
phonemes, etc.) SELECTED from the repository of all possible constituent parts (the
code). (p. 75)

So when a speaker wants to ‘produce’ meaning in order to communicate, he or she

will have to employ the two modes of ‘combination’ and ‘selection’, while mobilizing
relationships across both the diachronic and the synchronic axes.

The mode of ‘selection’ comes with the implication of similarity/continuity, since it

indicates presence of options, which in turn indicates the presence of similarities between
the range of options and thus the presence of such terms as substitution and equivalence.

For Jakobson, the quality of selection/substitution coincides with the trope/notion of

metaphor, where by the merit of certain similarities one signifier can be used to refer to
(or to substitute) another. The mode of ‘combination, on the other hand, functions to join
distinct meaning units together by locating them within the same ‘context’, and as such it
comes with the implication of difference, discrimination, contiguity, and displacement.
Jakobson argues that this notion is most closely akin to the trope of metonymy, since it is
not the ‘similarity’ of two signifiers that associates them, but rather their contiguity, such
as syntactical or physical proximity and con-textuality.

Lacan borrowed this dichotomous metaphor/metonymy distinction from Jakobson

and introduced it to the structure not only of the text and its meaning, but of the human
subject and its ‘unconscious,’ which he famously claimed to be structured like a language.

To put it in most basic terms, Lacan has managed to juxtapose the

metaphor/metonymy binary set with the binary set that Freud claimed to be the basic
functions of the unconscious, i.e. repression and displacement. Metaphor, insofar as it
functions through similarities and substitutions, coincides with the psychic trope of
repression, and metonymy, insofar as it functions through contiguity and difference,
coincides with the psychic trope of displacement.

Just as in language the tropes of metaphor and metonymy serve to ‘present’ ideas in
forms greatly different from their original content, in the psychic realm they offer the
same function, thus rendering certain ‘objects’ of the mind (thoughts, feelings, signifiers,

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etc.) unrecognizable to ‘consciousness’. In other words, ‘language’ and ‘psyche’ share the
curious propensity towards and capacity for using structure to present (known) content in
unknowable form, familiar material in unfamiliar shape –we see direct implications of
this formulation for explaining such notions as self alienated from itself, doubling and the
uncanny, paranoid knowledge, etc.

So, to recap then, the two groups of ideas come together in this fashion:

Metaphor : Substitution : Condensation

Metonymy : Combination : Displacement

One thing that may concern some (not me) is the changes that Lacan introduces into
the linguistic conceptions of both Saussure and Jakobson in order to render them useful
for his own formulations. I would of course be open to discussing this if anybody finds it
of import, but if not, let us just leave it at that, that Lacanian linguistérie, as he puts it
himself, is simply his linguisterie, and that’s that. In fact let me close this post quoting
him as he addressed this issue. He writes,

When, beginning with the structure of language, I formulate metaphor in such a way
as to account for what he [Freud] calls condensation in the unconscious, and I formulate
metonymy in such a way as to provide the motive for displacement, they become
indignant that I do not quote Jakobson (whose name would never have been suspected in
my gang, if I had not pronounced it).

But when they finally read him and notice that the formula in which I articulate
metonymy differs somewhat from Jakobson’s formula in that he makes Freudian
displacement depend upon metaphor, then they blame me, as if I had attributed my
formula to him.

In the next post I will move to describe in what ways Lacan’s use of these two
concepts in his formulation of the unconscious lends itself to locating the political within
the psychological, or in other words, to the understanding of political subjectivity.
Meanwhile your feedback and comments are most welcome as always.

Purpose of Metonymy

As with other literary devices, one of the main purposes of a metonymy is to add
flavor. Instead of saying, "These chicken wings, coleslaw, and green beans are delicious,"
you could say, “This dish is delicious.” Now, you’ve avoided naming all the separate
elements of the meal, breaking up some of the awkwardness and making the sentence
more vibrant.

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 Metonymy: a Stand-in for Other Words

Understanding the context of metonymy is important. Every time you hear the word
“pen,” it’s not necessarily a stand-in for “the written word.” Sometimes, a pen is just a
pen. Look for context clues in the sentence to help you decide if the word is simply a
word or a representation. The examples below include both the metonym and the
possible object or concepts for which it could fill in and the example sentences will
further enhance your appreciation and understanding of metonymy:

Crown - in place of a royal person

We will swear loyalty to the crown.

The White House or The Oval Office - used in place of the President or White House
staff

The White House will be making an announcement around noon today.

Suits - in place of business people

If we don’t get these reports in today, the suits will be after us.

Heart - to refer to love or emotion

My dear, you have all of my heart.

Dish - for an entire plate of food

That fancy fish dish you made was the best of the evening.

Washington - to refer to the US government

After the protests, maybe Washington will listen to the voters.

The big house - to refer to prison

My brother was just released from the big house.

Silicon Valley - to refer to the tech industry

Silicon Valley is constantly pushing the boundaries in innovation.

Hollywood - to refer to the film industry

It seems like people will do whatever Hollywood says is cool.

Ears - for giving attention, listening

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 Tell me about your first date. I’m all ears!

Silver fox - for an attractive older man

Your older neighbor is quite the silver fox.

Hand - for help

Can you give me a hand carrying this box up the stairs?

Tongue - used in place of language.

I couldn’t understand them because they spoke in their mother tongue.

Brass - used in place of high-ranking officials

Look lively, the top brass are coming for an audit today.

New blood - used in place of new people, fresh ideas

The team needs some new blood if its going to win next season.

Metonymy in Literature

As we’ve seen above, metonymy is used to provide meaning and connections to

concepts. Writers often use it in this way, as well as to be more poetic or simply to make a
long sentence more concise.

“I’m mighty glad Georgia waited ‘til after Christmas before it seceded.” Gone with the
Wind, Margaret Mitchell

Scarlett O’Hara is referring to the government and citizens of Georgia. By using

“Georgia” instead of “Georgia’s government, politicians, and all the voting citizens”
provides brevity and color.

“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.” Julius Ceasar, William

Shakespeare

“Ears” represent the ability to listen. Indeed, Shakespeare is not asking for everyone to
chop off their ears, but to pay attention.

“O, for a draught of vintage!” Ode to Nightingale, John Keats

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 You may need a few context clues here, but “vintage” is used as a metonym for
“wine.”

“He said he reckoned a body could reform the ole man with a shotgun.” Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

Mark Twain was a lover of figurative language. Many of his writings are wrapped in
pretty illustrations. In this metonym, “body” is a replacement for “person.”

Types of Metaphors

Just as there are many ways to paint metaphorical pictures, there are many different
types of metaphors. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular forms:

Absolute Metaphors – These metaphors compare two things that have no obvious
connection, in order to make a striking point. For example, “She is doing a tightrope walk
with her grades this semester.”

Dead Metaphors – Like clichés, these metaphors have lost their punch through over-
usage. For example, “You light up my life.”

Extended Metaphors – These are exactly as they sound. They’re lengthy metaphors
that are intended to create deep comparisons, as in this classic example from Romeo and
Juliet: “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is
the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with
grief.”

Implied Metaphors – These metaphors compare two things without using specific
terms. For example, “Spending too much time with him is worse than swimming in a sea
of sharks.”

Mixed Metaphors – These metaphors jumble comparisons together, often without any
logic. For example, “In the heat of the moment, she turned to ice and danced to the beat
of her own drum.”

Root Metaphors – These metaphors are so rooted in everyday language and

assumptions, we hardly even recognize them as metaphors. You could liken them to dead
metaphors or clichés, due to their over usage. For example, “Life is a journey.”

Illustrated Comparisons

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 Metaphors are illustrations that make a strong point by comparing two things you
wouldn’t necessarily pair together. Remember our curtain of night? Didn’t that give the
impression of a very dark night? Isn’t that more exciting than, “It got dark outside.”
“I’m drowning in a sea of grief.”

Here grief is so overwhelming that the person feels helpless, like they’re being pulled
underwater.

“She was fishing for compliments.”

The woman isn’t literally casting a lure to hook compliments out of the ocean. Rather,
it’s a dead metaphor used to signify a desire for accolades.

“Success is a sense of achievement; it is not an illegitimate child.”

This saying reinforces the belief that everyone wants to take credit for success, but no
one wants to take responsibility for their failings.

“He broke my heart.”

Your heart isn’t literally broken; you’re just feeling hurt and sad.

“You light up my life.”

Of course, no one can provide physical light. This expression is simply saying that
someone brings them joy.

“It's raining men.”

Hallelujah! No, men don’t literally pour from the sky. This simply indicates that a
lucky lady has a lot of male suitors.

“Time is a thief.”

Fortunately, time doesn’t put on a ski mask and lurk around dark corners. This
metaphor illustrates the point that time seems to pass quickly and our lives flash by.

“He is the apple of my eye.”

There is, of course, no apple in someone’s eye. The apple is someone held dear.

“She has such a bubbly personality.”

No one’s personality can bubble up like a glass of champagne. This metaphor is used to
signify someone who’s especially cheerful.

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 “I’m feeling blue.”

Until we become like the little girl in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, none of us
are likely to turn as blue as a blueberry. This metaphor means someone is sad.

“I think he’s about to fade off to sleep.”

Fortunately, none of us fade into thin air when we fall asleep. This expression simply
means that someone has drifted into a state of slumber.

“He really flared up my temper.”

When someone flares up your temper, flames don’t spew out of your body, you’re just
deeply angry.

“He reeks of infidelity.”

When this is said about a cheating partner, it doesn't mean there’s an actual odor. This
metaphor is saying it’s obvious the person is a liar and a cheat.

“She’s going through a rollercoaster of emotions.”

Our emotions can’t take a ride on a rollercoaster. This metaphor simply means the
person’s going through a lot of different moods.

“I feel the stench of failure coming on.”

Failure isn’t fun but it doesn’t smell. So, when this metaphor is used, it means one of
life’s disappointments is on the way.

“This is the icing on the cake.”

While cake is always welcome, cake with icing is even better. This means something
wonderful has happened on the heels of a happy day.

“Hope is on the horizon.”

Hope is an intangible thing that doesn’t bob along the horizon. This metaphor
indicates good things are in one’s future.

“Life contains nothing but clear skies up ahead.”

This metaphor refers to a life devoid of disaster and heartache.

“His words cut deeper than a knife.”

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 Words don’t materialize into sharp objects. In this metaphor, someone has said
something hurtful to another.

“The moonlight sparkled brighter than a gypsy.”

The moonlight didn’t transform into a colorful gypsy. Rather, it lit up the night with
sparkling radiance.

Types of word semantic changes

Changes in meaning are as common as changes in form. Like the latter they can be
internally or externally motivated. The equivalent to the paradigm in morphology is, in
semantics, the word field in which words and their meanings stand in a network of
relationships. The alteration of meaning occurs because words are constantly used and
what is intended by speakers is not exactly the same each time. If a different intention for
a word is shared by the speech community and becomes established in usage then a
semantic change has occurred.

There are different types of change which will be discussed presently. The most
neutral way of referring to change is simply to speak of semantic shift which is to talk of
change without stating what type it is. To begin with a series of shifts are presented to
familiarise students with what is possible in the realm of semantic change.

Old English fæger ‘fit, suitable’, Modern English fair came to mean ‘pleasant,
enjoyable’ then ‘beautiful’ and ‘pleasant in conduct’, from which the second modern
meaning ‘just, impartial’ derives. The first meaning continued to develop in the sense of
‘of light complexion’ and a third one arose from ‘pleasant’ in a somewhat pejorative sense,
meaning ‘average, mediocre’, e.g. He only got a fair result in his exam.

Gentle was borrowed in Middle English in the sense of ‘born of a good-family, with a
higher social standing’. Later the sense ‘courteous’ and then ‘kind, mild in manners’
developed because these qualities were regarded as qualities of the upper classes.

Lewd (Old English læwede) originally meant ‘non-ecclesiastical, lay’, then came to
mean ‘uneducated, unlearned’ from which it developed into ‘vulgar, lower-class’ and then
through ‘bad-mannered, ignorant’, to ‘sexually insinuating’.

Sophisticated meant ‘unnatural, contaminated’ but now has the sense of ‘urbane,
discriminating’. The word sophistry (from Old French sophistrie) still has its original
meaning of ‘specious, fallacious reasoning’.

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 Artificial originally meant ‘man-made, artful, skillfully constructed’, compare artifice
‘man-made construction’. But by comparison with ‘natural’ the word came to acquire a
negative meaning because everything which is natural is regarded positively.

Nice (Latin nescius ‘not knowing') is recorded from the 13th century in the sense of
‘foolish’, then it shifted to ‘coy, shy’ and by the 16th century had the meaning ‘fastidious,
dainty, subtle’ from which by the 18th century the sense ‘agreeable, delightful’
developed.

Silly (Old English sēlig ‘happy, fortuitous') had by the 15th century the sense of
‘deserving of pity’ and then developed to ‘ignorant, feeble-minded’ and later ‘foolish’.

Fast (OE fæste ‘firm') later developed the meaning ‘quick’. The original sense is still
seen in steadfast ‘firm in position’.

The following graphs show two further cases of semantic shift in which the increase
in the scope of one word is paralleled by the reduction in scope of a related word.

Semantic differentiation

The above cases are all cases of shift, the original meaning is not available anymore, or
only in an opaque compound (see last example). The process whereby two meanings arise
from a single original one is termed semantic differentiation. The following instance
illustrates the phenomenon.

In English there has been considerable fluctuation in the preterite and past participle
ending after sonorants for weak verbs: either a voiced /-d/ or a voiceless /-t/. This has
resulted in the exploitation of the two options for semantic purposes. The situation for
most varieties of English today is that the ending -ed stresses the process of the verb and
the ending -t emphasises the result as seen in the following examples.

These are words which have a basic and a related figurative meaning, e.g. foot and
foot of the mountain. Characteristic for the figurative meaning is that it occurs in a phrase
in which its metaphorical use is clear. But with time the secondary use may occur
without any specifying information. This is the first step towards a shift from basic to
figurative meaning as the unmarked member of a pair. For instance decimate formerly
meant to reduce to one tenth in size (from Latin decem) but now the secondary meaning
‘to waste, destroy’ has become the primary meaning and the original basic one is lost. An
example of a word which has both meanings in equilibrium would be headache which
means both ‘pain in the head’ and ‘unwanted problem’ (also true of German, cf. Das
bereitet mir grosse Kopfschmerzen).

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 Does a language lose words?

The answer to this question is not simple. The clearest instance is where a word is
borrowed from another language and the original word is then lost. This has happened
with Old English niman (cf. German nehmen) which was replaced in Middle English by
take from Norse taka. However, most loans do not lead to the replacement of native
words with similar meanings. Rather they attain connotations which the native words do
not possess.

There may be an instance or two where a word almost dissolves phonologically. Old
English æa from an earlier *ahu (cognate with Latin aqua and represented in German by
Aue) was [æ:], and would have raised to [ɛ:, e:, i:] if it had continued, but it was replaced
by the more substantial stream (itself from Old English) and river (a French loan in
Middle English).

The more usual situation is for a language to differentiate two words semantically and
for both to survive. For instance Old English fōda and mete co-existed with the meaning
of what people eat. After the Middle English period the second word occurs only in the
sense of ‘flesh of animals’ and the word flesh (< flesc) is itself restricted to ‘human flesh’.
The original meaning of mete is found in mincemeat ‘minced food’ which does not
contain any meat.

The words for ‘man'

In Old English there were at least three words for ‘man': guma, wer and mann. Only
the last of these survived into Modern English. Guma ‘man’ was lost in the course of
Middle English. It was formerly an independent noun and also occurred in compounds.
One of these was brydguma which consisted of the words for ‘bride’ and ‘man’. With the
loss of the independent form guma, it was reinterpreted in this compound as being
groom, a form which still existed in English for instance with the meaning ‘someone who
looks after, minds horses’. The second word wer disappeared unobtrusively and is today
only found in the compound werewolf ‘man-wolf’.

Etymology And The Lexicon

The development of different meanings for words automatically raises the question of
whether there is an original meaning. Lay speakers tend to think there is. By ‘original’
they mean ‘oldest’. This conception of meaning is termed the etymological fallacy and
states that there is an original meaning to a word if one could only go back far enough in
time. But this is obviously not true. No matter how far back you trace a word there will
always have been a stage before that with a probably different meaning.

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 Loss Of Lexical Transparency

If in the course of its development a word or part of a word becomes opaque to a later
generation then its meaning may be re-interpreted in an incorrect way. Such a
reinterpretation is called a folk etymology and occurs on the basis of another word or
words which are similar in sound and meaning. A simple example is the German word
Friedhof which was reinterpreted as ‘the place where one obtains one’s final peace’, ‘Ort
des letzten Friedens’ but in fact it originally meant ‘an enclosed plot of land’, ‘der
umfriedete Hof’.

Three examples from the history of English illustrate this process clearly. The Modern
English word sandblind derives from Old English sam-blind which contains the element
sam ‘half’ (cf. Latin semi). When sam was lost as a word in English the compound came to
be reinterpreted as meaning ‘blind from sand’.

The Modern English word shamefaced comes from Middle English schamfast with the
meaning ‘firm in modesty’. When the adverb fast altered its meaning to ‘quick’ it was
reinterpreted in this compound as face and the compound came to mean ‘with a face full
of shame’.

A key to the phenomenon of folk etymology is that words which are similar
phonetically can develop similar meanings. The example this time is a Latin loan
obnoxious which originally meant ‘liable to injury’ but came to mean ‘very objectionable’,
probably under the influence of the related word noxious.

Means for extending word stock

As the lexicon of a language is an open class it is constantly expanding. The direct goal
is gaining words for new phenomena, concepts, etc. in the society which uses the
language in question. The side-effect is an increase in the size of the lexicon. There are
various means of extending a language’s word stock which can be broken down into two
basic groups. The first creates compounds out of material from the language itself and the
second resorts to borrowing material, integrating it into the system (phonology,
morphology, semantics) of the language as it does so.

1a) UTILISATION OF NATIVE RESOURCES

This primarily refers to the twin processes of compounding and derivation. The
former involves two or more elements which are combined to form a single word, e.g.
hatchback from hatch and back. Derivation consists of adding a productive ending to a
lexical stem in order to create a new word, e.g. more + ish > morish ‘tasty, enticing’, job +
wise > jobwise.

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 1b) LOAN TRANSLATIONS, CALQUES

These were common in Old English but have been recessive since. Examples are
gospel consisting of good + spell and taken from Latin evangelium, itself from Greek. In
German instances are to be seen in Vorsehung from Latin providentia. In Modern
German a good example is Wolkenkratzer from skyscraper.

2) BORROWING WORDS FROM A FURTHER LANGUAGE

This is a very common process which is attested for all periods of the history of
English or any other language for that matter. The reasons for borrowing are basically
twofold. On the one hand there may be a necessity for a foreign word, to fill a gap so to
speak. This is the case with many adjectival formations in the Early Modern English
period which were coined on the basis of classical stems and which provided a form
either not available in English at the time or not appropriate, e.g. marine as an adjective
to sea; pedestrian to walk : walker; equestrian to horse (horsy means ‘like a horse in
manner or gait'); aquatic to water, etc.

The second reason for borrowing is because of the relative prestige (social standing) of
the speakers using the donor language. This was the case with many French loans in
European languages in the 18th century and is often the reason with loans from English
in German today. However, loans made for this reason will only survive in the language if
there is a semantic justification for them, i.e. if the loanword is separate from the
corresponding native word in some aspect of its meaning. This is the case with German
Behälter and English Container, for instance. It is embryonically the case with German
Lied, Chanson (French) and Song (English) or German Gefühl and Feeling (English) or
German kämpfen and fighten (English).

One should also mention externally motivated borrowings. These are typical of
overseas varieties of English. In the new environments into which English was
introduced there were many phenomena for which there were no terms in English. These
are often called collectively ‘flora and fauna’ terms, for instance with the native words in
Australian and New Zealand English such as kangaroo, kiwi, koala bear, etc.

LOANWORDS AFTER BORROWING

The treatment of loans in a language depends on the structure of the lexicon in the
borrowing language. For instance German has a transparent vocabulary based on the
principle of productive compounding, for instance in German Speiseröhre means ‘a pipe
through which food reaches the stomach’ whereas English oesophagous is a Greek
loanword the internal composition of which is opaque to the speaker of Modern English.

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One consequence of this situation is that German tends to be productive in its handling of
loans from other languages. For instance the word Pullover is a normal loan from English
but the word Pullunder is a German creation, which does not exist in English, based on
the analysis of the original loan as pull + over and the replacement of the preposition over
by under to indicate a sleeveless pullover. Another instance of this would be twens which
was created analogically to teens in German but which does not exist in English.
Furthermore German tends to be very liberal in its use of English formational elements,
an example of this is the word Dressman which is obviously reached by combining the
verb to dress and the noun man. However the word does not exist in English (the nearest
equivalent is dandy).

PARTICIPATION IN MORPHOLOGY

A reliable yardstick for measuring the degree to which a word is integrated into a
language is the extent to which it partakes in productive word formational processes.
Here one can distinguish between compounding and derivation (see above), the latter
being the greater indicator of integration into the new language. For instance in German,
Romance and English loans are commonly used in derivation as seen in examples like
Etappensieg (with a formational /-n/ in the middle) and Managergehalt but the instances
of German inflection on a foreign base are few and far between. What may happen is that
a word-class ending is added because the foreign element is felt to lack this as in softig
from soft + -ig (particularly in glatt und softig). But this is not quite the same as the
integration into the native morphological system. Hence there are no English loans which
show umlaut plurals nor are there any English verbs which are declined with ablaut (i.e.
as ‘strong’ verbs).

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 REASONS FOR BORROWING

The cases discussed above are instances of internally motivated or prestige

borrowings. Words can be adopted into a language because a lexical gap in the language
exists, e.g. marine as the adjective to sea. Other times words may be borrowed for prestige
reasons, English in present-day German, (Central) French in the Middle English period.

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There is a generalization that if loans co-exist with native words and are not semantically
or stylistically differentiated then they fall away in the course of time. However if they
attain a specific meaning or are typical of a recognizable register then they remain (older
English loans and French borrowings in Middle English).

Types of semantic change

The simplest type of semantic change is a shift. For instance the Latin verb arrivare
derives ultimately from ad ripam ‘at the shore’ but has long lost this meaning. But even
such an innocuous case can be classified. A closer look at all changes in meaning shows
that alterations in meaning can be classified according to type. There are four basic types
of semantic change which on the one hand refer to the range of a word’s meaning and on
the other, to the way the meaning is evaluated by speakers.

1) SEMANTIC EXPANSION

Here a word increases its range of meaning over time. For instance in Middle English
bridde was a term for ‘small bird’, later the term bird came to be used in a general sense
and the word fowl, formally the more general word was restricted to the sense of
‘farmyard birds bred especially for consumption’, cf. German ‘Geflügel’. Another case is
horn ‘bone-like protrusion on the heads of certain animals’, then ‘musical instrument’,
then ‘drinking vessel’ of similar shape. The instance of arrivare just quoted belongs to this
category.

2) SEMANTIC RESTRICTION

This is the opposite to expansion. Already to be seen with fowl but also with many
other words, such as meat which derives from Middle English mete with the general
meaning of ‘food’ and now restricted to processed animal flesh. In turn the word flesh
was narrowed in its range to ‘human flesh’ (see above).

Borrowing from another language may be involved here. For instance Old English
sniþan (German schneiden) was replaced by Old Norse cut as the general term and the
second Old English word ceorfan was restricted in meaning to ‘carve’.

3) SEMANTIC DETERIORATION

A disapprovement in the meaning of a word. The term knave meant originally (Old
English) ‘male servant’ from ‘boy’ (cf. German Knabe) but deteriorated to the meaning of
‘base or coarse person’, having more or less died out and been replaced by boy. Villain
developed from ‘inhabitant of a village’ to ‘scoundrel’. The word peasant is used now for

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someone who shows bad behaviour as the word farmer has become the normal term. In
official contexts, however, the term ‘peasant’ is found for small and/or poor farmers.

4) SEMANTIC AMELIORATION

An improvement in the meaning of a word. The term nice derives from Latin nescius
‘ignorant’ and came at the time of its borrowing from Old French to mean ‘silly, simple’
then ‘foolish, stupid’, later developing a more positive meaning as ‘pleasing, agreeable’.

5) SHIFT IN MARKEDNESS

The marked element becomes unmarked and vice versa. Originally a jet was a special
type of aeroplane (a marked item in the semantic sense), now it is the norm (semantically
unmarked) and the propeller machine is regarded as the special kind.

6) RISE OF METAPHORICAL USAGE

A very common semantic development is for literal expressions to acquire figurative

usages, for instance the phrase ahead of someone means literally ‘in front of someone’ but
now has the meaning of ‘more advanced, in a better position’ as in She's ahead of her
sister now.

7) REANALYSIS

The Latin morpheme min- ‘little’ is seen in minor and minus but the words minimum
and miniature led to the analysis of mini- as the morpheme meaning ‘small’ which has
become general in English (and German) as a borrowed morpheme, cf. minibar,
minicomputer, miniskirt.

8) TRUNCATION

An element is deleted without substitution. Developments in word formation often

show this with some elements understood but not expressed: mini in the sense of
miniskirt. Other cases may involve compound phrases, e.g. documentary film and feature
film have both been reduced by truncation of the head noun film to the qualifiers
documentary and feature which are used on their own. Truncation may also involve an
expansion in meaning. For instance, in American English the term Cologne, from Eau de
Cologne, is often used in the broader sense of ‘perfume for men’.

9) MEANING LOSS THROUGH HOMOPHONY

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 Old English had two verbs lætan ‘allow’ and lettan ‘obstruct, hinder’. These became
homophonous and only the meaning ‘allow’ survived. However, in the expression
without let or hindrance the original meaning survives.

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 Unit 8

Phraseological units

Words put together to form lexical units make phrases or word-groups. It will be
recalled that lexicology deals with words, word-forming morphemes and word-groups.
We assume that the word is the basic lexical unit.1 The smallest two-facet unit to be
found within the word is the morpheme which is studied on the morphological level of
analysis. The largest two-facet lexical unit comprising more than one word is the word-
group observed on the syntagmatic level of analysis of the various ways words are joined
together to make up single self-contained lexical units.

The degree of structural and semantic cohesion of word-groups may vary. Some word-
groups, e.g. at least, point of view, by means of, take place, seem to be functionally and
semantically inseparable. Such word-groups are usually described as set-phrases, word-
equivalents or phraseological units and are traditionally regarded as the subject matter of
the branch of lexicological science that studies phraseology.

The component members in other word-groups, e.g. a week ago, man of wisdom, take
lessons, kind to people, seem to possess greater semantic and structural independence.

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Word-groups of this type are defined as free or variable word-groups or phrases and are
habitually studied in syntax.

Here, however, we proceed from the assumption that before touching on the problem
of phraseology it is essential to briefly outline the features common to various types of
word-groups viewed as self-contained lexical units irrespective of the degree of structural
and semantic cohesion of the component words.

SOME BASIC FEATURES OF WORD-GROUPS

To get a better insight into the essentials of structure and meaning of word-groups we
must begin with a brief survey of the main factors active in uniting words into word-
groups. The two main linguistic factors to be considered in this connection are the lexical
and the grammatical valency of words.

It is an indisputable fact that words are used in certain lexical contexts, i.e. in
combination with other words.2 The noun question, e.g., is often combined with such
adjectives as vital, pressing, urgent, disputable, delicate, etc. This noun is a component of
a number of other word-groups, e.g. to raise a question, a question of great importance, a
question of the agenda, of the day, and many others. The aptness of a word to appear in
various combinations is described as its lexical valency or collocability.

The range of the lexical valency of words is linguistically restricted by the inner
structure of the English word-stock. This can be easily observed in the selection of
synonyms found in different word-groups. Though the verbs lift and raise, e.g., are
usually treated as synonyms, it is only the latter that is collocated with the noun question.
The verb take may be synonymically interpreted as ‘grasp’, ’seize’, ‘catch’, ‘lay hold of,
etc. but it is only take that is found in collocation with the nouns examination, measures,
precautions, etc., only catch in catch smb. napping and grasp in grasp the truth.

There is a certain norm of lexical valency for each word and any departure from this
norm is felt as a literary or rather a stylistic device. Such word-groups as for example a
cigarette ago, shove a question and the like are illustrative of the point under discussion.
It is because we recognise that shove and question are not normally collocable that the
junction of them can be effective.

Words habitually collocated in speech tend to constitute a cliché. We observe, for

example, that the verb put forward and the noun question are habitually collocated and
whenever we hear the verb put forward or see it written on paper it is natural that we
should anticipate the word question. So we may conclude that put forward a question
constitutes a habitual word-group, a kind of cliché. This is also true of a number of other

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word-groups, e.g. to win (or gain) a victory, keen sight (or hearing). Some linguists hold
that most of the English in ordinary use is thoroughly saturated with cliches.1

One more point of importance should be discussed in connection with the problem of
lexical valency — the interrelation of lexical valency and polysemy as found in word-
groups.

Firstly, the restrictions of lexical valency of words may manifest themselves in the
lexical meanings of the polysemantic members of word-groups. The adjective heavy, e.g.,
is combined with the words food, meals, supper, etc. in the meaning ‘rich and difficult to
digest’. But not all the words with more or less the same component of meaning can be
combined with this adjective. One cannot say, for instance, heavy cheese or heavy
sausage implying that the cheese or the sausage is difficult to digest."

Secondly, it is observed that different meanings of a word may be described through

the possible types of lexical contexts, i.e. through the lexical valency of the word, for
example, the different meanings of the adjective heavy may be described through the
word-groups heavy weight (book, table, etc.), heavy snow (storm, rain, etc.), heavy
drinker (eater, etc.), heavy sleep (disappointment, sorrow, etc.), heavy industry (tanks,
etc.), and so on.

From this point of view word-groups may be regarded as the characteristic minimal
lexical sets that operate as distinguishing clues for each of the multiple meanings of the
word.

Words are used also in grammatical contexts.1 The minimal grammatical context in
which words are used when brought together to form word-groups is usually described as
the pattern of the word-group. For instance, the adjective heavy discussed above can be
followed by a noun (e.g. heavy storm or by the infinitive of a verb (e.g. heavy to lift), etc.
The aptness of a word to appear in specific grammatical (or rather syntactic) structures is
termed grammatical valency.

The grammatical valency of words may be different. To begin with, the range of
grammatical valency is delimited by the part of speech the word belongs to. It follows
that the grammatical valency of each individual word is dependent on the grammatical
structure of the language.

This is not to imply that grammatical valency of words belonging to the same part of
speech is necessarily identical. This can be best illustrated by comparing the grammatical
valency of any two words belonging to the same part of speech, e.g. of the two
synonymous verbs suggest and propose. Both verbs can be followed by a noun (to propose

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or suggest a plan, a resolution). It is only propose, however, that can be followed by the
infinitive of a verb (to propose to do smth.); The adjectives clever and intelligent are seen
to possess different grammatical valency as clever can be used in word-groups having the
pattern: Adjective-Preposition at+Noun (clever at mathematics), whereas intelligent can
never be found in exactly the same word-group pattern.

Specific linguistic restrictions in the range of grammatical valency of individual words

imposed on the lexical units by the inner structure of the language are also observed by
comparing the grammatical valency of correlated words in different languages. The
English verb influence, for example, can be followed only by a noun (to influence a
person, a decision, choice, etc.). The grammatical valency of its Russian counterpart
влиять is different. The Russian verb can be combined only with a prepositional group
(cf. влиять на человека, на выбор, . . ., etc.).

No departure from the norm of grammatical valency is possible as this can make the
word-group unintelligible to English speakers. Thus e.g. the word-group mathematics at
clever is likely to be felt as a meaningless string of words because the grammatical valency
of English nouns does not allow of the structure Noun+at+Adjective.

It should also be pointed out that the individual meanings of a polysemantic word
may be described through its grammatical valency. Thus, different meanings of the
adjective keen may be described in a general way through different structures of the
word-groups keen+N, — keen sight (hearing, etc.), keen + on + N — keen on sports (on
tennis, etc.), keen+V(inf.) — keen to know (to find out, etc.).

From this point of view word-groups may be regarded as minimal syntactic (or
syntagmatic) structures that operate as distinguishing clues for different meanings of a
polysemantic word.

PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

It has been repeatedly pointed out that word-groups viewed as functionally and
semantically inseparable units are traditionally regarded as the subject matter of
phraseology. It should be noted, however, that no proper scientific investigation of
English phraseology has been attempted until quite recently. English and American
linguists as a rule confine themselves to collecting various words, word-groups and
sentences presenting some interest either from the point of view of origin, style, usage, or
some other feature peculiar to them. These units are habitually described as idioms but no
attempt has been made to investigate these idioms as a separate class of linguistic units or
a specific class of word-groups.

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 American and English dictionaries of unconventional English, slang and idioms and
other highly valuable reference-books contain a wealth of proverbs, sayings, various
lexical units of all kinds, but as a rule do not seek to lay down a reliable criterion to
distinguish between variable word-groups and phraseological units. Paradoxical as it may
seem the first dictionary in which theoretical principles for the selection of English
phraseological units were elaborated was published in our country.

The term itself phraseological units to denote a specific group of phrases was
introduced by Soviet linguists and is generally accepted in our country.

Attempts have been made to approach the problem of phraseology in different ways.
Up till now, however, there is a certain divergence of opinion as to the essential feature of
phraseological units as distinguished from other word-groups and the nature of phrases
that can be properly termed phraseological units.

The complexity of the problem may be largely accounted for by the fact that the
border-line between free or variable word-groups and phraseological units is not clearly
defined. The so-called free word-groups are only relatively free as collocability of their
member-words is fundamentally delimited by their lexical and grammatical valency
which makes at least some of them very close to set-phrases. Phraseological units are
comparatively stable and semantically inseparable. Between the extremes of complete
motivation and variability of member-words on the one hand and lack of motivation
combined with complete stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure on
the other hand there are innumerable border-line ca’ses.

a. However, the existing terms,1 e.g. set-phrases, idioms, word-

equivalents, reflect to a certain extent the main debatable issues of
phraseology which centre on the divergent views concerning the
nature and essential features of phraseological units as distinguished
from the so-called 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
idioms generally implies that the essential feature of the linguistic units
under consideration is idiomaticity or lack cf motivation. This term
habitually used by English and American linguists is very often treated
as synonymous with the term phraseological unit universally accepted
in our country.2 The term word-equivalent stresses not only the
semantic but also the functional inseparability of certain word-groups
and their aptness to function in speech as single words.

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 Thus differences in terminology reflect certain differences in the main criteria used to
distinguish between free word-groups and a specific type of linguistic units generally
known as phraseology. These criteria and the ensuing classification are briefly discussed
below.

Phraseological units are habitually defined as non-motivated word-groups that cannot

be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units. This definition
proceeds from the assumption that the essential features of phraseological units are
stability of the lexical components and lack of motivation.1 It is consequently assumed
that unlike components of free word-groups which may vary according to the needs of
communication, member-words of phraseological units are always reproduced as single
unchangeable collocations.

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

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

Taking into account mainly the degree of idiomaticity phraseological units may be
classified into three big groups: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and
phraseological collocations.2

Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated word-groups, such as red tape —

‘bureaucratic methods’; heavy father — ’serious or solemn part in a theatrical play’; kick
the bucket — ‘die’; and the like. The meaning of the components has no connections

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whatsoever, at least synchronically, with the meaning of the whole group. Idiomaticity is,
as a rule, combined with complete stability of the lexical components and the
grammatical structure of the fusion.

Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be

perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. For
example, to show one’s teeth, to wash one’s dirty linen in public if interpreted as
semantically motivated through the combined lexical meaning of the component words
would naturally lead one to understand these in their literal meaning. The metaphoric
meaning of the whole unit, however, readily suggests ‘take a threatening tone’ or ’show
an intention to injure’ for show one’s teeth and ‘discuss or make public one’s quarrels’ for
wash one’s dirty linen in public. Phraseological unities are as a rule marked by a
comparatively high degree of stability of the lexical components.

Phraseological collocations are motivated but they are made up of words possessing
specific lexical valency which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such word-
groups. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For
instance, bear a grudge may be changed into bear malice, but not into bear a fancy or
liking. We can say take a liking (fancy) but not take hatred (disgust). These habitual
collocations tend to become kind of clichés1 where the meaning of member-words is to
some extent dominated by the meaning of the whole group. Due to this phraseological
collocations are felt as possessing a certain degree of semantic inseparability.

Some Debatable Points

The current definition of phraseological units as highly idiomatic word-groups which

cannot be freely made up in speech, but are reproduced as ready-made units has been
subject to severe criticism by linguists of different schools of thought. The main
objections and debatable points may be briefly outlined as follows:

1. The definition is felt to be inadequate as the concept ready- made

units seems to be rather vague. In fact this term can be applied to a variety of
heterogeneous linguistic phenomena ranging from word-groups to sentences
(e.g. proverbs, sayings) and also quotations from poems, novels or scientific
treatises all of which can be described as ready-made units.
2. Frequent discussions have also led to questioning this approach to
phraseology from a purely semantic point of view as the criterion of
idiomaticity is found to be an inadequate guide in singling out phraseological
units from other word-groups. Borderline cases between idiomatic and non-
idiomatic word-groups are so numerous and confusing that the final decision

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 seems to depend largely on one’s “feeling of the language". This can be proved
by the fact that the same word-groups are treated by some linguists as
idiomatic phrases and by others as free word-groups. For example, such word-
groups as take the chair — ‘preside at a meeting’, take one’s chance — ‘trust to
luck or fortune’, take trouble (to do smth) — ‘to make efforts’ and others are
marked in some of the English dictionaries as idioms or phrases, whereas in
others they are found as free word-groups illustrating one of the meanings of
the verb to take or the nouns combined with this verb.

The impracticability of the criterion of idiomaticity is also observed in the traditional

classification of phraseological collocations. The extreme cases, i.e. phraseological fusions
and collocations are easily differentiated but the borderline units, as for example
phraseological fusions and phraseological unities or phraseological collocations and free
word-groups, are very often doubtful and rather vaguely outlined. We may argue, e.g.,
that such word-groups as high treason or show the white feather are fusions because one
finds it impossible to infer the meaning of the whole from the meaning of the individual
components. Others may feel these word-groups as metaphorically motivated and refer
them to phraseological unities.

The term idiomaticity is also understood as lack of motivation from the point of view
of native speakers. As here we are concerned with the English language, this implies that
only those word-groups are to be referred to phraseology which are felt as non-
motivated, at least synchronically, by English speakers, e.g. red tape, kick the bucket and
the like. This approach to idiomaticity may be termed intralingual. In other words the
judgement as to idiomaticity is passed within’ the framework of the language concerned,
not from the outside. It is readily observed that classification of factual linguistic material
into free wort-groups and phraseological units largely depends upon the particular
meaning we attach to the term idiomaticity. It will be recalled, for example, that habitual
collocations are word-groups whose component member or members possess specific and
limited lexical valency, as a rule essentially different from the lexical valency of related
words in the Russian language.1 A number of habitual collocations, e.g. heavy rain, bad
mistake, take care and others, may be felt by Russian speakers as peculiarly English and
therefore idiomatic, whereas they are not perceived as such by English speakers in whose
mother tongue the lexical valency of member words heavy, bad, take presupposes their
collocability with rain, mistake, care.

3. The criterion of stability is also criticised as not very reliable in

distinguishing phraseological units from other word-groups habitually referred
to as phraseology. We observe regular substitution of at least one of the lexical

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 components. In to cast smth in smb’s teeth, e.g. the verb cast may be replaced
by fling; to take a decision is found alongside with to make a decision; not to
care a twopenny is just one of the possible variantsof the phrase, whereas in
others the noun twopenny may be replaced by a number of other nouns, e.g.
farthing, button, pin, sixpence, fig, etc.

It is also argued that stability of lexical components does not presuppose lack of
motivation. The word-group shrug one’s shoulders, e.g., does not allow of the substitution
of either shrug or shoulders; the meaning of the word-group, however, is easily deducible
from the meanings of the member-words, hence the word-group is completely motivated,
though stable. Idiomatic word-groups may be variable as far as their lexical components
are concerned, or stable. It was observed that, e.g., to cast smth in smb’s teeth is a highly
idiomatic but variable word-group as the constituent member cast may be replaced by
fling or throw; the word-group red tape is both highly idiomatic and stable.

It follows that stability and idiomaticity may be regarded as two different aspects of
word-groups. Stability is an essential feature of set-phrases both motivated and non-
motivated. Idiomaticity is a distinguishing feature of phraseological units or idioms which
comprise both stable set-phrases and variable word-groups. The two features are not
mutually exclusive and may be overlapping, but are not interdependent.

Stability of word-groups may be viewed in terms of predictability of occurrence of

member-words. Thus, e.g., the verb shrug predicts the occurrence of the noun shoulders
and the verb clench the occurrence of either fists or teeth. The degree of predictability or
probability of occurrence of member-words is different in different word-groups. We
may assume, e.g., that the verb shrug predicts with a hundred per cent probability the
occurrence of the noun shoulders, as no other noun can follow this particular verb. The
probability of occurrence of the noun look after the verb cast is not so high because cast
may be followed not only by look but also by glance, light, lots and some other nouns.
Stability of the word-group in clench one’s fists is higher than in cast a look, but lower
than in shrug one’s shoulders as the verb clench predicts the occurrence of either fists or
teeth.

It is argued that the stability of all word-groups may be statistically calculated and the
word-groups where stability exceeds a certain limit (say 50%) may be classified as set-
phrases.

Predictability of occurrence may be calculated in relation to one or, more than one
constituent of the word-group. Thus, e.g., the degree of probability of occurrence of the
noun bull after the verb take is very low and may practically be estimated at zero. The

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two member-words take the bull, however, predict the occurrence of by the horns with a
very high degree of probability.

Stability viewed in terms of probability of occurrence seems a more reliable criterion

in differentiating between set-phrases and variable or free word-groups, but cannot be
relied upon to single out phraseological units. Besides, it is argued that it is practically
impossible to calculate the stability of all the word-groups as that would necessitate
investigation into the lexical valency of the whole vocabulary of the English language.

Another angle from which the problem of phraseology is viewed is the so-called
functional approach. This approach assumes that phraseological units may be defined as
specify word-groups functioning as word-equivalents.1 The fundamental features of
phraseological units thus understood are their semantic and grammatical inseparability
which are regarded as distinguishing features of isolated words.

It will be recalled that when we compare a free word-group, e.g, heavy weight, and a
phraseological unit, e.g. heavy father, we observe that in the case of the free word group
each of the member-words has its own denotational meaning. So the lexical meaning of
the word-group can be adequately described as the combined lexical meaning of its
constituents.2 In the case of the phraseological unit, however, the denotational meaning
belongs to the word-group as a single semantically inseparable unit. The individual
member-words do not seem to possess any lexical meaning outside the meaning of the
group. The meanings of the member-words heavy and father taken in isolation are in no
way connected with the meaning of the phrase heavy father — ’serious or solemn part in
a theatrical play’.

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

A certain humorous effect is attained because one of the member-words (commence,

valiant) is felt as belonging to the bookish stylistic layer, whereas the other (scrub, chap)
is felt as stylistically neutral or colloquial. When we say, however, that kick the bucket is
highly colloquial or heavy father is a professional term, we do not refer to the stylistic
value of the component words of these phraseological units kick, bucket, heavy or father,
but the stylistic value of the word-group as a single whole. Taken in isolation the words
are stylistically neutral. It follows that phraseological units are characterised by a single
stylistic reference irrespective of the number and nature of their component words.

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Semantic inseparability of phraseological units is viewed as one of the aspects of
idiomaticity which enables us to regard them as semantically equivalent to single words.

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

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

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

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

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

Phraseological Units and Idioms Proper

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 As can be inferred from the above discussion, the functional approach does not
discard idiomaticity as the main feature distinguishing phraseological units from free
word-groups, but seeks to establish formal criteria of idiomaticity by analysing the
syntactic function of phraseological units in speech.

An attempt is also made to distinguish phraseological units as word-equivalents from

idioms proper, i.e. idiomatic units such as that’s where the shoe pinches, the cat is out of
the bag, what will Mrs Grundy say?, etc. Unlike phraseological units, proverbs, sayings
and quotations do not always function as word-equivalents. They exist as ready-made
expressions with a specialised meaning of their own which cannot be inferred from the
meaning of their components taken singly. Due to this the linguists who rely mainly on
the criterion of idiomaticity classify proverbs and sayings as phraseological units.

The proponents of the functional criterion argue that proverbs and sayings lie outside
the province of phraseology. It is pointed out, firstly, that the lack of motivation in such
linguistic units is of an essentially different nature. Idioms are mostly based on metaphors
which makes the transferred meaning of the whole expression more or less transparent. If
we analyse such idioms, as, e.g., to carry coals to Newcastle, to fall between two stools, or
fine feathers make fine birds, we observe that though their meaning cannot be inferred
from the literal meaning of the member-words making up these expressions, they are still
metaphorically motivated as the literal meaning of the whole expression readily suggests
its meaning as an idiom, i.e. ‘to do something that is absurdly superfluous’, ‘fail through
taking an intermediate course’ and ‘to be well dressed to give one an impressive
appearance’ respectively.1 The meaning of the phraseological units, e.g. red tape, heavy
father, in the long run, etc., cannot be deduced either from the meaning of the
component words or from the metaphorical meaning of the word-group as a whole.

Secondly, the bulk of idioms never function in speech as word-equivalents which is a

proof of their semantic and grammatical separability.

It is also suggested that idioms in general have very much in common with quotations
from literary sources, some of which also exist as idiomatic ready-made units with a
specialised meaning of their own. Such quotations which have acquired specialised
meaning and idiomatic value, as, e.g., to be or not to be (Shakespeare), to cleanse the
Augean stables (mythology), a voice crying out in the wilderness (the Bible), etc. differ
little from proverbs and sayings which may also be regarded as quotations from English
folklore and are part of this particular branch of literary studies.

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 Some Debatable Points

The definition of phraseological units as idiomatic word-groups functioning as word-

equivalents has also been subject to criticism. The main disputable points are as follows:

1. The criterion of function is regarded as not quite reliable when used with a view to
singling out phraseological units from among other more or less idiomatic word-groups.
The same word-groups may function in some utterances as an inseparable group and in
others as a separable group with each component performing its own syntactic function.
This seems largely to be accounted for by the structure of the sentence in which the
word-group is used. Thus, for example, in the sentence she took care of everything —
take care is perceived as a single unit functioning as the predicate, whereas in the
sentence great care was taken to keep the children happy — take care is undoubtedly
separable into two components: the verb take functions as the predicate and the noun
care as the object. The functional unity of the word-group seems to be broken.

2. It is also argued that the criterion of function serves to single out a comparatively
small group of phraseological units comparable with phraseological fusions in the
traditional semantic classification but does not provide for an objective criterion for the
bulk of word-groups occupying an intermediate position between free word-groups and
highly idiomatic phraseological units. ,

Phraseological units in Modern English are also approached from the contextual point
of view.1 Proceeding from the assumption that individual meanings of polysemantic
words can be observed in certain contexts and may be viewed as dependent on those
contexts, it is argued that phraseological units are to be defined through specific types of
context. Free word-groups make up variable contexts whereas the essential feature of
phraseological units is a non-variable or fixed context.‘

Non-variability is understood as the stability of the word-group. In variable contexts

which include polysemantic words substitution of one of the components is possible
within the limits of the lexical valency of the word under consideration. It is observed,
e.g., that in such word-groups as a small town the word town may be substituted for by a
number of other nouns, e.g. room, audience, etc., the adjective small by a number of
other adjectives, e.g. large, big, etc. The substitution of nouns does not change the
meaning of small which denotes in all word-groups -'not large’. The substitution of
adjectives does not likewise affect the meaning of town. Thus variability of the lexical
components is the distinguishing feature of the so-called free word-groups. In other
word-groups such as small business, a small farmer the variable members serve as a clue
to the meaning of the adjective small. It may be observed that when combined with the

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words town, room, etc. a small denotes ‘not large’, whereas it is only in combination with
the nouns business, farmer, etc. that small denotes ‘of limited size’ or ‘having limited
capital’. Word-groups of this type are sometimes described as traditional collocations.

Unlike word-groups with variable members phraseological units allow of no

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

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

Phraseological units may be subdivided into phrasemes and idioms according to

whether or not one of the components of the whole word-group possesses specialised
meaning.

Phrasemes are, as a rule, two-member word-groups in which one of the members has
specialised meaning dependent on the second component as, e.g., in small hours; the
second component (hours) serves as the only clue to this particular meaning of the first
component as it is found only in the given context (small hours). The word that serves as
the clue to the specialised meaning of one of the components is habitually used in its
central meaning (cf., for example, small hours, and three hours, pleasant hours, etc.).

Idioms are distinguished from phrasemes by the idiomaticity of the whole word-group
(e.g. red tape — ‘bureaucratic methods’) and the impossibility of attaching meaning to the
members of the group taken in isolation. Idioms are semantically and grammatically
inseparable units. They may comprise unusual combinations of words which when
understood in their literal meaning are normally unallocable as, e.g. mare’s nest (a mare
— ‘a female horse’, a mare’s nest — ‘a hoax, a discovery which proves false or worthless’).

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Unusualness of collocability, or logical incompatibility of member-words is indicative of
the idiomaticity of the phrase.

Idioms made up of words normally brought together are homonymous with

corresponding variable word-groups, e.g. to let the cat out of the bag — ‘to divulge a
secret’, and the clue to the idiomatic meaning is to be found in a wider context outside
the phrase itself.

The main objections to the contextual approach, are as follows: 1. Non-variability of

context does not necessarily imply specialised meaning of the component or the
components of the word-group. In some cases complete stability of the lexical
components is found in word-groups including words of a narrow or specific range of
lexical valency as, e.g., shrug one’s shoulders.

2. Some word-groups possessing a certain degree of idiomaticity are referred to

traditional collocations. The criterion of traditional collocations, however, is different
from that of phraseological units. In the contextual approach traditional collocations are
understood as word-groups with partially variable members; the degree of idiomaticity is
disregarded. Consequently such word-groups as, e.g., clench fists (teeth) and cast (throw,
fling) something in somebody’s teeth may both be referred to traditional collocations on
the ground of substitutability of one of the member-words in spite of a tangible difference
in the degree of idiomatic meaning.

Comparing the three approaches discussed above (semantic, functional, and

contextual) we have ample ground to conclude that they have very much in common as
the main criteria of phraseological units appear to be essentially the same, i.e. stability
and idiomaticity or lack of motivation. It should be noted however that these criteria as
elaborated in the three approaches are sufficient mainly to single out extreme cases:
highly idiomatic non-variable and free (or variable) word-groups.

Thus red tape, mare’s nest, etc. according to the semantic approach belong to
phraseology and are described as fusions as they are completely non-motivated.
According to the functional approach they are also regarded as phraseological units
because of their grammatical (syntactic) inseparability and because they function in
speech as word-equivalents. According to the contextual approach red tape, mare’s nest,
etc. make up a group of phraseological units referred to as idioms because of the
impossibility of any change in the ‘fixed context’ and their semantic inseparability.

The status of the bulk of word-groups however cannot be decided with certainty with
the help of these criteria because as a rule we have to deal not with complete idiomaticity
and stability but with a certain degree of these distinguishing features of phraseological

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units. No objective criteria of the degree of idiomaticity and stability have as yet been
suggested. Thus, e.g., to win a victory according to the semantic approach is a
phraseological combination because it is almost completely motivated and allows of
certain variability to win, to gain a victory. According to the functional approach it is not
a phraseological unit as the degree of semantic and grammatical inseparability is
insufficient for the word-group to function as a word-equivalent. Small hours according
to the contextual approach is a phraseme because one of the components is used in its
literal meaning. If however we classify it proceeding from the functional approach it is a
phraseological unit because it is syntactically inseparable and therefore functions as a
word-equivalent. As can be seen from the above the status of the word-groups which are
partially motivated is decided differently depending on which of the criteria of
phraseological units is applied.

There is still another approach to the problem of phraseology in which an attempt is

made to overcome the shortcomings of the phraseological theories discussed above. The
main features of this new approach which is now more or less universally accepted by
Soviet linguists are as follows:

1. Phraseology is regarded as a self-contained branch of linguistics and

not as a part of lexicology.
2. Phraseology deals with a phraseological subsystem of language and
not with isolated phraseological units.
3. Phraseology is concerned with all types of set expressions.
4. Set expressions are divided into three classes: phraseological units
(e.g. red tape, mare’s nest, etc.), phraseomatic units (e.g. win a victory, launch a
campaign, etc.) and border-line cases belonging to the mixed class. The main
distinction between the first and the second classes is semantic: phraseological
units have fully or partially transferred meanings while components of
phraseomatic units are used in their literal meanings.
5. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are not regarded as word-
equivalents but some of them are treated as word correlates.
6. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are set expressions and their
phraseological stability distinguishes them from free phrases and compound
words.
7. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are made up of words of
different degree of wordness depending on the type of set expressions they are
used in. (Cf. e.g. small hours and red tape.) Their structural separateness, an
important factor of their stability, distinguishes them from compound words
(cf. e.g. blackbird and black market).

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 Other aspects of their stability are: stability of use, lexical stability and semantic
stability.

8. Stability of use means that set expressions are reproduced ready-

made and not created in speech. They are not elements of individual style of
speech but language units.
9. Lexical stability means that the components of set expressions are
either irreplaceable (e.g. red tape, mare’s nest) or partly replaceable within the
bounds of phraseological or phraseomatic variance: lexical (e.g. a skeleton in
the cupboard — a skeleton in the closet), grammatical (e.g. to be in deep water
— to be in deep waters), positional (e.g. head over ears — over head and ears),
quantitative (e.g. to lead smb a dance — to lead smb a pretty dance), mixed
variants (e.g. raise (stir up) a hornets’ nest about one’s ears — arouse (stir up)
the nest of hornets).
10. Semantic stability is based on the lexical stability of set expressions.
Even when occasional changes ‘are introduced the meaning of set expression is
preserved. It may only be specified, made more precise, weakened or
strengthened. In other words in spite of all occasional changes phraseological
and phraseomatic units, as distin- guished from free phrases, remain
semantically invariant or are destroyed. For example, the substitution of the
verbal component in the free phrase to raise a question by the verb to settle (to
settle a question) changes the meaning of the phrase, no such change occurs in
to raise (stir up) a hornets’ nest about one’s ears.
11. An integral part of this approach is a method of phraseological
identification which helps to single out set expressions in Modern English.

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

Cases of grammaticalisation may be illustrated by the transformation of free word-

groups composed of the verb have, a noun (pronoun) and Participle II of some other verb
(e.g. OE. hē haefde hine zeslaegenne) into the grammatical form — the Present Perfect in
Modern English. The degree of semantic and grammatical inseparability in this analytical
word-form is so high that the component have seems to possess no lexical meaning of its
own.

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 The term lexicalisation implies that the word-group under discussion develops into a
word-equivalent, i.e. a phraseological unit or a compound word. These two parallel lines
of lexicalisation of free word-groups can be illustrated by the diachronic analysis of, e.g.,
the compound word instead and the phraseological unit in spite (of). Both of them can be
traced back to structurally identical free phrases.1 (Cf. OE. in stede and ME. in despit.)

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

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

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

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

b) When as a result of a change in the semantic structure of a polysemantic word

some of its meanings disappear and can be found only in certain collocations. The noun
mind, e.g., once meant ‘purpose’ or ‘intention’ and this meaning survives in the phrases to
have a mind to do smth., to change one’s mind, etc.

c) When a free word-group used in professional speech penetrates into general

literary usage, it is often felt as non-motivated. To pull (the) strings (wires), e.g., was
originally used as a free word-group in its direct meaning by professional actors in puppet

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shows. In Modern English, however, it has lost all connection with puppet-shows and
therefore cannot be described as metaphorically motivated. Lack of motivation can also
be observed in the phraseological unit to stick to one’s guns which can be traced back to
military English, etc.

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

d) When a word-group making up part of a proverb or saying begins to be used as a

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

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

1. The final criterion in the semantic approach is idiomaticity whereas in the

functional approach syntactic inseparability is viewed as the final test, and in the
contextual approach it is stability of context combined with idiomaticity of word-groups.

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 2.. The concept of idiomaticity is not strictly defined. The judgement as to
idiomaticity is passed sometimes within the framework of the English language and
sometimes from the outside — from the point of view of the mother tongue of the
investigator.

It is suggested here that the term idiomaticity should be interpreted as an intralingual

notion and also that the degree of idiomaticity should be taken into consideration since
between the extreme of complete motivation and lack of motivation there are numerous
intermediate groups.

3. Each of the three approaches has its merits and demerits. The traditional semantic
approach points out the essential features of all kinds of idiomatic phrases as opposed to
completely motivated free word- groups. The functional approach puts forward an
objective criterion for singling out a small group of word-equivalents possessing all the
basic features of words as lexical items. The contextual approach makes the criterion of
stability more exact.

4. All the three approaches are sufficient to single out the extreme cases: highly
idiomatic phraseological units and free word-groups. The status of the bulk of word-
groups possessing different degrees of idiomaticity cannot be decided with certainty by
applying the criteria available in linguistic science.

5. The distinguishing feature of the new approach is that phraseology is regarded as a

self-contained branch of linguistics and not as a part of lexicology. According to this
approach phraseology deals with all types of set expressions which are divided into three
classes: phraseological units, phraseomatic units and border-line cases.

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 Unit 9

Homonyms, antonyms and synonyms

Homonyms

Homonyms are two or more words identical in sound form, spelling but different in
meaning.

Modern English is reach in homonyms because of the monosyllable structure of the

commonly used English words.1) Homonyms proper. These are words identical in their
sound form and spelling but different in meaning. For example ball (мяч) – ball (бал).2)
Homophones. These are words that are identical in sound form but different in spelling
and meaning. For example: peace – piece; night – knight. 3) Homographs. These are
words identical in spelling but different in sound form and meaning.For example bow
[bau] (поклон) – bow [bəu] (лук); lead [liːd] (вести) – lead [led] (свинец). Sources of
homonyms. Homonyms are mostly accidental. They appear mainly due to phonetic
changes which the words had during their development. In the process of communication
homonyms lead to misunderstanding, but they are the most important source of popular
human.

1) Phonetic changes. For example night – knight (K – was pronounced in old English)

2) Borrowings. For example bank (Italian банк) – bank (native берег реки)

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 3) Word building. For example conversion: pale– to pale. shortening: fan [fæn] –2)
fan(atic) → fan (фанат)

4) Split polysemy. Two or more homonyms can originate from different meaning of
the same word, when the semantic structure of the word brakes into several parts. For
example spring (весна) – spring (родник, источник) – spring (прыжок).All three nouns
originated from the verb to spring to jump. The meanings of the first and second
homonyms are based on metaphor.

Classifications. Walter Skeat classified h. acc. to their spelling and sound forms - three
groups: perfect h. (identical in sound and spelling: «school» - «косяк рыбы» & «школа»);
homographs (words with the same spelling but pronounced differently: «bow» -/bau/ -
«поклон and /bou/ - «лук»); homophones (pronounced identically but spelled differently:
«night» and «knight»).

Smirnitsky added too Skeat’s clas-n 1 more criterion: grammatical meaning. He

subdivided the group of perfect homonyms in Skeat’s classification into two types of
homonyms: perfect which are identical in their spelling, pronunciation and their
grammar form, and homoforms which coincide in their spelling and pronunciation but
have different grammatical meaning. Accordingly, Professor A. I. Smirnitsky classified
homonyms into two large classes: 1) full homonyms, 2) partial homonyms.

1) Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of parts of
speech and have the same paradigm. E. g. match, n. - a game, a contest / match, n. -a short
piece of wood used for producing fire; wren, n. — a member of the Women's Royal Naval
Service / wren, n. — a bird

2) Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:

A. 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 is never the
same form, as will be seen from the examples. E. g. (to) found, v. - found, v. (Past Indef.,
Past Part. of to( find); [to bound, v. - bound, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to (bind)]

B. Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of

parts of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms.

E. g. rose, n. - rose, v. (Past Indef. of to rise); maid, n. - made, v. (Past Indef., Past Part,
of to make; left, adj. - left, v. (Past Indef., Past Part, of to leave.

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 C. 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), v. to lie (lied, lied),
v.

to hang (hung, hung), v.; to hang (hanged, hanged), v.

A more detailed classification was given by Professor Arnold. She classified only
perfect homonyms and suggested four criteria of their classification: 1) lexical meaning, 2)
grammatical meaning, 3) basic forms and 4) paradigms.

According to these criteria Arnold pointed out the following groups:

1. homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings, basic forms and paradigms

and different in their lexical meanings, e.g. «board» in the meanings «a council»
and « a piece of wood sawn thin»;
2. homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings and basic forms, different
in their lexical meanings and paradigms, e.g. to lie - lied - lied, and to lie - lay -
lain;
3. homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings,
paradigms, but coinciding in their basic forms, e.g. «light» / «lights»/, «light» /
«lighter», «lightest»/;
4. homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, in their
basic forms and paradigms, but coinciding in one of the forms of their
paradigms, e.g. «a bit» and «bit» (from « to bite»).

In I. V. Arnold’s classification there are also patterned homonyms, which, differing

from other homonyms, have a common component in their lexical meanings. These are
homonyms formed either by means of conversion, or by levelling of grammar inflexions.
These homonyms are different in their grammar meanings, in their paradigms, identical
in their basic forms, e.g. «warm» - «to warm». Here we can also have unchangeable
patterned homonyms which have identical basic forms, different grammatical meanings,
a common component in their lexical meanings, e.g. «before» an adverb, a conjunction, a
preposition. There are also homonyms among unchangeable words which are different in
their lexical and grammatical meanings, identical in their basic foms, e.g. « for» - «для»
and «for» - «ибо».

Synonyms

Synonyms. Sources of synonymy. Classification of synonyms. Antonyms.

Classification of antonyms

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 A synonym – is a word of similar or identical meaning to one or more words in the
same language. All languages contain synonyms but in English they exist in
superabundance.

Classification:

1. Total synonyms

an extremely rare occurrence

Ulman: “a luxury that language can hardly afford.”

M. Breal spoke about a law of distribution in the language (words should be

synonyms, were synonyms in the past usually acquire different meanings and are no
longer interchangeable).

Ex.: бегемот – гиппопотам

2. Ideographic synonyms.

They bear the same idea but not identical in their referential content.

Ex.: to ascent – to mount – to climb

To happen – to occur – to befall – to chance

Look – appearance – complexion – countenance

3. Dialectical synonyms.

Ex.: lift – elevator

Queue – line

Autumn – fall

4. Contextual synonyms.

Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades & suppress other semantic trades;
words with different meaning can become synonyms in a certain context.

Ex.: tasteless – dull

Active – curious

Curious – responsive

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 Synonyms can reflect social conventions.

Ex.: Clever (neutral)

Bright (Only speaking about younger people by older people)

Brainy (Is not used by the higher educated people)

Intelligent (Positive connotation)

Dever-clever (Stylistically remarked)

5. Stylistic synonyms.

Belong to different styles.

Child (neutral) - Infant (elevated) – Kid (colloquial)

To die (neutral) - To kick the bucket (colloquial).

Sources of synonymy.

Synonymy – the coincidence in the essential meanings of linguistic elements which

(at the same time) usually preserve their differences in connotations and stylistic
characteristics.

O. Jespersen and many others used to stress that the English language is especially rich
in synonyms, because Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans fighting and settling
upon the soil of the British Isles could not but influence each other’s speech. British
scholars studied Greek and Latin and for centuries used Latin as a medium for
communication on scholarly topics. Synonymy has its characteristic patterns in each
language. Its peculiar feature in English is the contrast between simple native words
stylistically neutral, literary words borrowed from French and learned words of Greco-
Latin origin. New words may be formed by affixation or loss of affixes, by conversion,
compounding, shortening and so on, and being coined, form synonyms to those already in
use.

Antonyms – 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. (lexical sets (предметные или
тематические группы) - words denoting different things correlated on extralinguistic

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grounds: lion, tiger, leopard, puma, cat refer to the lexical set of “the animals of the cat
family’; words describing different sides of one and the same general notion are united in
a lexico-semantic group: group denoting “physical movement” – to go, to turn, to run).
There exist different classifications of antonyms.Structurally, antonyms can be divided
into antonyms of the same root (1), e.g. to do – to undo, cheerful – cheerless, and
antonyms of different roots (2), e.g. day – night, rich – poor. Semantically, antonyms may
be classified into contradictories, contraries and incompatibles.

1. 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.

2. Contraries are antonyms that can be arranged into a series according to the
increasing difference in one of their qualities. 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.

3. Incompatibles are antonyms which are characterized by the relations of exclusion.

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. A relation
of incompatibility may be also observed between colour terms since the choice of red, for
example, entails the exclusion of black, blue, yellow, etc.

Antonym

Antonym in general shares many features typical of synonymy. Like synonyms,

perfect or complete antonyms are fairly rare.

It is usual to find the relations of antonym restricted to certain contexts. Thus thick is
only one of the antonyms of thin (a thin slice—a thick slice), another is fat (a thin man—
a fat man).

The definition of antonyms as words characterised by semantic polarity or opposite

meaning is open to criticism on the points discussed already in connection with
synonymy. It is also evident that the term opposite meaning is rather vague and allows of
essentially different interpretation.

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 If we compare the meaning of the words kind — ‘gentle, friendly, showing love,
sympathy or thought for others’ and cruel — ‘taking pleasure in giving pain to others,
without mercy’, we see that they denote concepts that are felt as completely opposed to
each other. Comparing the adjective kind and unkind we do not find any polarity of
meaning as here semantic opposition is confined to simple negation. Unkind may be
interpreted as not kind which does not necessarily mean cruel, just as not beautiful does
not necessarily mean ugly.

It is more or less universally recognised that among the cases that are traditionally
described as antonyms there are at least the following four groups.1

1. Contradictories which represent the type of semantic relations that exist between
pairs like dead and alive, single and married, perfect and imperfect, etc.

To use one of the terms is to contradict the other and to use not before one of them is
to make it semantically equivalent to the other, cf. not dead=alive, not single=married.

Among contradictories we find a subgroup of words of the type young — old, big —
small, and so on. The difference between these and the antonymic pairs described above
lies in the fact that to say not young is not necessarily to say old. In fact terms like young
and old, big and small or few and many do not represent absolute values. To use one of
the terms is to imply comparison with some norm: young means ‘relatively young’. We
can say She is young but she is older than her sister. To be older does not mean ‘to be old’.

It is also usual for one member of each pair to always function as the unmarked or
generic term for the common quality involved in both members: age, size, etc.

This generalised denotational meaning comes to the fore in certain contexts. When
we ask How old is the baby? we do not imply that the baby is old. The question How big
is it? may be answered by It is very big or It is very small.

It is of interest to note that quality nouns such as length, breadth, width, thickness,
etc. also are generic, i.e. they cover the entire measurement range while the
corresponding antonymous nouns shortness, narrowness, thinness apply only to one of
the extremes.

2. Contraries differ from contradictories mainly because contradictories admit of no

possibility between them. One is either single or married, either dead or alive, etc.
whereas contraries admit such possibilities. This may be observed in cold — hot, and cool
and warm which seem to be intermediate members. Thus we may regard as antonyms not
only cold and hot but also cold and warm.

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 Contraries may be opposed to each other by the absence or presence of one of the
components of meaning like sex or age. This can be illustrated by such pairs as man —
woman, man — boy.

3. Incompatibles. Semantic relations of incompatibility exist among the antonyms

with the common component of meaning and may be described as the reverse of
hyponymy, i.e. as the relations of exclusion but not of contradiction. To say morning is to
say not afternoon, not evening, not night. The negation of one member of this set
however does not imply semantic equivalence with the other but excludes the possibility
of the other words of this set. A relation of incompatibility may be observed between
colour terms since the choice of red, e.g., entails the exclusion of black, blue, yellow and
so on. Naturally not all colour terms are incompatible. Semantic relations between scarlet
and red are those of hyponymy.

We know that polysemy may be analysed through synonymy. For example, different
meaning of the polysemantic word handsome can be singled out by means of synonymic
substitution a handsome man—a beautiful man; but a handsome reward—a generous
reward. In some cases polysemy may be also analysed through antonymy (e.g. a
handsome man—an ugly man, a handsome reward—an insufficient reward, etc.). This is
naturally not to say that the number of meanings of a polysemantic word is equal to the
number of its antonyms. Not all words or all meanings have antonyms (e.g. table, book,
etc. have no antonyms). In some cases, however, antonymy and synonymy serve to
differentiate the meanings as in the word handsome discussed above. Interchangeability
in certain contexts analysed in connection with synonyms is typical of antonyms as well.
In a context where one member of the antonymous pair can be used, it is, as a rule,
interchangeable with the other member. For instance, if we take the words dry and wet
to be antonymous, they must be interchangeable in the same context (e.g. a wet shirt—a
dry shirt). This is not to imply that the same antonyms are interchangeable in all
contexts. It was pointed out above that antonyms that belong to the group of contraries
are found in various antonymic pairs. Thus, for instance there are many antonyms of dry
— damp, wet, moist, etc.

The interchangeability of each of them with dry is confined to certain contexts. In

contrast to dry air we select damp air and in contrast to dry lips—we would probably use
moist lips.

It is therefore suggested that the term "antonyms" should be used as a general term to
describe words different in sound-form and characterised by different types of semantic
contrast of denotational meaning and interchangeability at least in some contexts.

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 Lexical groups composed of words with semantically and phonemically identical root-
morphemes are usually defined as word-families or word-clusters. The term itself implies
close links between the members of the group. Such are word-families of the type: lead,
leader, leadership; dark, darken, darkness; form, formal, formality and others. It should be
noted that members of a word-family as a rule belong to different parts of speech and are
joined together only by the identity of root-morphemes. In the word-families discussed
above the root-morphemes are identical not only in meaning but also in sound-form.
There are cases, however, when the sound-form of root-morphemes may be different, as
for example in sun, sunny, solar; mouth, oral, orally; brother, brotherly, fraternal, etc.;
their semantic similarity however, makes it possible to include them in a word-family. In
such cases it is usual to speak of lexical suppletion, i.e. formation of related words of a
word-family from phonemically different roots. As a rule in the word-families of this
type we are likely to encounter etymologically different words, e.g. the words brother
and mouth are of Germanic origin, whereas fraternal and oral can be easily traced back to
Latin. We frequently find synonymic pairs of the type fatherly— paternal, brotherly—
fraternal.

Semantic and phonemic identity of affixational morphemes can be observed in the

lexical groups of the type darkness, cleverness, calmness, etc.; teacher, reader, writer, etc.
In such word-groups as, e.g. teacher, musician, etc., only semantic similarity of
derivational affixes is observed. As derivational affixes impart to the words a certain
generalised meaning, we may single out lexical groups denoting the agent, the doer of the
action (Nomina Agenti)—teacher, reader, etc. or lexical groups denoting actions (Nomina
Acti)—movement, transformation, etc. and others.

Antonym Examples
An antonym is the opposite of another word. Antonyms can be used to help show
contrast between two things or give clues to exactly what is meant. Below are some
examples of antonyms:
 Achieve – Fail
 Idle – Active
 Afraid – Confident
 Ancient – Modern
 Arrive – Depart
 Arrogant – Humble
 Ascend – Descend
 Attack – Defend
 Blunt – Sharp
 Brave – Cowardly
 Cautious – Careless

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 Complex – Simple
 Compliment – Insult
 Crazy – Sane
 Crooked – Straight
 Decrease – Increase
 Demand – Supply
 Destroy – Create
 Divide – Unite
 Drunk – Sober
 Expand – Contract
 Freeze – Boil
 Full – Empty
 Generous – Stingy
 Giant – Dwarf
 Gloomy – Cheerful
 Guilty – Innocent
 Hire – Fire
 Include – Exclude
 Individual – Group
 Innocent – Guilty
 Knowledge – Ignorance
 Liquid – Solid
 Major – Minor
 Marvelous – Terrible
 Mature – Immature
 Maximum - Minimum
 Noisy – Quiet
 Optimist - Pessimist
 Ordinary – Extraordinary
 Partial – Complete
 Passive – Active
 Permanent – Unstable
 Plentiful – Sparse
 Positive – Negative
 Powerful – Weak
 Praise – Criticism
 Private – Public
 Problem – Solution
 Professional – Amateur
 Profit – Loss
 Quality – Inferiority
 Random – Specific
 Rigid – Flexible
 Segregate – Integrate

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  Shame – Honor
 Simple - Complicated
 Single – Married
 Strength – Weakness
 Sunny - Cloudy
 Superb – Awful
 Temporary – Permanent
 Timid – Bold
 Toward – Away
 Tragic – Comic
 Transparent - Opaque
 Triumph – Defeat
 Union – Separation
 Unique – Common
 Upset – Relaxed
 Urge – Deter
 Vacant – Occupied
 Vague – Definite
 Vertical – Horizontal
 Villain – Hero
 Visible - Invisible
 Wax - Wane
 Wealth – Poverty

Synonym Examples
Synonyms can provide you with variety in speech or writing. There are endless
examples of synonyms, making it easy for you to avoid overusing the same word and
sounding repetitive. Some examples of synonyms include the following:
 Amazing, astounding, surprising, stunning
 Annihilation, destruction, carnage, extinction
 Benefit, profit, revenue, yield
 Brave, courageous, valiant, heroic
 Center, middle, inside, midpoint
 Cunning, keen, sharp, slick
 Destitute, poor, bankrupt, impoverished
 Deterioration, pollution, defilement, adulteration
 Enormous, huge, gigantic, massive
 Evil, bad, wicked, vile, malicious
 Fertile, fruitful, abundant, productive
 House, dwelling, abode, domicile
 Hungry, ravenous, empty
 Injured, damaged, wounded, harmed

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  Intelligent, clever, brilliant, knowledgeable
 Look, glance, see, gaze, stare
 Loyal, faithful, ardent, devoted
 Old, elderly, aged, senior
 Organization, institution, management
 Partner, associate, colleague, companion
 Polite, courteous, cordial, gracious
 Quick, fast, swift, speedy, rapid
 Risky, dangerous, perilous, treacherous
 Sleepy, drowsy, listless, sluggish
 True, correct, right, accurate, exact
 Under, below, beneath, lower
 Vacant, empty, deserted, uninhabited
 Woman, lady, female, girl
 Wet, damp, moist, soaked, soggy

Homonym Examples
Homonyms are words that have the same spelling and pronunciation but have
different meanings. The following are examples of homonyms:
 Address - manner of speaking to another / Address - description of a
property location
 Arm – body part / Arm – division of a company
 Bat – an implement used to hit a ball / Bat – a nocturnal flying mammal
 Bear - an animal / Bear - to tolerate something
 Book - to reserve a hotel room or a table at a restaurant / Book – pages of
writing bound together with a cover
 Bright – very smart or intelligent / Bright – filled with light
 Cave - to give in or surrender / Cave – a hole or gap in a rock or in earth
 Chair - an item of furniture / Chair – the distinguished head of a
department
 Change - to replace the clothing you are wearing with another outfit /
Change – money given back after a purchase
 Cool - chilly in temperature / Cool – someone trendy or popular
 Crane - a large type of bird / Crane – a mechanical device used for lifting
 Deck - a pack of playing cards / Deck - to punch someone and knock them
out
 Dive – to go down quickly / Dive – an unpleasant place
 Duck - a type of bird / Duck – to lower your head or body in order to avoid
being hit by something
 Employ - to put into use / Employ – to hire someone for a job
 Even - without any variation / Even – flat and level surface

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  Express – something done fast / Express – to show your thoughts by using
words
 File - to store computer data / File – to make a formal request
 Fine – being of high quality / Fine – sum of money used as a penalty
 Fire - to terminate someone from a job / Fire – a blaze
 Grave – something very serious / Grave – a place to bury the dead
 Groom - to make tidy in appearance / Groom – the man who is about to get
married
 Gross - disgusting / Gross – large
 Hide – to keep something secret / Hide – the skin of an animal
 Iron – to press or smooth / Iron – silvery-gray metal
 Jam – pack tightly / Jam – spread made from fruit and sugar
 Key - scale of musical notes / Key – device used to lock or unlock a door
 Left - side of the body / Left – what is remaining of something
 Light - to set fire / Light – pale in color
 Line – a continous length / Line – verse in a poem or story
 Man - male person / Man – to brace or fortify
 Match - competitive sporting event / Match – a device used to start a fire
 Nail - the end plate of your finger or toe / Nail – spike shaped metal
fastener
 Park - area used for recreation / Park – to bring a vehicle to a halt
 Pen – an instrument for writing / Pen - type of enclosure for animals
 Ring – a band on a finger / Ring – something circular in shape
 Right – correct / Right – direction opposite of left
 Rock – a genre of music / Rock – a stone
 Seal - a type of mammal / Seal – a tight closure
 Show - to display / Show – a type of broadcast
 Sign - omen / Sign – to write your signature on something to make it
official
 Stalk – a part of a plant / Stalk – to follow or harass someone
 Tank - military vehicle / Tank- container used to store liquid
 Tire - rubber covering of a wheel / Tire – to become bored with or in need
of rest
 Trip - to stumble / Trip - journey
 Wave - move your hand sideways to say hello / Wave – a movement in
water
 Watch - wearable timepiece / Watch – to observe
 Well- in good health / Well – a source for water in the ground
 Yard – space around a house / Yard – measurement of length

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 Unit 10

English language lexis as a system

How is it that English has such a huge vocabulary, larger than any other language on
earth? In addition to various word formation mechanisms existing in other languages,
such as onomatopoeia, derivation, affixation, compounding and functional extension, the
major source for the large variety of English words is its dramatic history. The 1,600 years
of English existence have been witness to massive revolutionary changes in the language
as it mixed with and continuously borrowed from other languages, with which it came
into contact.

Early English roots trace back to the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain in the
5th and 6th centuries resulting in Old English being mainly Germanic. 83% of the most
common 1000 words in today's English are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

Old English Words

• nouns: house, mother, father ,cow, God, gold, work, land, winter
• verbs: be, have, do, say, come, make
• adjectives: good, new, and long
• function words: he, of, him, for, and, under, on

Already in this period of Old English, the language began applying its inclination to
ravenously borrow words from other languages. From the native Celts, it took clan, bin,
gull, and crag, as well as names for places and rivers (Dover, Kent, Severn, and Thames).

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Latin words arrived even earlier with the Roman conquest of 43 B.C. (cheese, cup,
kitchen, plant, street, wine). A later wave of Latin words was brought with Christian
monks and missionaries seeking to convert the Anglo-Saxons, enriching the language
with both religious and secular words, such as abbot, altar, acolyte, candle, martyr, Mass,
and lily.

The next addition to the vocabulary to close the Old English period resulted from the
Viking invasions to Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries. These newcomers, who had
settled alongside the Anglo-Saxons, contributed Old Norse vocabulary such as the
following:

From Old Norse: flat, cake, take, get, call, husband, want, cut, both, ugly, fellow, hit,
odd, egg, sister, law, leg, rag, window, die, are (form of the verb be)

• words beginning with sk sound: scorch, scrape, scrub, skill, and sky
• The personal pronouns: they, their, them

Synonymous word sets such as those presented above already show up in this period:
sick vs. ill, shirt vs. skirt, wrath vs. anger, rear vs. raise, hide vs. skin, the first Anglo-
Saxon, the second Old Norse, respectively. The all-in-all contribution of words from
Germanic origins (Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse etc.) amounts to about 23% of the current
English vocabulary.

The year 1066 marked the dramatic transition to Middle English, with William the
Conqueror, king of Normandy in Western France, drawing his army into Britain. Old
French thus became the spoken language of the ruling classes: the nobles, bankers,
lawmakers, and scholars; the peasants and lower classes spoke Anglo-Saxon and some
surviving Celtic dialects; the clergy used Latin. In the coming 400 years, Middle English
gradually overthrew French and became the language of all classes, but words for
government, religion, food, law, art, literature, and medicine are originally French.

From Norman French: parliament, justice, crime, marriage, money, ornament, art,
pleasure, joy, rent.

The parallel usage of several languages has resulted in some famous duplicate and
triplicate synonym sets. For instance, kingly (from Old English), royal (from French), and
regal (from Latin). As well as house-mansion, wood-forest, answer-reply, yearly-annual,
room-chamber, wish-desire, might-power, worthy-honorable, and bold-courageous (the
former from Old-English, the latter from French, respectively).

Another fascinating example of the social divide between language users of Middle
English is shown in nouns denoting different kinds of meats. The English speaking

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peasants who raised the animals used the Anglo-Saxon words (swine/pig, sheep, ox, cow,
calf, deer), whereas the French speaking elite, who could afford eating these meats
regularly, used the French equivalents (pork, bacon, mutton, beef, veal, venison,
respectively). Today, these duplicates remain in common use in modern English, using
different words for the animals and the meats produced from them. The contribution of
both Norman and Modern French to English is estimated in about 29% of the current
vocabulary.

The Renaissance arrived to England in around 1500 with a burst of literary works
being published in Early Modern English thanks to the developments in mass printing. It
was only at this time that some initial consolidation was beginning to occur in the
language's vocabulary. After centuries of the church dictating religious guidelines for the
cultural and spiritual life of Europeans, an increased nostalgic interest in the humanistic
values of ancient Greece and Rome produced a torrent of unparalleled creativity.

Scholarly research was written in Latin, as English was considered poor in vocabulary
and too crude for expressing abstract ideas. A large portion of such words was originally
Latin but entered English through their French manifestation. The education of children,
however, was now being carried out in English. This entailed the use of new words from
Greek, while Latin continued to be a steady source of vocabulary.

From Greek: democracy, hexagon, monogamy, physics, rhythm, theory

From Latin: client, conviction, index, library, medicine, orbit, recipe

Key cultural achievements of this period were the first official publication of the Bible
in English (the Saint James Bible) and the immense corpus of William Shakespeare's
literary enterprise, and that of other writers. Shakespeare contributed a wealth of newly
coined and/or borrowed English words.

From William Shakespeare: courtship, bedroom, discontent, accused, addiction,

amazement, assassination, critic, employer, engagements, savagery, transcendence,
urging, watchdog, zany.

The word set for naming a person riding a horse provides an illustrative interim
summary for the development of English vocabulary up to this point. The simplest option
is rider (from the Anglo-Saxon ritter, horseman entered through the influence of the
Vikings' Old Norse *hross. Knight, originally Old English *cniht, began being used around
1300. Cavalier (from French chevalier), or the elegantly elevated equestrian, directly
derived from Latin, comprise the more elevated choices here.

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 With more published material in English, England's rise to power under Elizabeth 1,
and increased English influence on international business and trade, diplomacy, and
colonialism, English was brought to the fore as the national language of England, proudly
used by all the English people. The year 1650 marks the transition into the Modern
English period. Further factors contributed to the growth of English as a powerful
language. Political upheavals led to the rise of port towns and former lower classes that
further strengthened common English usage. The publication of the first comprehensive
and official dictionary of the English language by Samuel Johnson in 1755 began the
process of canonizing the written language. As education in English was now being
offered to the masses, who also enjoyed access to libraries in English, more and more
people could enrich their vocabularies and improve their English language aptitude.

The scientific revolution and renewed interest in the classics during the 19th century
have opened the gate for yet another wave of scientific and technical terms for newly
found concepts and discoveries – all derived from Greek and Latin roots, prefixes and
suffixes. The current proportion of Latin words in English is 29%, while Greek
contributes about 6%.

From Latin: aquarium, binoculars, radioactive, ambiguous, intermission, itinerary,

rejuvenate, supersonic, quadrangle, submarine, multitude, linguistic

From Greek: Zoology, philanthropy, bacteria, chlorophyll, psychosis, cholesterol,

cyanide, chromosome, metamorphosis, thermometer, trauma, xenophobia, telegraph,
telephone, polymer, orthodoxy

The British colonization of North America, Australia and parts of Asia and Africa has
resulted in the creation of whole continents speaking English, which in turn has been
enriched by the mother tongues of locals and immigrants. In 1828, Noah Webster
published the first official dictionary of American English, which established differences
in spelling between British and American English and further paved the way to
differences in vocabulary between these two language varieties. The rise of the mass
media during the 20th century: newspapers, cinema, radio, television and The Internet
have given the latest push to English in becoming a global language, as English is the
main language used. This in turn brings more words into English from just about any
other language on the planet but also has the potential to disintegrate English itself to
new emerging local English varieties.

A steady influx of international words has been coming in during the past two
centuries. Just think about the words for all food sorts introduced form each origin
language! The following table presents some common examples:

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 From Spanish: aficionado, amigo, burrito, canyon, caramba, cargo, embargo,
guacamole, guitar, macho, marijuana, mustang, poncho, pueblo, rodeo, taco, plaza, vanilla

From Modern French: caf, lingerie, connoisseur , coup d'atat, en route, hors d'auvre,
panache, sabotage, envelope, and avalanche, not to mention chic, vis-a-vis, attach, and a
la carte, bon voyage, rendezvous

From German: kindergarten, poodle, yodel, blitzkrieg, zeitgeist, angst, delicatessen,

hamburger, schnitzel

From Dutch: brandy, yacht, waffle, apartheid, boss, cookie, dam, drill, tattoo, cruiser

From Italian: balcony, casino, umbrella, balloon, carnival, ghetto, graffiti, Madonna,
Mezzanine, spaghetti, pasticcio, cappuccino, (and many other foods), concert, piano,
maestro, soprano, andante, opera (and other musical terms)

From Arabic: alcohol, algebra, candy, lemon, azimuth, elixir, giraffe, gazelle, sugar

From the languages of India: chutney, bandana, curry, amok polo, bungalow, jungle,
loot, shampoo, pajamas

From Japanese: futon, tycoon, kimono, Ninja, Karaoke, Zen, karate, sushi, bonsai,
origami

From African languages: banana, yam, voodoo, banjo, chimpanzee, zebra

From Native American languages: chipmunk, moccasin, tipi (also spelled teepee),
skunk, squash, pecan, persimmon, skunk, totem, quinine, avocado, chocolate, wigwam,
raccoon, tomato, hurricane

From languages of the Pacific boomerang, kangaroo, sarong, ketchup, koala, kiwi

In sum, other languages than Germanic, French, Latin and Greek have contributed
6% to the vocabulary of English, while the 4 % remaining derive from proper names.

The riches of the English vocabulary allow us to use a vast array of word synonyms to
express subtle nuances in meaning. Familiarity with the origins of the words and their
shades of meaning can help you make the right choice in your English writing.

A theory of semantic field. Thematic groups.

A thematic group is a subsystem of the vocabulary for which the basis of grouping is
not only linguistic but also extralinguistic: the words are associated because the things
they name occur together and are closely connected in reality, e.g.:

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 1. terms of kinship: father, cousin, mother-in-law, uncle;
2. names for parts of the human body: head, neck, arm, foot, thumb;
3. colour terms: blue, green, yellow, red / scarlet, crimson, coral;
4. military terms: lieutenant, captain, major, colonel, general.

An ideographic group unites thematically related words of different parts of speech;

here words and expressions are classed not according to their lexico-grammatical meaning
but strictly according to their signification, i.e. to the system of logical notions, e.g.:

‘Trade’: to buy, to sell, to pay, to cost, a price, money, cash, a receipt, expensive etc.

As a rule, ideographic groups deal with contexts on the level of the sentence. Words
in ideographic groups are joined together by common contextual associations within the
framework of the sentence and reflect the interlinking of things or events, e.g.:

‘Going by train’: railway, a journey, a train, a train station, timetable, a platform, a

passenger, a single ticket, a return ticket, luggage, a smoking carriage, a non-smoking
carriage, a dining-car, to enquire, to catch the train, to miss the train etc.

In modern linguistics there are about 70 kinds of ‘fields’ and over a hundred
approaches to defining what a field is.

A semantic field is the extensive organisation of related words and expressions into a
system which shows their relations to one another.

The significance of each unit is determined by its neighbours, with the units’ semantic
areas reciprocally limiting each other.

The members of the semantic fields are joined together by some common semantic
component known as the common denominator of meaning.

‘Human Mind’: mind, reason, cognition, idea, concept, judgment, analysis, conclusion;
to think, to conclude, to consider, to reflect, to mediate, to reminisce, to contemplate;
intelligent, wise, smart, knowledgeable, witless, dim-witted etc.

A lexico-semantic group is singled out on purely linguistic principles: words are

united if they have one or more semantic components in common, but differ in some
other semantic components constituting their semantic structures. The

This type of groupings is mostly applied to verbs, e.g.

1. verbs of sense perception: to see, to hear, to feel, to taste;

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 2. verbs denoting speech acts: to speak, to talk, to chat, to natter, to
mumble, to ramble, to stammer, to converse;
3. verbs of motion: to walk, to run, to tiptoe, to stroll, to stagger, to
stomp, to swagger, to wander

Neologisms. Their sources and formation.

A neologism (Gr néos ‘new’ and logos ‘word, study’) is a new lexical unit introduced
into a language to denote a new object or phenomenon. The term is first attested in
English in 1772, borrowed from French néologisme. Neologisms are often directly
attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event.

While the typical lexical growth areas of the 1980s were the media, computers,
finance, money, environment, political correctness, youth culture and music, the 1990s
saw significant lexical expansion in the areas of politics, the media and the Internet.

Nonce words (occasional words) (an ellipsis of the phrase for the nonce ‘for the once’)
are lexical units created by the speaker on the spur of the moment, for a given occasion
only, and may be considered as ‘potentially’ existing in the English vocabulary, e.g. what-
d’you-call-him /-her/-it/-them, n. is used instead of a name that one cannot remember.

A lot of neologisms resulted from nonce words, e.g. yuppie, n. ‘a well-paid young
middle-class professional who works in a city job and has a luxurious lifestyle’; coach
potato, soap opera, generation X, thirty-something, glass ceiling ‘an unacknowledged
barrier to advancement in a profession, especially affecting women and members of
minorities’; gerrymander /'dʒɛrɪ‚mandə/, v. ‘manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral
constituency) so as to favour one party or class’.

Semantic neologisms – new meanings of already existing words – result from semantic
derivation due to the functional mobility of the vocabulary:

1. virus, n. ‘a piece of code which is capable of copying itself and

typically has a detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroying
data’;
2. black hole ‘a place where money or lost items apparently disappear
without trace’;
3. trophy, adj. ‘used for impressing others, in sb’s opinion’ as in trophy
wife ‘a young and attractive wife who is regarded as a status symbol for the
husband, who is often older and affluent’, trophy-child ‘a child whose birth or
achievements are paraded to enhance the parents' status’;

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 4. spin, n. ‘a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an
interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or
against a certain organisation or public figure’ as in spin doctor, spin crew, spin
journalism.

5. to open the kimono ‘to open a company's accounting books for

inspection; to expose something previously hidden’; a sleep camel ‘a person
who gets little sleep during the week, and then attempts to make up for it by
sleeping in and napping on the weekend’; to put skin in the game ‘take an
active interest in a company or undertaking by making a significant
investment or financial commitment’;

Kvetko (1999:6) regards a language “as a system of levels: phonic, grammatical and
lexical. Each of the levels constitutes a system in itself. These subsystems are linked and
mutually interdependent.” This signifies that vocabulary is a part of the language system,
in much the same way as it is a system itself. For this purpose, Kvetko (1999:7) further
explains: “vocabulary is the system of lexico-semantic interdependent items (words or
fixed collocations). It is the least stable system and has a relatively unlimited number of
items in it. The openness of vocabulary lies in the fact that it is constantly changing,
bringing in new words from other languages, losing words, adapting others to new
conditions, etc.”

In the conditions of schools and education, we need to be aware of what the term
vocabulary means.

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2003:1423) defines vocabulary as “all the

words known and used by a particular person” and as “all the words which exist in a
particular language or subject”.

Ur (1996:60) (in Hrehovčík, Uberman, 2003:130) describes vocabulary “as the words
we teach in the foreign language. However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a
single word: for example, post office and mother-in-law, which are made up of two or
three words but express a single idea. There are also multi-word idioms such as call it a
day, where the meaning of the phrase cannot be deduced from an analysis of the
component words. A useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about
vocabulary ‘items’ rather than ’words’.”

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 Various sources differentiate between ‘active’ or ‘productive’ and ‘passive’ or
‘receptive’ vocabulary. Hrehovčík and Uberman (2003:140) assert:

“Active (productive) vocabulary refers to language items, which can be recalled and
used appropriately by learners in speech and writing; this range includes words which
students will need to understand as well as use themselves.” In addition, learners need to
know the contexts in which the lexical items can occur, their possible collocations and
“more details of the connotational meaning of the word” (Lewis and Hill, 1992:99, in
Hrehovčík, Uberman, 2003:140).

“Passive (receptive) vocabulary, as opposed to its active counterpart, describes

language items, which can only be recognised and understood in the context”. Here
belong words, which teachers want students to understand (e.g. while reading a text), but
which they will perhaps not need to use themselves. “If a student has passive knowledge
of a certain item, its meaning will be recognised when it occurs in context” (Hrehovčík,
Uberman, 2003:140).

However, encountering and understanding a word are seldom enough. When we

meet people, depth and interaction are necessary if the encounter is to be meaningful and
memorable. Thus the attention is to be paid not only to passive knowledge of a word, but
also to its active usage and performance. To put it in another way, students have to get a
chance to work with words, interact with them, practice and employ them while
performing different skills.

We would like to round off these paragraphs by saying that vocabulary acquisition is
central to the theory and practice of English language teaching and learning. Teachers
have to recognise the need to devote time to vocabulary teaching. They should focus not
only on students’ learning processes, but also on the understanding and active usage of
vocabulary items by students. In fact, they should concentrate on developing both, active
and passive vocabulary. If students do not use and understand the lexical system of the
target language, they will not be able to communicate and interact with foreigners, even
if they are good at grammar. Therefore learners have to experiment with the new
language and its vocabulary, if teachers wish to make the learning experience meaningful
and memorable to them.

WORD

The stock of vocabulary consists of countless words, or items. Language learners need
to learn the lexis of the language. They need to know what words mean and how they are

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used. On the following pages we are going to concentrate on a word, what knowing a
word means, and what else needs to be taken into consideration about a word.

The definition of a word is one of the most difficult tasks in linguistics and has been
an issue of some controversy. There occur many definitions of a word, given by numbers
of linguists and theorists. Štekauer (2000:137) gives these thoughts and definitions:

“Word (not a compound word) is a sequence of sounds (rarely a single sound) or its
representation in writing that communicates a meaning… It cannot be divided into
smaller units of independent use … Also, a word cannot accept any insertion of further
material, it is a relatively stable unit which can be arranged in structures with other such
units to form sentences of the language.

…In a sense, each word is a lexico-grammatical unit because it belongs to a particular

word category, i.e. a class of units with a function they share. One word may function
even as a sentence.”

Furthermore, Štekauer (2000:63) claims that “a ‘word’ is a semantic entity, namely,

that it is a linguistic unit of a single meaning. In other words, a ‘word’ is believed to
convey one complete thought.”

Kvetko (1999:35) distinguishes among the following types of words:

– “simple words, which cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful units: play,
bed, house, nice;

– derived words – derivates (formed from a simple word/base by adding an affix):

disadvantage, player, impossible, frighten, nicely;

– compound words – compounds: (made up of two or more words/bases): bedroom,

sportsman, armchair, mother-in-law, good-tempered.”

KNOWING A WORD

In order to ‘know a word’ students need to be familiar with many facets of it. Namely
they should acquire its written and spoken form that is how words are spelt and how they
sound. They should also be aware of its meaning, collocations, word formation processes,
and of how the form of a word can be changed. Moreover, students must bear in mind
not only the grammatical rules while interacting with the language, but the word
grammar as well. We can see that the acquisition of a word is really complex.

What does ‘knowing a word’ mean?

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 People uninterested in linguistics and methodology may assume that ‘to know’ a word
means to know its meaning. However, we suppose that the answer to this question is
more difficult. We presume this because of everything that has been written above. We
understand that a word may have more than just one meaning, that we have to know its
potentials in regard of word-formation processes and collocations, and so on.

At the same time, however, we see that it is impossible to know everything about
every single English word. Thus we doubt a bit “the following conditions that every
learner needs to fulfill in order to fully know a word (introduced by Faerch, et al.
1984:99, in Hrehovčík, Uberman, 2003:136):

– the learner must know the full meaning potential of the word, not just one specific
meaning

– the learner must know what the appropriate situations are for using the word

– the learner must know in what ways the word can combine with other words (e.g.
collocational restrictions)

– the learner must know the relations between the word and the other words within
a lexical set (relations of hyponymy, antonymy, etc.)”

All the conditions presented above suggest a big difficulty in everyday school practice.
It is unrealistic to teach students all the potential meanings of a word, or to present the
whole range of collocations to them. At the elementary level these tasks are unachievable
for learners, and it is not much better at the intermediate level. In our opinion, even
native speakers would have problems in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements.
Thus teachers should decide which meanings, collocations, situational usages, and
relations among words they would emphasise in order to pass on the information needed
in that particular situation of the teaching/learning process.

It seems valuable to teach words/vocabulary in context. The context gives learners an

opportunity to see words in their environments, to see how they behave and interact
together. Furthermore, the context enables learners to classify vocabulary items into sets,
and learners will thus remember the topical linkages of individual words. The words’
collocations are naturally acquired through contexts, too.

MEANING

Štekauer (2000:140) states that “the lexical unit, as a language sign, is a fusion of form
and meaning”. In this sense, a word has its shape, i.e. the written and spoken form, and it
also has its meaning, i.e. the idea it conveys.

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 Almost every word has a meaning, which corresponds to the object or idea it refers to.
Learners of a foreign language have to be taught words, through which they express their
thoughts and opinions. In fact, by means of words, we transfer their meanings to our
listeners or readers.

The term meaning is rather ambiguous. There exist some phenomena, introduced by
Kvetko (1999:8), which are accounted for when thinking of meaning:

– “a word can have more than one meaning: head (a part of the body, a leader, a part
of the top of an object);

– different words can have the same/similar meanings: small – little;

– some pairs of words have opposite meanings: short – tall;

– the meaning of some words can be analysed into components: mare (female,
horse);

– the meanings of some words are included in the meanings of others: plant (tree –
birch), etc.”

In compliance with Štekauer (2000:140) “lexical meaning is a communicative value”.

A word with its meaning “is a structure with a central core, a periphery, and with various
values that go with the central content, with the denotation. These extra values are the
connotations, such as the stylistic and the pragmatic value. To know the full meaning of a
lexical unit, however, implies also knowing its external relationships. In other words, the
meaning of a word is to be treated in terms of how it functions in various sentences, i.e. in
communicative situations.”

Hrehovčík, Uberman (2003:132) contribute to the topic of meanings and deal with
connotation. “Connotation refers to the way a vocabulary item reflects speaker’s attitude
or emotions”; e.g. Jon is a single man differs from Jon is a bachelor.

From the point of view of learners, Hrehovčík and Uberman identify three main areas
of connotation:

– “intrinsic connotation - certain items intrinsically have a positive or negative

connotation; e.g. kiss, naive;

– speaker’s attitude – the understanding of the same item or expression used by

speakers in different contexts may vary; e.g. popular: This hotel is very popular with
tourists. It is a popular misconception that all women love shopping;

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 – socio-cultural associations – there is a whole range of associations with certain
items that native speakers possess and share with the entire society; e.g. Friday the 13th,
April the 1st.”

What this implies is that it is essential for words/phrases to be encountered in a

context and then their connotations become clear to learners. Moreover, it may also be
useful to contrast words of the language in terms of connotations.

What do learners need to know about meaning?

We adopt Hrehovčík’s (2003:131) thoughts: “When a student comes across an

unknown word, he/she should try to decipher its meaning from the context it is used in –
it is thus necessary for students to understand the importance of meaning in context.
Furthermore, sometimes words have meanings in relation to other words – so there is a
need for students to become familiar with the conceptual meaning as well as with certain
sense relations.” In other words, students should ignore unknown words and comprehend
the ideas of a text globally.

As to the conceptual meaning, Hrehovčík and Uberman (2003:131,132) differentiate

between polysemy and homonymy. According to them:

a) “polysemy is a term referring to a single word form with several different but
closely related meanings; e.g. the ‘head’ of a person, the ‘head’ of a pin, the ‘head’ of an
organization, etc.;

b) homonymy describes a single word form with several different meanings which
are not closely related; e.g. a ‘file’ may be used for keeping papers in, or it may be a tool
for cutting or smoothing hard substances.”

The expression sense relations covers three main terms:

a) “synonymy refers to a group of words that share a general sense and so may be
interchangeable in a limited number of contexts”; e.g. extend/expand/increase;
rich/wealthy/well-off, etc.;

b) “antonymy is a term describing a variety of different forms of ‘oppositeness’”; e.g.

husband/wife, big/small, nice/ugly, etc.;

c) “hyponymy deals with the relationship of inclusion, organises words into

taxonomies or hierarchical tree-type diagrams”:

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 Words such as ‘apple’ or ‘plum’ are the hyponyms of ‘fruit’, while ‘fruit’ is the
superordinate term; words such as ‘orange’, ‘pear’, that are on the same level in the
taxonomy, are called co-hyponyms.

We firmly believe that teachers as well as students need to be aware of the fact that
words occur in context. Words do not just exist on their own; they live with other words
and they depend upon each other. When students learn words in context they are far
more likely to remember them than if they learn them as single items. That is why
reading and listening play such a part in the acquisition of vocabulary.

In order to conclude, the meaning together with the form belongs to the basic features
of every word. The meaning gives the notion of the word. Through meanings speakers
express whatever they wish. A word is more useful if it covers more ideas than if it only
has one very specific meaning. An interesting point is the word’s connotation. Each word
may influence listener’s perception individually. When we wish our language to sound
more rhetorically, we should not forget such facets as conceptual meaning and sense
relations. There is a number of expressions, which represent a variety of meanings,
whether synonymous or antonymous. Words can further be classified into some general
concepts according to their characteristics and basic features.

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 Unit 11

Stylistically marked and neutral lexis

With respect to the functional styles, vocabulary can be subdivided into bookish
(literary), which is typical of formal styles, and colloquial vocabulary which is typical of
the lower style in oral communication; besides there is always present in the language a
stylistically neutral vocabulary which can be used in different kinds of style. Consider the
following examples:

 child (neutral) – kid (colloq.) – infant (bookish, official) –

offspring (bookish, scientific);
 father (neutral) – daddy (colloq.) – male parent / ancestor (formal);
 leave / go away (neutral) – be off / get out / get away / get lost (colloq., or
familiar-colloq.) – retire / withdraw (bookish);
 continue (neutral) – go on / carry on (colloq.) – proceed (bookish, formal);
 begin / start (neutral) – get going /get started / Come on! (colloq.) –
commence (formal).

Stylistically neutral words usually constitute the main member in a group of

synonyms, the so-called synonymic dominant: they can be used in any style, they are not
emotionally coloured and have no additional evaluating elements.

Unlike neutral words which only denote a certain notion and thus have only a
denotational meaning, their stylistic synonyms usually contain some connotations, i.e.
additional components of meaning which express some emotional colouring or evaluation
of the object named; these additional components may also be simply the signs of a
particular functional style of speech.

The style of informal, friendly oral communication is called colloquial. The

vocabulary of colloquial style is usually lower than that of the formal or neutral styles, it
is often emotionally coloured and characterised by connotations (consider the endearing
connotations in the words daddy, kid or the evaluating components in trash).

Colloquial speech is characterised by the frequent use of words with a broad meaning
(something close to polysemy): speakers tend to use a small group of words in quite
different meanings, whereas in a formal style (official, business, scientific) every word is
to be used in a specific and clear meaning. Compare the different uses of the
verb get which frequently replaces in oral speech its more specific synonyms:

I got (= received) a letter today; Where did you get (= buy) those jeans?; They didn’t
get (= there wasn’t) much snow last winter; I got (= caught) the ‘flu last month; Where
has my pen got to (= disappeared)?; I got (= forced) him to help me with the work; I didn’t
get
(= hear) you / what уou said.

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 There are phrases and constructions typical of colloquial style: What’s up? (= What
has happened?); so-so (= not especially good); Sorry? Pardon? (= Please, repeat it, I didn’t
hear you); See you (= Good-bye); Me too / neither (= So / neither do I), etc.

In grammar there may be: (a) the use of shortened variants of word-forms, e.g. isn’t;
can’t; I’d say, he’d’ve done (= would have done); Yaa (= Yes); (b) the use of elliptical
(incomplete) sentences; (Where’s he?) – At home; Like it? (= Do you / Did you like it?) –
Not too much (= I don’t like it too much); (Shall I open it?) – Don’t!; May I? (= May I do
this?)

The syntax of colloquial speech is also characterised by the preferable use of simple
sentences or by asyndetic connection (absence of conjunctions) between the parts of
composite sentences; complex constructions with non-finite forms are rarely used.

Besides the standard, literary-colloquial speech, there is also a non-standard, or

substandard, speech style, mostly represented by a special vocabulary. Such is
the familiar-colloquial style used in very free, friendly, informal situations of
communication – between close friends, members of one family, etc. Here we find
emotionally coloured words, low-colloquial vocabulary and slang words. This style admits
also of the use of rude and vulgar vocabulary, including expletives (obscene words / four-
letter words / swear words): rot / trash / stuff (= smth. bad); the cat’s pyjamas (= just the
right / suitable thing); bread-basket (= stomach); tipsy / under the influence / under the
table / has had a drop (= drunk); cute /great! (Am.) (= very good); wet
blanket (= uninteresting person); hot stuff! (= smth. extremely good); You‘re damn
right (= quite right).

The term slang is used in a very broad and vague sense. Besides denoting low-
colloquial words, it is also used to denote special jargons / cants, i.e. words typically used
by particular social groups to show that the speaker belongs to this group, as different
from other people. Originally jargons were used to preserve secrecy within the social
group, to make speech incomprehensible to others – such is the thieves’ jargon / cant.
There is also prison slang, army slang, school slang, teenagers slang, etc. Consider the
examples of American campus slang: dode (= an appealing / stupid person, idiot); harsh (=
very bad, mean); nerd / nurd (= a person who studies a lot or is socially
outdated); thrash (= perform well on a skateboard); throg (= drink any alcoholic drink); of
American teenagers slang: flake (= a stupid erratic person); scarf (= eat or drink;
consume); scope out (= look at, examine, check out); chill out (= relax, calm oneself); babe
magnet (= a person or thing that attracts members of the opposite sex).

But often words from a particular jargon spread outside its social group and become
general slang. See examples of general British slang: crackers (= crazy people); the year
dot (= long ago); get the hump (= get angry); mac (= Scotsman); ratted (=
drunk); snout (= tobacco); of general American slang: buck (=

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dollar); cabbage (= money); John (= lavatory); give smb. wings (= teach to use drugs); top
dog (= boss);stag party (= a party without a woman).

There are also professional words which represent a kind of jargon / slang used by
people in their professional activity. See some professional jargon words for a blow in
boxing: an outer (a knock-out blow); a righthander; an uppercut; a clinch (position of
fighting close, body pressed to body).

Within the English formal language the following styles are distinguished: the style of
official documents, the scientific prose style, the publicistic style, the newspaper style, the
belle-lettres style. Most of these styles belong exclusively to writing, insomuch as only in
this particular form of human intercourse can communications of any length be
completely unambiguous. Each style is characterised by a number of individual features
which can be classified as leading or subordinate, constant or changing, obligatory or
optional, essential or transitory. Each style can be subdivided into a number of substyles.
The latter present varieties of the root style and have much in common with it. The root
styles fall into the following substyles:

 The style of official documents: business documents, diplomatic

documents, legal documents, military documents.
 The scientific prose style: the humanities, the exact sciences.
 The publicistic style: speeches (oratory), essays, articles.
 The newspaper style: newspaper headlines, brief news items,
advertisements.
 The belle-lettres style: poetry proper, emotive prose, drama.

Any comparison of the texts belonging to different stylistic varieties listed above will
show that the first two of them – official documents and scientific style varieties – are
almost entirely devoid of emotive colouring being characterised by the neutrality of style,
whereas the last three are usually rich in stylistic devices.

Each functional style requires the choice of a special kind of grammatical forms and
structures and most of all of vocabulary. Words or word groups which are specifically
employed by a particular branch of science, technology, trade, or the arts to convey a
concept peculiar to this particular activity are identified as terms. Terms are generally
associated with a certain branch of science and therefore with a series of other terms
belonging to that particular branch of science. They always come in clusters, either in a
text or on the subject to which they belong, or in special dictionaries which unlike
general dictionaries make a careful selection of terms. Taken together, these clusters of
terms form a system of names for the objects of study of any particular branch of science.

Terms are coined to nominate new concepts that appear in the process of and as a
result of technical progress and the development of science. “All scientists are linguists to
some extent. They are responsible for devising a constituent terminology, a skeleton

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language to talk about their subject-matter” (Ullmann S., 1951). This quotation makes
clear one of the essential characteristics of a term – its highly conventional character. A
term is generally very easily coined and easily accepted; and new coinages as easily
replace out-dated ones. Terms therefore are rather transitory by nature, though they may
remain in the language as relics of a former stage in the development of a particular
branch of science. Terms are characterised by a tendency to be monosemantic and
therefore easily call forth the required concept.

Terms are predominantly used in special works dealing with the notions of some
branch of science. Therefore it may be said that they belong to the scientific style. But
their use is not confined to this style. They may as well appear in other styles: in
newspaper style, in publicistic style, in the belle-lettres style, and practically in all other
existing styles. But their function in this case changes. They no longer perform their basic
function, that of bearing an exact reference to a given notion or a concept. The function
of terms, if encountered in other styles, is either to indicate the technical peculiarities of
the subject dealt with, or to make some reference to the occupation of a character whose
language naturally contains special words and expressions.

With the increase of general education and the expansion of technique to meet ever
growing needs and desires of mankind, many words that were once terms have gradually
lost their qualities as terms and have passed into the common literary vocabulary. This
process is called “determinisation”. Such words as television, computer, mobile phone, e-
mail and the like have long been in common use and their terminological character is no
longer evident.

Correlated to terms are professionalisms, the words used in a certain trade, profession
by people connected by common interests both at work and at home. They commonly
designate some working process or implement of labour. Professional words name anew
already existing concepts and have the typical properties of a special code, but they do not
aim at secrecy. They perform a socially useful function in communication, facilitating a
quick and adequate grasp of the message. The main feature of a professionalism is its
technicality. Professionalisms are special words in the non-literary layer of the English
vocabulary, whereas terms are a specialised group belonging to the literary layer of
words. Terms, if they are connected with a field or branch of science or technique well-
known to ordinary people, are easily decoded and enter the neutral stratum of the
vocabulary. Professionalisms generally remain in circulation within a certain community,
as they are linked to a common occupation and social interests.

The semantic structure of the term is usually transparent and is therefore easily
understood. The semantic structure of a professionalism is often dimmed by the image on
which the meaning of the professionalism is based, particularly when the features of the
object in question reflect the process of work, metaphorically or metonymically. Like
terms, professionalisms do not allow any polysemy, they are monosemantic. Here are

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some professionalisms used in different spheres of activity: tin-fish (submarine), piper (a
specialist who decorates pastry with the use of a cream-pipe); outer (a knock out blow).

A good illustration of professionalisms as used by a man-of-letters can be found in

Dreiser’s “Financier”:

“Frank soon picked up all the technicalities of the situation. A ‘bull’, he learned, was
who bought in anticipation of a higher price to come; and if he was ‘loaded’ up with ‘line’
of stocks he was said to be ‘long’. He sold to ‘realise’ his profit, or if his margins were
exhausted he was ‘wiped out’. A ‘bear’ was one who sold stocks which most frequently he
did not have, in anticipation of a lower price at which he could buy and satisfy his
previous sales.”

In the extract above, each financial professionalism is explained by the author and the
words themselves are in inverted commas to stress their peculiar idiomatic sense and also
to indicate that the words do not belong to the standard English vocabulary in the
meaning they are used.

ACTIVITIES

Questions:

1. Identify stylistics in terms of the general theory of information.

2. Give a definition of a functional style. What type of information do functional styles
express?
3. What does the choice of functional style depend on?
4. What classes is the vocabulary of language subdivided into with respect to functional
styles? What are the properties of stylistically neutral words?
5. Describe the structural and semantic features of the colloquial style.
6. What functional style does slang belong to? Give examples of general British and
American slang; of American campus and teenagers’ slang.
7. List the styles distinguished within the formal English language. What are their
characteristic features?
8. How are terms coined? What are their essential properties?
9. What linguistic phenomenon is called “de-terminisation”?
10. State the difference between a term and a professionalism.

Exercises:

1. Point out stylistic differences within the groups of synonyms.

face – visage – mug – deadpan;

nose – snout – beak – nasal cavity;
I think – I gather – I presume – I take it – I guess it – me thinks;

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boy – youth – lad – young male person – youngster – teenager;
lass – girl – maiden – wench – young female person;
nonsense – absurdity – rot – trash;
legs – pins – lower extremities;
Silence, please! – Stop talking! – Shut your trap!
friend – comrade – pal – buddy – acquaintance;
Hurry up! – Move on! – Hasten your step!

2. Replace the colloquial expressions by more neutral ones.

(a) What do you think of her? – She’s jolly! – Really? – Oh, yah! She’s fun, to be sure!
A bit too fat for my taste, though. – Oh, come on, you’re being too choosy. She’s just
right. – Doesn’t look like it to me, anyway.

(b) I take it, he screwed his life himself, the jerk. Took to drinking, and things. He
sure did. But then, again, come to think of it, who wouldn’t with that stupid ass of a
woman around all the time? He just couldn’t make it.

3. Read an interview that John Kerry, a candidate for the US presidency, gave to the
reporters of “Time” in the course of the 2004 election campaign. Analyze the vocabulary
and structures used from the standpoint of style.

“I’m All For Strength, When Appropriate”

Time, March 15, 2004

TIME: What would you have done about Iraq had you been the President?

KERRY: If I had been the President, I might have gone to war but not the President
did. It might have been only because we had exhausted the remedies of inspections, only
because we had to – because it was the only way to enforce the disarmament.

TIME: But it turns out there was nothing to disarm.

KERRY: Well, if we had kept on inspecting properly and gone through the process
appropriately, we might have avoided almost a $200 billion expenditure, the loss of lives
and the scorn of the world and the breaking of so many relations.

TIME: Would you say your position on Iraq is (a) it was a mistaken war; (b) it was a
necessary war fought in a bad way; or (c) fill in the blank’?

KERRY: I think George Bush rushed to war without exhausting the remedies available
to him, without exhausting the diplomacy necessary to put the U.S. in the strongest
position possible, without pulling the logistics and the plan to shore up Iraq immediately
and effectively.

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 TIME: And you as a Commander in Chief would not have made these mistakes but
would have gone to war?

KERRY: I didn’t say that.

TIME: I’m asking.

KERRY: I can’t tell you.

TIME: Might the war have been avoided?

KERRY: Yes.

TIME: Through inspections?

KERRY: It’s possible. It’s not a certainty, but it’s possible. I’m not going to tell you
hypothetically when you have reached the point of exhaustion that you have to use force
and your intelligence is good enough that it tells you you’ve reached that moment. But I
can tell you this: I would have asked a lot of questions they didn’t. I would have tried to
do a lot of diplomacy they didn’t.

TIME: You would have asked more questions about the quality of intelligence?

KERRY: Yes. If I had known that (Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chala-bei was somebody
they were relying on, I would have had serious doubts. And the fact that we learn after
the fact that that is one of their sources disturbs me enormously.

TIME: As a Senator, could you not have asked that question?

KERRY: We asked. They said: Well, we can’t tell you who the sources are. They give
you this gobbledygook. I went over to Pentagon. I saw the photographs. They told us
specifically what was happening in certain buildings. It wasn’t.

TIME: You were misled?

KERRY: Certainly by somebody. The intelligence clearly was wrong, fundamentally

flawed. Look, the British were able to do a two-month of what happened to their
intelligence. This Administration wants to put it off to 2005. It’s a national security issue
to know what happened to our intelligence. We ought to know now.

TIME: Obviously it’s good that Saddam is out of power. Was bringing him down
worth the cost?

KERRY: If there are no weapons of mass destruction – and we may yet find some –
then it is a war that was fought on false pretences, because that was the justification to

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the American people, to the Congress, to the world, and that was clearly the frame of my
vote of consent. I suggested that all the evils of Saddam Hussein alone were not a cause to
go to war.

TIME: So, if we don’t find WMD, the war wasn’t worth the cost? That’s a yes?

KERRY: No, I think you can still wait – no. You can’t – that’s not a fair question, and
I’ll tell you why. You can wind up successful in transforming Iraq and changing the
dynamics, and that may take it worth it, but that doesn’t mean that transforming Iraq was
the cause that provided the legitimacy to go. You have to have that distinction.

TIME: You’ve said the foreign policy of triumphalism fuels the fire of jihadists. Is it
possible the U.S. show the force in Iraq tempers the fire of jihadists?

KERRY: I’m all for strength when appropriate, and, you bet, there are a lot of
countries in the Middle East that understand strength, and it’s a very important message.
But in my judgment, the way it was applied this time, it has encouraged street-level
anger, and I have been told by people it encourages the recruitment of terrorists. I mean,
look, even Rumsfeld’s own memo underscores that they haven’t discovered how to stem
the tide of recruitment.

TIME: Why would internationalizing the Iraq be a more effective strategy for
stabilizing the country?

KERRY: The legitimacy of the governing process that emerges from an essentially
American process is always subject to greater questioning than one that is developed with
broader, global consent.

TIME: How do you bring in others?

KERRY: I spent the time to go to the U.N. and sit with the Security Council before the
vote, because I wanted to ascertain what their real state of mind was and whether or not
they would be prepared to enforce the resolution, provide troops, whether or not they
took it seriously, whether or not they would share costs and burden, and I came away
convinced after a two-hour conversation, a lot of questions, that they would.

TIME: You’ve criticised the pre-emptive nature of the Bush doctrine.

KERRY: Let me emphasise: I’ll pre-empt where necessary. We are always entitled to
do that under the Charter of the U.N., which gives the right of self-defence of a nation.
We’ve always had a doctrine of pre-emption contained in first strike throughout the cold
war. So I understand that. It is the extension of it by the Bush Administration to remove a
person they don’t like that contravenes that.

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 Functional Styles of the English Language

Functional Style is a system of interrelated language means serving a definite aim in

communication. It is the coordination of the language means and stylistic devices which
shapes the distinctive features of each style and not the language means or stylistic
devices themselves. Each style, however, can be recognized by one or more leading
features which are especially conspicuous. For instance the use of special terminology is a
lexical characteristics of the style of scientific prose, and one by which it can easily be
recognized. FS appear mainly in the literary standard of a language.

In the English literary standard the following major FS are distinguished:

1. the belles-lettres functional style,

2. the publicistic functional style,

3. the newspaper functional style,

4. the scientific prose style,

5. the official documents functional style.

Each FS is subdivided into a number of substyles.

1. The belles-lettres functional style has the following substyles:

a) poetry;

b) emotive prose;

c) drama;

2. The publicistic functional style:

a) oratory;

b) essays;

c) articles in newspapers and magazines;

3. The newspaper functional style:

a) brief news items;

b) advertisements and announcements;

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 c) headlines;

d) the editorial

4. The scientific prose style:

a) exact sciences;

b) humanitarian sciences;

c) popular- science prose;

5. The official documents functional style:

a) diplomatic documents;

b) business letters;

c) military documents;

d) legal documents.

The Belles-Lettres Style, its Substyles and its Peculiarities

The Belles-lettres style has its own specific function to inform the reader and to
impress the reader aesthetically.

The means of this functional style are:

- genuine imaginative means and SDs;

- the use of words in its contextual meaning;

- the individual choice of vocabulary which reflects the author's personal evaluation;

- a peculiar individual selection of syntax;

- the introduction of elements of other styles;

Poetry is characterized by:

 its orderly form which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic
arrangement of the utterances;
 brevity of expressions,
 fresh unexpected imagery;
 emotional coloring promoted by synonyms,epithets,metaphors,similies,etc;

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  specific means of syntactical connection;
 the synthesis of formal and informal English.

Emotive prose. Emotive prose is a combination of the literary variant of the language
and the colloquial one, which is presented by the speech of the characters which is
stylized that means it has been made "literature like" and some elements of conversational
English were made use of. Emotive prose allows the use of elements of other styles but
the author changes them and fulfils a certain function. SDs used: in emotive prose style
are represented speech, detached constructions, gap - sentence link.

Drama is the language of plays which mainly consists of dialogues. The author's
speech is in the form of stage remarks. Any presentation of a play is an aesthetic
procedure. The language of a play has the following peculiarities:

- it is stylized (retains the modus of literary English);

- it presents the variety of spoken language;

- it has redundancy of information caused by necessity to amplify the utterance;

- monologue is never interrupted;

- character's utterances are much longer than in ordinary conversation;

The majority of words in the language are stylistically neutral. They can be used in
any style (at random without causing any effect.) On the other hand, there are
stylistically marked groups of words which can roughly be divided into literary (formal)
and colloquial (informal).

Literary/bookish layer includes words of bookish character alien to colloquial speech,

poetic diction, archaic words, terms, foreign words. When used outside elevated styles
they produce humorous effect or characterize individual speech.

e.g. The expression escaped me inadvertently. (Wodehouse)

Poetic words are used exclusively in poetry:

e.g. “realm”, “foe”, etc.

Archaic words are no longer in active use. They are either replaced by other words:
“thee”, “methinks” or used in literature for creating the genuine atmosphere of historic
events. Due to their elevated or solemn nature they are a common feature in poetry and
the Bible.

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 Terms denominating different phenomena, processes, concepts are used in the style of
scientific prose. Words of this layer constitute International Scientific Vocabulary (or
ISV). E.g. cyberspace, haploid, monoploid.

Marginal layer. Due to their novelty, words can go either to literary or to colloquial
layer. It depends on a social group which accepted them or an author who used them in
his/her book. What’s more, once they are in a new language with new surroundings, they
can migrate within the boundaries of the recipient language from one social dialect to
another.

Foreign/loan words came from other languages and were not phonetically or
graphically assimilated in English. Foreign accent/image makes them unusual and
attractive. They are used in diplomacy, politics, newspaper style and literature. Mostly
they are French or Latin words with their specific pronunciation: e.g. “coup d’etat”,
“sang-froid” (cool-headedness).

Neologisms comprising the fourth item offered for the students' investigation are
represented only by the group of stylistically coloured individual neologisms (or nonсе-
words, or occasional words), which are created on he basis of the existing word-building
patterns but have validity only in and for the given context. Usually they are heavily
stylistically loaded, their major stylistic functions being the creation either of the effect of
laconism, terseness and implication or that of witty humour and satire, e.g. hole-in-the-
wall means an automatic cash dispenser.

Colloquial layer includes words used in lively conversation and emotional description
of events or feelings. They are more expressive than their neutral synonyms due
figurative meaning or some element of unexpectedness or a humorous touch, e.g. She had
darted at me, kissed me, and legged it from the room. (Wodehouse)

Slang is a group of highly expressive colloquial words of humorous character marked

by the novelty of use. They come into the language with every new generation who
exercise their creative talent and linguistic imagination. It’s a sort of protest against the
wear and tear of words. Familiar words are used in new and unexpected meanings or
acquire a strange but recognizable form: e.g. to bug/it gets smb’s goat=to annoy: what bugs
me/really gets my goat is that he is always asking for money.

Jargonisms are words used by limited groups of people united either professionally or
socially – students’ jargon, military jargon, etc. Eg. ‘Freddy’ for fighter controller ,
‘Scotsman’ for a cable (in the Navy and Aviation).

Dialectal words, as it is well known, are introduced into the speech of personages to
indicate their origin. The number of dialectal words and their frequency also indicate the
educational and cultural level of the speaker (cf. Scottish dialect: aye=yes, kirk=church,
brig=bridge, etc.).

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 Nursery words – “children’s” language, elements of which are used by adults to sound
helpless, mockingly, flirting, etc. Eg. tummy, yummy mummy, yum-yum, etc.

Vulgarisms are coarse words with a strong emotive connotation not habitually used in
polite conversation: e.g. damn, bloody, hell, etc.

The border lines between the layers of the vocabulary can be vague. For instance, the
term firewall, meaning a computer or network device used to filter network traffic, was
coined as technical slang.

These words are stylistically neutral. Their stylistic neutrality makes it possible to use
them in all kinds of situations, both formal and informal, in verbal and written
communication. Basic vocabulary is used every day, everywhere and by everybody,
regardless of profession, occupation, educational level, age group or geographical location.
These are words without which no human communication would be possible as they de-
note objects and phenomena of everyday importance (e.g., house, bread, summer, winter,
child, mother, green, difficult, to go, to stand, etc.).

Basic vocabulary words are the central group of the vocabulary, its historical foundation
and living core.That is why words of this stratum show a considerably greater stability in
comparison with words of other strata, especially informal.

Basic vocabulary words can be recognized not only by their stylistic neutrality, but
also by entire lack of other connotations (i.e. attendant meanings). Their meanings are
broad, general and directly convey the notion, without supplying any additional
information.

For instance, the verb to walk means merely "to move from place to place on foot",
whereas in the meanings of its synonyms to stride, to stroll, to trot, to stagger and others,
some additional information is encoded as they each describe a different manner of
walking, a different gait, tempo, purposefulness or lack of purpose and even length of
paces. Compare the meanings of the aforementioned synonyms: to walk— to go or
traverse on foot; to stride— to walk with long steps;

Thus, to walk, with its direct broad meaning, is a typical basic vocabulary word, and
its synonyms, with their elaborate additional information encoded in their meanings,
belong to the periphery of the vocabulary.

Basic vocabulary words and the stylistically marked strata of the vocabulary do not
exist independently but are closely interrelated. Most stylistically marked words have
their neutral counterparts in basic vocabulary. (Terms are an exception in this respeet).
On.the Qiher-.hand, colloquialisms may have their counterparts among learned words,
most slang has counterparts both among colloquialisms and learned words. Archaisms,
naturally, have their modem equivalents, at least, in some of the other groups.

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 The table gives some examples of such synonyms belonging to different stylistic strata:

Basic Vocabulary Informal Formal

begin start, get started commence

continue go on, get on proceed

end finish, be through, be over terminate

child, baby kid, brat, beam (dial.) Infant,babe (poet.)

In teaching a foreign language, basic vocabulary words constitute the first and
absolutely essential part of students' functional and recognition vocabularies. They
constitute the beginner's vocabulary. Yet, to restrict the student to basic vocabulary
words would mean to deprive his speech of colour, expressive force and emotive
shades, for, if basic vocabulary words are absolutely necessary, they also decidedly
lack something: they are not at all the kind of words to tempt a writer or a poet.
Actually, if the language had none other but basic vocabulary words, fiction would be
hardly readable, and poetry simply nonexistent.

The following table sums up the description of the stylistic strata of the English
vocabulary:

Stylistically-Marked
Stylistically-Neutral Words
Words

Informal Formal

Basic I. Colloquial words I. Learned words

vocabulary A. literary, A. literary,

B. familiar, B. words of sci-

C. low. entific prose,

II. Slang words. C. officialese,

III. Dialect words D. modes of po-

etic diction.

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- II. Archaic and ob-

solete words.

HI. Professional

terminology.

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 Unit 12

Transformation of English vocabulary

A word undergoes a change in its form by means of inflections to give an appropriate

and accurate meaning to the sentence. The change that it undergoes is called
transformation. Transformation creates or gives rise to new words.

These new words when used in different contexts give different meanings. This is
called vocabulary.

The table no.1 given below explains how inflections are formed from a single root
word using appropriate affixes followed by few examples of their usage.

The drugs prescribed by the doctor should be given at regular intervals (period of
time).Students should come regularly (frequently / daily) to classes.

The new scheme would be regularized (implement lawfully) very soon.

This type of transition from one form of a word to another is called transformation.
Transformation brings a qualitative change in the sentence structure thereby describing
the conversion of one syntactic structure into another related syntactic structure.

Need for Transformation and its Implications in Learning a Language

Everything in this world is subjected to change, which establishes a bond or a relation

with another to fulfill its purpose of existence. Similarly, when a word gets transformed,
it not only satisfies the need of its existence but also gets enriched in its form and
meaning.

List of words learnt would remain as words, if they are used in the way they are
learnt. Once a word is transformed using affixations in different contexts, the status of
those words would rise to the stage of vocabulary. If a student doesn’t know to change the
form of one word to another word using affixations then it may lead to syntactic error.

For e. g: Words learnt: transform, apply, subsequent, communicate, misinterpret.

Incorrect version: A change from one form of a thing to another is called transform.
Its apply would not leave a good impact on the listener, if it is used as such. Subsequent,
communicate would sound awkward. Therefore they should be properly used to avoid
misinterpret.

Correct version: A change from one form of a thing to another is called

transformation. Its application would not leave a good impact on the listener, if it is used
as such. Subsequently, communication would sound awkward.

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 Therefore they should be properly used to avoid misinterpretation.

If the learnt words are used as such they would not give the exact meaning and the
intention of the speaker or the writer would not be expressed properly. Hence, the need
for transformation becomes essential for a good and effective communication.

Its Implication in Learning a Language

When a word gets transformed into vocabulary by way of affixation and used in an
appropriate place and situation it leaves a very good impact on the reader’s or listener’s
mind. This cognitive process of transformation and application of words in sentences
would build confidence level and fluency in the speaker. Though students put a lot of
effort to master the English language they are unable to achieve command over it, due to
which they get frustrated and at times depressed. In such a situation, a teacher can
provide them a stress-free and relaxing environment by making their learning easy and
effective.

Bialystok (1983:103) suggests that a communication task must have the following:

a) Stimulating real communicative exchange

b) Providing incentive for the L2 speaker/learner to convey information.

c) Providing control for the information items required for the investigation and

d) Fulfilling the needs to be used for the goals of the experiment.

Nunan proposed that a communication task‘……….. is a piece of classroom work

which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the
target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form’.
(Nunan, 1989a:10)

Task-based learning is designed to benefit the students for the following reasons:

1. Student-centered approach ensures meaningful communication.

2. Provides practical extra-linguistic skill development.
3. Helps the students express their views without any hesitation and
inhibitions and in learning a language

naturally.

1. Gives exposure to various ranges of lexical phrases, collocations and

patterns as well as language forms.
2. Keeps the students engaged where students spend a lot of time
communicating with each other.

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 3. Above all, it is enjoyable and motivating.

Therefore, the teacher before giving them a task can motivate the students by
enunciating the importance of English language learning and its usage in this commercial
and competitive world. The teacher can give them small projects like conducting
interviews in the college campus, reporting on any important issue, anchoring
programmes etc. The same may be recorded and presented in the classroom based on
which the teacher can grade the students. These activities would provide an opportunity
for the students to gauge their own performances and the difficulty faced during these
projects. This type of practical exposure would compel them to learn English language
and to gain mastery over it. Though it is a bit challenging task to the students, it may be
of much use to the students in building their confidence, vocabulary and communication
skills.

Neologism

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 A neologism is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the
process of entering common use, but that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream
language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication,
period, or event. In the process of language formation, neologisms are more mature than
protologisms.

Neologisms are often created by combining existing words (see compound noun and
adjective) or by giving words new and unique suffixes or prefixes. Portmanteaux are
combined words that are sometimes used commonly. "Brunch" is an example of a
portmanteau word (breakfast + lunch). Lewis Carroll's "snark" (snake + shark) is also a
portmanteau. Neologisms also can be created through abbreviation or acronym, by
intentionally rhyming with existing words or simply through playing with sounds.

Neologisms can become popular through memetics, by way of mass media, the
Internet, and word of mouth, including academic discourse in many fields renowned for
their use of distinctive jargon, and often become accepted parts of the language. Other
times, however, they disappear from common use just as readily as they appeared.
Whether a neologism continues as part of the language depends on many factors,
probably the most important of which is acceptance by the public. It is unusual, however,
for a word to enter common use if it does not resemble another word or words in an
identifiable way.

When a word or phrase is no longer "new", it is no longer a neologism. Neologisms

may take decades to become "old", however. Opinions differ on exactly how old a word
must be to cease being considered a neologism.

Archaism

In language, an archaism (from the Ancient Greek: ἀρχαϊκός, archaïkós, 'old-

fashioned, antiquated', ultimately ἀρχαῖος, archaîos, 'from the beginning, ancient') is the
use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current or that is current only within
a few special contexts. Their deliberate use can be subdivided into literary archaisms,
which seeks to evoke the style of older speech and writing; and lexical archaisms, the use
of words no longer in common use.

A distinction between archaic and obsolete words and word senses is widely used by
dictionaries. An archaic word or sense is one that still has some current use but whose use
has dwindled to a few specialized contexts, outside which it connotes old-fashioned
language. In contrast, an obsolete word or sense is one that is no longer used at all. A
reader encounters them when reading texts that are centuries old. For example, the works
of Shakespeare are old enough that some obsolete words or senses are encountered
therein, for which glosses (annotations) are often provided in the margins.

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 Archaisms can either be used deliberately (to achieve a specific effect) or as part of a
specific jargon (for example in law) or formula (for example in religious contexts). Many
nursery rhymes contain archaisms. Some archaisms called fossil words remain in use
within certain fixed expressions despite having faded away in all other contexts (for
example, vim is not used in normal English outside the set phrase vim and vigor).

An outdated form of language is called archaic. In contrast, a language or dialect that

contains many archaic traits (archaisms) relative to closely related languages or dialects
spoken at the same time is called conservative.

Archaisms are most frequently encountered in history, poetry, fantasy literature, law,
philosophy, science, technology, geography and ritual writing and speech. Archaisms are
kept alive by these ritual and literary uses and by the study of older literature. Should
they remain recognised, they can potentially be revived.

Because they are things of continual discovery and re-invention, science and
technology have historically generated forms of speech and writing which have dated and
fallen into disuse relatively quickly. However the emotional associations of certain words
(for example: 'Wireless' rather than 'Radio' for a generation of British citizens who lived
through the Second World War) have kept them alive even though the older word is
clearly an archaism.

A similar desire to evoke a former age means that archaic place names are frequently
used in circumstances where doing so conveys a political or emotional subtext, or when
the official new name is not recognised by all (for example: 'Persia' rather than 'Iran',
'Bombay' rather than 'Mumbai', 'Madras' rather than 'Chennai'). So, a restaurant seeking
to conjure up historic associations might prefer to call itself Old Bombay or refer to
Persian cuisine in preference to using the newer place name. A notable contemporary
example is the name of the airline Cathay Pacific, which uses the archaic Cathay
("China").

Archaisms are frequently misunderstood, leading to changes in usage. One example is

found in the phrase "the odd man out", which originally came from the phrase "to find
the odd man out", where the verb "to find out" has been split by its object "the odd man",
meaning the item which does not fit.

The compound adverbs and prepositions found in the writing of lawyers (e.g.
heretofore, hereunto, thereof) are examples of archaisms as a form of jargon. Some
phraseologies, especially in religious contexts, retain archaic elements that are not used in
ordinary speech in any other context: "With this ring I thee wed." Archaisms are also
used in the dialogue of historical novels in order to evoke the flavour of the period. Some
may count as inherently funny words and are used for humorous effect.

189
 Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different
language (the source language). A loanword can also be called a borrowing. The abstract
noun borrowing refers to the process of speakers adopting words from a source language
into their native language. "Loan" and "borrowing" are of course metaphors, because there
is no literal lending process. There is no transfer from one language to another, and no
"returning" words to the source language. The words simply come to be used by a speech
community that speaks a different language from the one these words originated in.

Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language communities.

Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but
often there is an asymmetry, such that more words go from one side to the other. In this
case the source language community has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth
that makes the objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing language
community. For example, the Germanic tribes in the first few centuries A.D. adopted
numerous loanwords from Latin as they adopted new products via trade with the
Romans. Few Germanic words, on the other hand, passed into Latin.

The actual process of borrowing is complex and involves many usage events (i.e.
instances of use of the new word). Generally, some speakers of the borrowing language
know the source language too, or at least enough of it to utilize the relevant word. They
(often consciously) adopt the new word when speaking the borrowing language, because
it most exactly fits the idea they are trying to express. If they are bilingual in the source
language, which is often the case, they might pronounce the words the same or similar to
the way they are pronounced in the source language. For example, English speakers
adopted the word garage from French, at first with a pronunciation nearer to the French
pronunciation than is now usually found. Presumably the very first speakers who used
the word in English knew at least some French and heard the word used by French
speakers, in a French-speaking context.

Those who first use the new word might use it at first only with speakers of the source
language who know the word, but at some point they come to use the word with those to
whom the word was not previously known. To these speakers the word may sound
'foreign'. At this stage, when most speakers do not know the word and if they hear it
think it is from another language, the word can be called a foreign word. There are many
foreign words and phrases used in English such as bon vivant (French), mutatis
mutandis (Latin), and Fahrvergnuegen (German).

However, in time more speakers can become familiar with a new foreign word or
expression. The community of users of this word can grow to the point where even
people who know little or nothing of the source language understand, and even use, the
novel word themselves. The new word becomes conventionalized: part of the
conventional ways of speaking in the borrowing language. At this point we call it a
borrowing or loanword.

190
 (It should be noted that not all foreign words do become loanwords; if they fall out of
use before they become widespread, they do not reach the loanword stage.)

Conventionalization is a gradual process in which a word progressively permeates a

larger and larger speech community, becoming part of ever more people's linguistic
repetoire. As part of its becoming more familiar to more people, a newly borrowed word
gradually adopts sound and other characteristics of the borrowing language as speakers
who do not know the source language accommodate it to their own linguistic systems. In
time, people in the borrowing community do not perceive the word as a loanword at all.
Generally, the longer a borrowed word has been in the language, and the more frequently
it is used, the more it resembles the native words of the language.

English has gone through many periods in which large numbers of words from a
particular language were borrowed. These periods coincide with times of major cultural
contact between English speakers and those speaking other languages. The waves of
borrowing during periods of especially strong cultural contacts are not sharply delimited,
and can overlap. For example, the Norse influence on English began already in the 8th
century A.D. and continued strongly well after the Norman Conquest brought a large
influx of Norman French to the language.

It is part of the cultural history of English speakers that they have always adopted
loanwords from the languages of whatever cultures they have come in contact with.
There have been few periods when borrowing became unfashionable, and there has never
been a national academy in Britain, the U.S., or other English-speaking countries to
attempt to restrict new loanwords, as there has been in many continental European
countries.

The following list is a small sampling of the loanwords that came into English in
different periods and from different languages.

I. Germanic period

Latin
The forms given in this section are the Old English ones. The original Latin source word
is given in parentheses where significantly different. Some Latin words were themselves
originally borrowed from Greek. It can be deduced that these borrowings date from the
time before the Angles and Saxons left the continent for England, because of very similar
forms found in the other old Germanic languages (Old High German, Old Saxon, etc.).
The source words are generally attested in Latin texts, in the large body of Latin writings
that were preserved through the ages.

an
'anchor'
cor
but 'butter' (L < Gr. butyros)

191
ere
cea
'chalk'
lc
cea
'cheese' (caseum)
s
cet
'kettle'
el
cyc
'kitchen'
ene
ciri
'church' (ecclesia < Gr. ecclesia)
ce
dis
'dish' (discus)
c
mil 'mile' (milia [passuum] 'a thousand paces')
pip
'pepper'
er
pu
'pound' (pondo 'a weight')
nd
sac
'sack' (saccus)
c
sic
'sickle'
ol
str 'street' ([via] strata 'straight way' or stone-paved
aet road)
we
'wall' (vallum)
all
wi
'wine' (vinum < Gr. oinos)
n

II. Old English Period (600-1100)

Latin

aposto 'apostle' (apostolus < Gr.

l apostolos)
casere 'caesar, emperor'
ceaste
'city' (castra 'camp')
r
cest 'chest' (cista 'box')

192
 circul 'circle'
comet
'comet' (cometa < Greek)
a
maege
'master' (magister)
ster
martir 'martyr'
paper 'paper' (papyrus, from Gr.)
tigle 'tile' (tegula)

Celtic

bro
'badger'
cc
cu 'combe,
mb valley'

(few ordinary words, but thousands of place and river names: London, Carlisle,
Devon, Dover, Cornwall, Thames, Avon...)

III. Middle English Period (1100-1500)

Scandinavian
Most of these first appeared in the written language in Middle English; but many were no
doubt borrowed earlier, during the period of the Danelaw (9th-10th centuries).

 anger, blight, by-law, cake, call, clumsy, doze, egg, fellow, gear, get, give,
hale, hit, husband, kick, kill, kilt, kindle, law, low, lump, rag, raise, root, scathe,
scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub, seat, skill, skin, skirt, sky, sly, take, they, them,
their, thrall, thrust, ugly, want, window, wing
 Place name suffixes: -by, -thorpe, -gate

French

 Law and government—attorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel, country, court,

crime, defendent, evidence, government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble,
parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax, verdict
 Church—abbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar, prayer, preach, priest,
religion, sacrament, saint, sermon
 Nobility—baron, baroness; count, countess; duke, duchess; marquis,
marquess; prince, princess; viscount, viscountess; noble, royal (contrast native
words: king, queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly, queenly)

193
  Military—army, artillery, battle, captain, company, corporal,
defense,enemy,marine, navy, sergeant, soldier, volunteer
 Cooking—beef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast,
salmon, stew, veal
 Culture and luxury goods—art, bracelet, claret, clarinet, dance, diamond,
fashion, fur, jewel, oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture
 Other—adventure, change, charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity,
enamor, feign, fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror, pilgrimage,
proud, question, regard, special

Also Middle English French loans: a huge number of words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-
ent, -ity, -ment, -tion, con-, de-, and pre- .

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a given word came from French or whether it was
taken straight from Latin. Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which there
were no special sound and/or spelling changes of the sort that distinguished French from
Latin

IV. Early Modern English Period (1500-1650)

The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the
beginnings of a huge influx of Latin and Greek words, many of them learned words
imported by scholars well versed in those languages. But many are borrowings from other
languages, as words from European high culture begin to make their presence felt and the
first words come in from the earliest period of colonial expansion.

Latin

 agile, abdomen, anatomy, area, capsule, compensate, dexterity, discus,

disc/disk, excavate, expensive, fictitious, gradual, habitual, insane, janitor,
meditate, notorious, orbit, peninsula, physician, superintendent, ultimate,
vindicate

Greek (many of these via Latin)

 anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe, climax, comedy, critic,

data, ectasy, history, ostracize, parasite, pneumonia, skeleton, tonic, tragedy
 Greek bound morphemes: -ism, -ize

Arabic

 via Spanish—alcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm, almanac, azimuth,

alchemy, admiral
 via other Romance languages—amber, cipher, orange, saffron, sugar, zero,
coffee

194
 V. Modern English (1650-present)

Period of major colonial expansion, industrial/technological revolution, and American

immigration.

Words from European languages

French
French continues to be the largest single source of new words outside of very specialized
vocabulary domains (scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical
borrowings).

 High culture—ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue,

champagne, chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet,
sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire
 War and Military—bastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry,
pallisade, rebuff, bayonet
 Other—bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche,
shock
 French Canadian—chowder
 Louisiana French (Cajun)—jambalaya

Spanish


armada, adobe, alligator, alpaca, armadillo, barricade, bravado, cannibal,
canyon, coyote, desperado, embargo, enchilada, guitar, marijuana, mesa, mosquito,
mustang, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla, vigilante

Italian

 alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco, fugue,
gazette (via French), ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni, madrigal, motto, piano,
opera, pantaloons, prima donna, regatta, sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco,
studio, tempo, torso, umbrella, viola, violin
 from Italian American immigrants—cappuccino, espresso, linguini,
mafioso, pasta, pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, spumante, zabaglione, zucchini

Dutch, Flemish

 Shipping, naval terms—avast, boom, bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore,

cruise, dock, freight, keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop,
smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht
 Cloth industry—bale, cambric, duck (fabric), fuller's earth, mart, nap (of
cloth), selvage, spool, stripe
 Art—easel, etching, landscape, sketch

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  War—beleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough, onslaught
 Food and drink—booze, brandy(wine), coleslaw, cookie, cranberry,
crullers, gin, hops, stockfish, waffle
 Other—bugger (orig. French), crap, curl, dollar, scum, split (orig. nautical
term), uproar

German

 bum, dunk, feldspar, quartz, hex, lager, knackwurst, liverwurst, loafer,

noodle, poodle, dachshund, pretzel, pinochle, pumpernickel, sauerkraut, schnitzel,
zwieback, (beer)stein, lederhosen, dirndl
 20th century German loanwords—blitzkrieg, zeppelin, strafe, U-boat,
delicatessen, hamburger, frankfurter, wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest,
schuss, wunderkind, bundt (cake), spritz (cookies), (apple) strudel

Yiddish (most are 20th century borrowings)

 bagel, Chanukkah (Hanukkah), chutzpah, dreidel, kibbitzer, kosher, lox,

pastrami (orig. from Romanian), schlep, spiel, schlepp, schlemiel, schlimazel,
gefilte fish, goy, klutz, knish, matzoh, oy vey, schmuck, schnook,

Scandinavian

 fjord, maelstrom, ombudsman, ski, slalom, smorgasbord

Russian

 apparatchik, borscht, czar/tsar, glasnost, icon, perestroika, vodka

Words from other parts of the world

Sanskrit

 avatar, karma, mahatma, swastika, yoga

Hindi

 bandanna, bangle, bungalow, chintz, cot, cummerbund, dungaree,

juggernaut, jungle, loot, maharaja, nabob, pajamas, punch (the drink), shampoo,
thug, kedgeree, jamboree

Dravidian

 curry, mango, teak, pariah

196
Persian (Farsi)

 check, checkmate, chess

Arabic


bedouin, emir, jakir, gazelle, giraffe, harem, hashish, lute, minaret, mosque,
myrrh, salaam, sirocco, sultan, vizier, bazaar, caravan

African languages


banana (via Portuguese), banjo, boogie-woogie, chigger, goober, gorilla,
gumbo, jazz, jitterbug, jitters, juke(box), voodoo, yam, zebra, zombie

American Indian languages

 avocado, cacao, cannibal, canoe, chipmunk, chocolate, chili, hammock,

hominy, hurricane, maize, moccasin, moose, papoose, pecan, possum, potato,
skunk, squaw, succotash, squash, tamale (via Spanish), teepee, terrapin, tobacco,
toboggan, tomahawk, tomato, wigwam, woodchuck
 (plus thousands of place names, including Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatchewan
and the names of more than half the
states of the U.S., including Michigan, Texas, Nebraska, Illinois)

Chinese

 chop suey, chow mein, dim sum, ketchup, tea, ginseng, kowtow, litchee

Japanese

geisha, hara kiri, judo, jujitsu, kamikaze, karaoke, kimono, samurai, soy,
sumo, sushi, tsunami

Pacific Islands

 bamboo, gingham, rattan, taboo, tattoo, ukulele, boondocks

Australia

boomerang, budgerigar, didgeridoo, kangaroo (and many more in

Australian English)

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

197
 English is the most widely-spoken language in the world, having the distinct status of
being the official language of multiple countries. While the English language is uniform
with major variations in spelling present between American English and British English,
the dialect or accent is usually the factor that enables one to distinguish the various types
of English out there.

From the thick Ugandan English to the French-themed Canadian English, the
varieties of accents present are both diverse and beautiful. Apart from accents, there is a
tendency for people to mix English with their local lingo to form a hybrid variety of
English language that is as colorful as the culture in that country.

British English

British English is the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom
or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles. Slight regional variations exist in formal,
written English in the United Kingdom.

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects
brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest
Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was
generally speaking Common Brittonic—the insular variety of continental Celtic, which
was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages (Welsh, Cornish,
Cumbric) cohabited alongside English into the modern period, but due to their
remoteness from the Germanic languages, influence on English was notably limited.

American English

American English sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of
varieties of the English language native to the United States and widely adopted in
Canada. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and is the
common language used by the federal government, considered the de facto language of
the country because of its widespread use. English has been given official status by 32 of
the 50 state governments.

Australian English

Australian English is a major variety of the English language, used throughout

Australia. Although English has no official status in the constitution, Australian English is
the country’s national and de facto official language as it is the first language of the
majority of the population.

198
 Australian English began to diverge from British English after the founding of the
Colony of New South Wales in 1788 and was recognized as being different from British
English by 1820. It arose from the intermingling of early settlers from a great variety of
mutually intelligible dialectal regions of the British Isles and quickly developed into a
distinct variety of English.

Canadian English

Canadian English is the set of varieties of the English language native to Canada.
According to the 2011 census, English was the first language of approximately 19 million
Canadians (57% of the population) the remainder of the population were native speakers
of Canadian French (22%) or other languages (allophones, 21%).

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. Canadian English is the product of
five waves of immigration and settlement over a period of more than two centuries. The
first large wave of permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically
the most important, was the influx of loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly
from the Mid-Atlantic States – as such, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, and West Virginia. Canadian English is believed
by some scholars to have derived from northern American English.

Indian English

English language public instruction began in India in the 1830s during the rule of the
East India Company (India was then, and is today, one of the most linguistically diverse
regions of the world). In 1835, English replaced Persian as the official language of the
Company. Lord Macaulay played a major role in introducing English and western
concepts to education in India. He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the
official language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools, and the
training of English-speaking Indians as teachers.

The view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it
with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an
official language of India, albeit with an Indian twist, popularly known as Indian English.

Philippine English

Philippine English is any variety of English (similar and related to American English)
native to the Philippines, including those used by the media and the vast majority of
educated Filipinos. English is taught in schools as one of the two official languages of the
country, the other being Filipino (Tagalog).

199
 Philippine English has evolved tremendously from where it began decades ago. Some
decades before English was officially introduced, if not arguably forced, to the
Philippines, the archipelagic nation has been subject to Spanish rule and thus Spanish was
the language of power and influence. However, in 1898, when the Spanish gave the
United States control of the nation, the English language, although initially not favored,
became widely used in a matter of years, which was catalyzed by the coming of American
teachers.

DIALECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Dialects are linguistic varieties which may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary,

spelling and grammar. For the classification of varieties of English in terms of
pronunciation only, see Regional accents of English.

Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually

comprehensible".[1] English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of
different accents (systems of pronunciation), as well as various localized words and
grammatical constructions; many different dialects can be identified based on these
factors. Dialects can be classified at broader or narrower levels: within a broad national or
regional dialect, various more localized sub-dialects can be identified, and so on. The
combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some
English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions.

The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into three general
categories: the British Isles dialects, those of North America, and those of Australasia.
Dialects can be associated not only with place, but also with particular social groups.
Within a given English-speaking country, there will often be a form of the language
considered to be Standard English – the Standard Englishes of different countries differ,
and each can itself be considered a dialect. Standard English is often associated with the
more educated layers of society.

200
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