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Министерство сельского хозяйства РФ Федеральное государственное образовательное учреждение

высшего профессионального образования «Мичуринский государственный аграрный университет»

Кафедра иностранных языков

_____________________________________________________ Утверждено Протокол № 6 методической комиссии социально-гуманитарного факультета от 20 февраля 2007 г.

КРАТКИЙ КУРС ЛЕКЦИЙ ПО

ЛЕКСИКОЛОГИИ АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА ДЛЯ СТУДЕНТОВ НЕЯЗЫКОВЫХ ВУЗОВ

Мичуринск 2007

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Составитель: доцент кафедры иностранных языков Е.В. Москалёва

Рецензенты: доктор филологических наук, профессор Л.Г. Попова, кандидат педагогических наук, доцент Г.В. Кретинина

Рассмотрено на заседании кафедры педагогики протокол № 5 от 15 января 2007 г.

Пособие даёт представление об основах лексикологической теории применительно к материалу английского языка, описывает методы и принципы лексикологического анализа, знакомит с постулатами учебной лексикологии.

В пособие включены вопросы и тесты для проверки усвоения предложенного материала.

Пособие предназначено для студентов неязыковых вузов, изучающих английский язык как вторую специальность, а также для широкого круга лиц, интересующихся английским языком.

©Издательство Мичуринского государственного аграрного университета, 2007



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Lecture 1 General Characteristics of the Lexicology

Plan I. The value of lexicology. II. The connection of lexicology with other branches of

Linguistics. III. Synchronic and Diachronic Lexicology. IV. Modern methods of vocabulary investigation.

I. The term “lexicology” is of Greek origin / from “lexis” –

“word” and “logos” - “science”/. Lexicology is the part of linguistics which deals with the vocabulary and characteristic features of words and word-groups.

The term “vocabulary” is used to denote the system of words and word-groups that the language possesses.

The term “word” denotes the main lexical unit of a language resulting from association of a group of sounds with a meaning. This unit is used in grammatical functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest unit of a language which can stand alone as a complete utterance.

The term “word-group” denotes a group of words which exists in the language as a ready-made unit, has the unity of meaning, the unity of syntactical function, e.g. the word group “as loose as goose” means “clumsy” and is used in a sentence as a predicative / He is as loose as a goose /. So, meaning is the central problem of lexicology and meaning is the central problem of philosophy as well. That means that lexicology helps to study philosophical problems. The practical value of lexicology is important for language teaching. It helps to enrich vocabulary. Studying lexicology is very important for lexicography, the science which studies dictionaries.

Lexicology can study the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words and word-groups, their semantic relations and the development of their sound form and meaning. In this case it



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is called historical lexicology. Another branch of lexicology is called descriptive and studies the vocabulary at a definite stage of its development.

Distinction is made between GENERAL LEXICOLOGY & SPECIAL LEXICOLOGY. General lexicology is a part of General linguistics. It is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (Russian, German, French, etc.).

II. Lexicology is closely connected with other branches of linguistics: phonetics, for example, investigates the phonetic structure of language and is concerned with the study of the outer sound-form of the word. If we change some sounds in the word, we receive the word with the different meaning (read – rod; ship – sheep; cow – bow etc).

Grammar is the study of the grammatical structure of the language. It is concerned with the various means of expressing grammatical relations between words as well as with patterns after which words are combined into word-groups and sentences. The grammatical form of the word is changed and the meaning is changed as well (picture - pictures; work – works; colour – colours; look – looks; arm – arms etc).

The part of speech can be changed as well: pocket – to pocket; name – to name; plug – to plug; plot – to plot; suit – to suit etc.

There is also a close relationship between lexicology and stylistics which is concerned with a study of a nature, functions and styles of languages .

Lexicology connects with the history of the language. Thus in old English the word “stool” meant any kind of seats. Later on the French borrowing – word “chair” came and the word “stool” changed its meaning. Now “stool” means the seat without back. The word “readen” lost its inflexion. That is why due to these changes English vocabulary has very many homonymous forms.



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III. There are two principle approaches in linguistic science to the study of language material: synchronic and diachronic. With regard to Special lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time. It’s Special Descriptive lexicology that deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time.

The diachronic approach in terms of Special lexicology deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time. It is Special Historical lexicology that deals with the evaluation of the vocabulary units of a language as the time goes by.

The two approaches shouldn’t be set one against the other. In fact, they are interconnected and interrelated because every linguistic structure and system exists in a state of constant development so that the synchronic state of a language system is a result of a long process of linguistic evaluation, of its historical development. Closely connected with the Historical lexicology is Contrastive and Comparative lexicology whose aims are to study the correlation between the vocabularies of two or more languages and find out the correspondences between the vocabulary units of the languages under comparison.

IV. The science is said to be formed when it has at its disposal certain methods of investigation. The process of scientific investigation may be subdivided into several stages:

* Observation is an early and basic phase of all modern scientific investigations including linguistics and is the center of what is called “the inductive method of inquiry “. The cardinal role of all inductive procedures is that the statements of fact must be based on observation not on unsupported authority, logical conclusions or personal preferences.



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* Another stage of scientific investigation after observation is classification of those facts which were obtained through observation.

e. g. It is observed that in English nouns the suffixal morpheme “-er” is added to verbal stems (to cook – cooker, to write – writer) and noun stems (village – villager, London – Londoner). The same suffix also occurs in the words such as mother, father. The question is whether the words “mother, father “ have suffix. They haven’t, thus we can come to the conclusion that “-er” can be found in derived and non- derived words . * The following stage is usually that of generalization, that is, the collection of data and their classification must eventually lead to the formulation of a hypotheses, rule, or law . e. g. In the case with “-er” we can formulate the rule that derived words in “-er” may have either verbal or noun stems. The suffix “- er” in combination with adjectival or adverbial stems can’t produce nouns (bigger, longer, shorter are not nouns). * Any linguistic generalization is to be followed by the very fine process – the linguist is required to seek verification of the generalizations that are the result of his inquires. For these aims different methods and procedures are used. They are: contrastive analyses, statistical methods of analyses, immediate constituents analyses, distributional analyses, transformational analyses, componential analyses and method of semantic differentiation .

Contrastive analysis . Contrastive linguists attempt to find out similarities and

differences in both related and non-related languages. Contrastive analysis grew as the result of the practical demands of a language-teaching methodology, where it was empirically shown that the errors which are made by foreign language students can be often traced back to the differences in structure between the target language and the language of the learner. This naturally implies the necessity of a detailed comparison of the



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structure of a native and a target language. This procedure has been named contrastive analysis. People proceed from the assumption that the categories, elements on the semantic as well as on the syntactic and other levels are valid for both languages.

e. g. Linking verbs can be found in English, French, German, Russian, etc. Linking verbs having the meaning of “change and become” are differently represented in each of the languages. In English, for instance, “become, come, grow, fall, run, turn“; in Russian –“становиться “ is used. The task is to find out which semantic and syntactic features characterize the English set of linking verbs, the Russian linking verb and how they can be compared, how the English word-groups “ grow thin, get angry, fall ill “ correspond to Russian “похудеть, рассердиться, заболеть“.

Contrastive analysis can be carried out at three linguistic levels: phonology, grammar (morphology and syntax) and lexis. Contrastive analysis is applied to reveal the features of sameness and difference in the lexical meaning and the semantic structure of correlated words in different languages. It is commonly assumed by non-linguists that all languages have vocabulary systems in which the words themselves differ in sound-form, but refer to reality in the same way. From this assumption it follows that for every word in the mother tongue there is an exact equivalent in the foreign language. It is a belief which is reinforced by the small bilingual dictionary where single-word translation is often used. Language learning cannot be just a matter of substitution a new set of labels for the familiar ones of the mother tongue. It should be born in mind that though the objective reality exists outside human beings and irrespective of the language they speak, every language classifies reality in its own way by means of vocabulary units.

In English, for example, the word “foot” is used to denote the extremity of the leg. In Russian there is no exact equivalent for “foot”: “стопа” is a little bit smaller than foot, the word “нога” denotes the whole leg including the foot.



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Differences in the lexical meaning of correlated words account for the differences of their collocability in different languages.

e.g. Thus, the English adjective “new” and the Russian adjective”новый” when taken in isolation are felt as correlated words: a new dress, New Year. In collocation with other nouns however the Russian adjective cannot be used in the same meaning in which the English word “new” is currently used: new potatoes, new bread, etc.

Contrastive analysis on the level of the grammatical meaning reveals that co-related words in different languages may differ in grammatical characteristics.

e. g. Russians are liable to say “news are good, the money are on the table, her hair are black” because the Russian words “новости, деньги, волосы ” have the grammatical meaning of plurality.

Contrastive analysis brings to light the essence of what is usually described as idiomatic English, idiomatic Russian, i. e. the peculiar way in which every language combines and structures in lexical units various concepts to denote extra-linguistic reality.

e. g. A typical Russian word-group used to describe the way somebody performs an action or to state how a person finds himself has the structure that may be represented by the formula “adjective + a finite form of a verb”(он крепко спит, быстро усваивает). In English we can also use structurally similar word-groups and say “he learns fast/slowly”. The structure of idiomatic word-group in English is different. The structure is “adjective + deverbal noun”. It is really in English to say “he is a heavy smoker, poor learner, early riser”.



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Statistical analysis Statistical linguistics is nowadays generally recognized as

the one of the major branches of linguistics. Statistical inquiries have considerable importance because of their relevance to certain problems of communication engineering and information theory. Statistical approach proved essential in the selection of vocabulary items of a foreign language for teaching purposes. Very few people know more than 10% of the words in their mother tongue. It follows that if we do not wish to waste time on committing to memorize vocabulary items which are never likely to be useful to the learner we have to select only lexical units that are commonly used by a native speaker .

Out of approximately 500 000 words listed in Oxford English dictionary the active vocabulary of an educated Englishman comprises no more than 30 000 words and of these 4 000 - 5 000 are presumed to be amplisufficient for the daily needs of an average member of the English speech community. Thus, it is evident that the problem of selection of teaching vocabulary is of vital importance. Statistical techniques have been successfully applied in the analysis of various linguistic phenomena. Different structural types of words, affixes, the vocabularies of great writers and poets and even in the study of some problems of Historical Lexicology.

Statistical regularities can be observed only if the phenomena under analysis are sufficiently numerous. Thus, the first requirement of any statistic investigation is the size of the sample. It is known that comparatively small group of words makes up the bulk of any text. It was found that approximately 1300 – 1500 most frequent words make up 85% of all words occurring in the text. If however we analyze a sample of 60 words it is hard to predict the number of occurrences of most frequent words.

e. g. If we take the word “room” we can find some meanings of the word:



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1) “room” - denoting “space” as in “take less room, not enough room to do smth.”; 2) part of a house as in “sitting-room”; 3) used in plural = lodgings as in “to get rooms”. Statistical analysis shows that most frequently the word is used in its second meaning – 83% of all occurrences of the word in different texts, 12% of all takes its first meaning – “space”, and only 2% takes the third meaning of the word.

Immediate constituents analysis The theory of Immediate constituents was originally

elaborated as an attempt to determine the ways in which lexical units are relevantly related to one another. It was discovered that combinations of units are usually structured into hierarchial sets of binary constructions.

e. g. In the word-group “a black dress in severe style “ we do not relate the indefinite article “a” to adjective “black”, “black” to “dress”, “dress” to “in”, “in” to “severe”, “severe” to “style”. We set up a structure which may be represented as “a black dress” and “in severe style”.

Thus, the fundamental aim of immediate constituents analysis is to segment a set of lexical units into two maximally independent sequences and these maximally independent sequences are called immediate constituents. The further segmentation of immediate constituents results in ultimate constituents, which means that further segmentation is impossible for no meaning can be found.

e. g. The ultimate constituents of the phrase given are “a”, ”black”, “dress”, “ in”, “severe”, “style”.

This method of analysis is extremely fruitful in discovering the derivational structure of words.

Distributional analysis Distributional analysis in its various forms is commonly

used nowadays. By the term “distribution” we understand the occurrence of a lexical unit relative to another lexical units of the same levels: words to words, morpheme to morphemes.



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In other words, by this term we understand the position which lexical unit occupies or may occupy in the text or in the flow of speech. It is observed that a certain component of the word- meaning is described when the word is identified distributionally.

e. g. In the sentence: The boy__________ home . The missing word is easily identified as a verb. It may be “came, ran, went, goes”, but not as an adverb or a noun, or an adjective.

Thus, we see that the component of meaning that is distributionally identified is actually the part-of-speech meaning. It is also observed that in a number of cases words have different lexical meanings in different distributional patterns.

e. g. The verb “to treat” has different lexical meanings in “to treat smb kindly” and “to treat smb to ice-cream”. The interdependence of distribution and meaning can be also observed at the level of word-groups.

e. g. It is only the distribution of completely identical lexical units but arranged on the reverse that differentiates the meaning – water tap and tap water.

Transformational analysis Transformational analysis in lexicological investigations

may be defined as repatterning (representing, reorganization) of various distributional structures in order to discover difference or sameness of meaning of practically identical distributional patterns. As distributional patterns are in a number of cases polysemantic transformational procedures are of help not only in the analysis of semantic sameness / difference of the lexical units but also in the analysis of the factors that account for their polysemy. Word-groups of identical distributional structure when repatterned show that the semantic relations between words and consequently the meaning may be different.

e.g. A pattern “possessive pronoun”+”noun” (his car, his failure, his arrest, his kindness). According to transformational analysis the meaning of each word-group may be represented as:



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he has a car, he failed, he was arrested, he is kind. In each of the cases different meaning is revealed: possession, action, passive action, quality.The rules of transformation are rather strict and shouldn’t be identified with paraphrasing in the usual sense of the term. There are many restrictions both on syntactic and lexical levels. These are:

1) Permutation – the repatterning on condition that the basic subordinative relationships between words and word-stems of the lexical units are not changed.

e. g. “His work is excellent “ may be transformed into “his excellent work, the excellence of his work, he works excellently“. In the example given the relationships between lexical units and the stems of the notional words are essentially the same.

2) Replacement – the substitution of a component of the distributional structure by a member of a certain strictly defined set of lexical units

e. g. Replacement of a notional verb by an auxiliary or link verb (he will make a bad mistake and he will make a good teacher). The sentences have identical distributional structure but only in the second one the verb “to make “ can be substituted by “become“ or “be“. The fact of impossibility of identical transformations of distributionally identical structures is a formal proof of the difference in their meaning.

3) Addition (or expansion) may be illustrated by the application of the procedure of addition to the classification of adjectives into two groups- adjectives denoting inherent and non-inherent qualities.

e. g. John is happy. John is tall. We add a word-group “in Moscow“. We shall see that

“John is happy in Moscow” has meaning while the second one is senseless. That is accounted by the difference in the meaning of adjectives denoting inherent (tall) and non-inherent (happy) qualities.



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4) Deletion – a procedure which shows whether one of the words semantically subordinated to the other.

e. g. The word-group “red flowers” may be deleted and transformed into “flowers” without making the sentence senseless: I like red flowers or I like flowers. The other word-group“red tape” means “bureaucracy” and it can’t be divided into two parts.

Componental analysis. In this analysis linguists proceed from the assumption

that the smallest units of meaning are sememes or semes. e. g. In the lexical item “woman” several sememes may be

singled out, such as human, not an animal, female, adult. The analysis of the word “girl” will show the following sememes: human, female, young. The last component of the two words differentiates them and makes impossible to mix up the words in the process of communication. It is classical form of revealing the work of componental analysis to apply them to the so called closed systems of vocabulary, for example, colour terms. The analysis as a rule was formalized only as far as the symbolic representation of meaning components it is concerned with. Each sememe in the terms of colours acquires or is given a certain letter (A, B, C, D…) and the meaning of the terms may be given in a formalized form.

e. g. Red and scarlet will differ only in one component and that is intensity of colour and by the letter it may be illustrated as A B C Under the letter C the intensity is meant. The formalized representation of meaning helps to find out different semantic components which influence collocability of words (during the day but not during the stairs, down the stairs but not down the day). Componental analysis is practically always combined with transformational procedures or statistical analysis. The combination makes it possible to find out which of the meanings should be represented first of all in the dictionaries of different types and how the words should be combined in order to make your speech sensible.



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Method of semantic differential A word has not only one meaning and even one word

usually implies some additional information which differentiates one word from another.

e. g. to like , to love , to adore , to warship . All the words denote positive feelings, characteristic of a human being. But each of them gives additional information on the so-called strength of feeling. This is the connotational aspect which was singled out by the semantic differential – the method which was worked out by a group of American psycholinguists. Their technique requires the subjects to judge – a series of concepts with respect to a set of antonymic adjective scale.

e. g. A horse can be: good – bad fast – slow strong – weak hard – soft happy – sad

The meaning of the divisions is that each of the quality may be gradated.

Representing extremely good, very good, neither good nor bad, slightly bad, extremely bad and these grades can be marked by a plus. And the horse may be very good, not bad, etc.

The revealed gradations showing some portion of quality helps to singled out such words which are usually referred to as neutral, expressive, archaic and new words proper – neologisms. All the methods of analysis are applied in one and the same sphere of investigation. If you are interested in meaning you shouldn’t pay much attention to the structure, if you are interested in collocation of words you shouldn’t pay much attention what parts of words represent the distributional structure. The combination of different methods of analysis helps to classify the vocabulary as a whole and each lexical unit



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taken separately. It should be said that practically no procedures function independently and separately from each other. It is only for study aims that we separate one procedure from another. In fact, being a two-faced unit a lexical item provides to be an indivisible unit of form and content. That is why you cannot investigate one side of the item paying no attention to the other one .

Questions: 1. What does the term “lexicology” mean? 2. What does the term “word” denote? 3. What is the distinction between General and Special

Lexicology? 4. What branches of Linguistics is Lexicology connected

with? 5. What are two principle approaches in linguistic

science to study? 6. What methods of vocabulary investigation do you

know?

Test 1 1. The term “lexicology” is of a) Greek origin b) Latin origin c) French origin d) Russian origin 2. The central problem of lexicology is a) word b) word-group c) sentence d) meaning



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3. The two main approaches in studying language material are

a) special and descriptive b) historical and comparative c) synchronic and diachronic d) contrastive and general 4. The word-group “as loose as a goose” means a) clumsy b) kind c) stupid d) greedy 5. The science is said to be formed when it ahs at its

disposal a) certain methods of investigation b) money c) two principal approaches d) inductive procedures



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Lecture 2 General Characteristics of English Vocabulary.

Plan I. Lexico-Symantic system. II. The volume of the vocabulary. The basic word-stock. III. Archaisms. IV. Neologisms.

I. Lexicology studies the recurrent patterns of semantic relationships, and of any formal phonological, morphological or contextual means by which they may be rendered. It aims at systematization.

It has been claimed by different authors that, in contrast to grammar, the vocabulary of a language is not systematic but chaotic. In the light of recent investigations in linguistic theory, however, we are now in a position to bring some order into the “chaos”. We call vocabulary systematic because the sum total of all words in it may be considered as a structured set of interdependent and interrelated elements.

The term “system” as applied to vocabulary should not be taken rigidly. The vocabulary system cannot be completely and exactly characterized by deterministic functions; that is for the present state of science it is not possible to specify the system’s entire future by its status at some one instant of its operation. In other words, the vocabulary is a probabilistic system, or rather a set of interrelated probabilistic systems. An approximation is always made possible by leaving some things out of account. But we have to remember that the rules of language are mostly analogies. Where different analogies are in conflict, one may appear as a constraint on the working of another. The following simple example illustrates this point: the regular, that is statistically predominant, pattern for adjective stems is to form abstract nouns by means of the suffix –ness: shortness, narrowness, shallowness. All the antonyms of the above-mentioned words, however, follow a different pattern: they have a



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dental suffix: length, width, depth. This second analogy becomes a constraint on the working of the first. Moreover, the relationship of the adjective big with the rest of the system is even more unpredictable, as it is mostly correlated with the noun size. The semantic correlation then is as follows:

Short/shortness=narrow/narrowness=shallow/shallowness=long/length = wide/width=deep/depth=big/size.

At this point it will be helpful to remember that it is precisely the most frequent words that show irregular or suppletive derivation and inflection.

Having in view all these restrictions, we, nevertheless regard vocabulary as a lexico-semantic system because all its elements are in some relations of equivalence and contrast which hold between them, and are grouped into sets according to various features of equivalence.

So, lexico-semantic system is a combination of interdependent elements. A change in one part of the system brings a change into another one. (reed – камыш; read – читать).

II. Nowadays in English there are 450 000 words. Passive

vocabulary is 30 000 to understand. Active vocabulary is 4-5 000 to speak.

The basic word-stock implies our practical vocabulary. The words in it are neutral and frequent. The basic word-stock includes root words, derivatives and compounds. The basic word-stock includes different parts of speech, native and borrowed words.

The basic word-stock is a good building material for phrases: to go mad, to go on strike, to go one’s way, to go out of fashion; to make a date, to make friends, to make a long story short, to make a scene. The words from the basic word-stock are usually pollysemantic.

III. Archaisms are words which are no longer used in

everyday speech, which have been ousted by their synonyms.



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Archaisms remain in the language, but they are used as stylistic devices to express solemnity. Most of these words are lexical archaisms and they are stylistic synonyms of words which ousted them from the neutral style. Some of them are: steed /horse/, slay /kill/, behold /see/, perchance /perhaps/, woe /sorrow/ etc.

Sometimes a lexical archaism begins a new life, getting a new meaning, then the old meaning becomes a semantic archaism, e.g. fair in the meaning “beautiful” is a semantic archaism, but in the meaning “blond” it belongs to the neutral style.

Sometimes the root of the word remains and the affix is changed, then the old affix is considered to be a morphemic archaism, e.g. beauteous / ous was substituted by ful/, bepaint /be was dropped/, darksome / some was dropped, oft / en was added/ etc.

IV. At the present moment English is developing very

swiftly and there is so called “neology blowup”. R. Berchfield who worked at compiling a four-volume supplement to NED says that averagely 800 neologisms appear every year in Modern English. It has also become a language-giver recently, especially with the development of computerization. New words, as a rule, appear in speech of an individual person who wants to express his idea in some original way. This person is called “originator”. New lexical units are primarily used by university teachers, newspaper reporters, by those who are connected with mass media.

Neologisms can develop in three main ways: a lexical unit existing in the language can change its meaning to denote a new object or phenomenon. In such cases we have semantic neologisms, e.g. the word “umbrella” developed the meanings: “авиационное прикрытие”, “политическое прикрытие”. A new lexical unit can develop in the language to denote an object or phenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it. In such cases we have transnomination, e.g. the word “slum” was first substituted by the word “ghetto” then by the word group “inner town”. A new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a



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new object or phenomenon. In this case we have “a proper neologism”, many of them are cases of new terminology.

Here we can point out several semantic groups when we analyze the group of neologisms connected with computerization, and here we can mention words used:

1) to denote different types of computers: PC, super-computer, multi-user, neurocomputer /analogue of a human brain/;

2) to denote parts of computers: hardware, software, monitor, screen, data, vapourware / experimental samples of computers for exhibition, not for production/;

3) to denote computer languages: BASIC, Algol FORTRAN etc;

4) to denote notions connected with work on computer: computerman, computerization, computerize, to troubleshoot, to blitz out /to ruin data in computer’s memory/.

There are also different types of activities performed with

the help of computers, many of them are formed with the help of morpheme “tele”: telework, to telecommute /to work at home having a computer which is connected with the enterprise for which one works/. There are also such words as telebanking, telemarketing, teleshopping /when you can perform different operations with the help of your computer without leaving your home, all operations are registered by the computer at your bank/, videobank /computerized telephone which registers all information which is received in your absence/.

In the sphere of linguistics we have such neologisms as: machine translation, interlingual /an artificial language for machine translation into several languages/ and some others.

In the sphere of biometrics we have computerized machines which can recognize characteristic features of people seeking entrance: finger-print scanner /finger prints/, biometric eye-scanner / blood-vessel arrangements in eyes/, voice verification /voice patterns/. These are types of biometric locks. Here we can



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also mention computerized cards with the help of which we can open the door without a key.

In the sphere of medicine computers are also used and we have the following neologism: telemonitory unit /a telemonitory system for treating patience at a distance/.

With the development of social activities neologisms appeared as well, e.g. youthquake – волнения среди молодёжи, pussy-footer – политик, идущий на компромиссы, Euromarket, Eurodollar, Europarliament, Europol etc.

In the modern English society there is a tendency to social stratification, as a result there are neologisms in this sphere as well, e.g.: belonger – представитель среднего класса, приверженец консервативных взглядов. To this group we can also refer abbreviations of the type yuppi /young urban professional people/, such as muppi, gruppi, rumpie, bluppie etc. People belonging to the lowest layer of the society are called survivers, a little bit more prosperous are called sustainers, and those who try to prosper in life and imitate those, they want to belong to, are called emulaters. Those who have prospered but are not belongers are called achievers. All these layers of society are called VAL / Value and Lifestyle/. The rich belong to jet set that is those who can afford to travel by jet planes all over the world enjoying their life. Sometimes they are called jet plane travellers.

During Margaret Thatcher’s rule the abbreviation PLU appeared which means ”People like us” by which snobbistic circles of society call themselves. Nowadays /since 1989/ PLU was substituted by “one of us”.

There are a lot of immigrants now in UK, in connection with which neologisms partial and non-partial were formed /имеющие право жить в стране и его антоним/.

The word-group “welfare mother” was formed to denote a non-working single mother living on benefit.

In connection with criminalization of towns in UK voluntary groups of assisting the police were formed where dwellers of the neighbourhood are joined. These groups are called neigbourhood



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watch, home watch. Criminals wear stocking masks not to be recognized.

The higher society has neologism in their speech, such as: dial-a-meal, dial-a-taxi.

In the language of teen-agers there are such words as: Drugs! /OK/, sweat /бег на длинные дистанции/, task /home composition/, brunch, etc.

With the development of the professional jargons a lot of words ending in “speak” appeared in English, e.g. artspeak, sportspeak, medspeak, education-speak, video-speak, cable-speak etc.

There are different semantic groups of neologisms belonging to everyday life:

1) food e.g. starter /instead of “hors d’oevres”/, microbiotics /raw vegetables, crude rice/, longlife milk, clingfilm, microwave stove, consumer electronics, fridge-freezer, hamburgers /beef-, cheese-, fish-, veg-/.

2) clothing e.g. catsuit /one piece clingning suit/, slimster, string /miniscule bikini/, hipsters /trousers or skirt with the belt on hips/,completenik /a long sweater for trousers/, swetnik /a long jacket/, pants-skirt bloomers /lady’s sports trousers/.

3) footwear e.g. winklepickers /shoes with long pointed toes/, thongs /open sandals/, backsters /beech sandals with thick soles/.

4) bags e.g. bumbag / a small bag worn on waist/, sling bag /a bag with a long belt/, maitre /a small bag for cosmetics/.

There are also such words as: dangledolly /a dolly-talisman dangling in the car before the wind screen/, boot-sale /selling from the boot of the car/, touch-tone /a telephone with press button/.

Neologisms can be also classified according to the ways they are formed. They are subdivided into: phonological neologisms, borrowings, semantic neologisms and syntactical neologisms. Syntactical neologisms are divided into morphological /word-building/ and phraseological /forming word-groups/.



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Phonological neologisms are formed by combining unique sounds, they are called artificial, e.g. rah-rah /a short skirt which is worn by girls during parades/, yeck/yuck which are interjections to express repulsion produced the adjective yucky/yecky. These are strong neologisms.

Strong neologisms also include phonetic borrowings, such as perestroika /Russian/, solidarnost /Polish, Berufsverbot /German/, dolce vita /Italian/ etc.

Morphological and syntactical neologisms are usually built on patterns existing in the language, therefore they do not belong to the group of strong neologisms.

Among morphological neologisms there are a lot of compound words of different types, such as free-fall – резкое падение курса акций appeared in 1987 with the stock market crash in October 1987 / on the analogy with free-fall of parachutists, which is the period between jumping and opening the chute/. Here also belong: call-and-recall – вызов на диспансеризацию, bioastronomy – search for life on other planets, rat-out –betrayal in danger, zero-zero /ban of longer and shorter range weapon/, x-rated /about films terribly vulgar and cruel/, Amerenglish /American English/, tycoonography /a biography of business tycoon/.

There are also abbreviations of different types such as resto, teen /teenager/, dinky /dual income no kids yet/, ARC /AIDS-related condition, infection with AIDS/, HIV /human immuno-deficiency virus/.

Quite a number of neologisms appear on the analogy with lexical units existing in the language, e.g. snowmobile /automobile/, danceaholic /alcoholic/, airtel /hotel/, cheeseburger /hamburger/, autocade /cavalcade/.

There are many neologisms formed by means of affixation, such as: decompress, to disimprove, overhoused, educationalist, slimster, folknik etc. Phraseological neologisms can be subdivided into phraseological units with transferred meanings e.g. to buy into /to become involved/, fudge and dudge /avoidance of definite



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decisions/, and set non-idiometic expressions, e.g. electronic virus, Rubic’s cube, acid rain, boot trade etc.

Changes in pronunciation. In Modern British there is a tendency to change

pronunciation of some sounds and combinations of sounds due to the influence of American English and some other factors. These changes are most noticeable in the speech of teachers and students of the universities in the Southern part of England / Oxford, Cambridge, London/.

There are the following changes in pronouncing vowels: 1) shortening of long vowels, especially at the end of the

word and before voiceless consonants, e.g. see, keep; 2) lengthening of short vowels before voiced consonants:

big, good, come, jam etc. in such adjectives which end in /d/ lengthening of the vowel is observed all over England e.g. bad, sad, glad, mad etc.

3) drawling of stressed syllables and clipping unstressed syllables.

4) In unstressed syllables / / is pronounced instead of /i/, e.g. /b’ko:z/, /‘evid ns/ etc.

5) In the words consisting of three or more syllables there is a tendency to have two main stresses e.g. /’nes’s ri/, /’int’restin/.

6) The diphthong /ou/ is pronounced /u/: home /hum/, go /gu/

7) The diphthong /u/ is pronounced /o:/ e.g. sure /sho:/. Vowels can also change under the influence of consonants: 1) after fricatives and consonants /n/ and /m/ /ju:/ is

pronounced as /u:/ e.g.: resume, music, news, enthusiasm.

Questions: 1. What is lexico-semantic system? 2. How many words are there in Modern English

nowadays? 3. What is active vocabulary? 4. What is passive vocabulary? 5. What is basic word stock?



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6. What does the term “archaism” mean? Give some examples of archaic words.

7. What does the term “neologism” mean? Give some examples of new words.

Test 2 1. Lexico-semantic system is: a) a combination of interdependent elements. b) a type of classification of English vocabulary. c) a combination of changing elements. d) a stock of borrowings.

2. Nowadays in English there are: a) 470 000 words. b) 500 000 words. c) 350 000 words. d) 450 000 words.

3. The basic word-stock includes: a) nouns. b) adjectives. c) different parts of speech. d) phraseological units. 4. Archaisms are words which: a) ousted some new words. b) are no longer used in everyday speech. c) are used to express unimportance. d) are used instead of new meanings.

5. “A proper neologism” is: a) an old lexical unit for denoting a new object or

phenomenon. b) a lexical unit existing in the language and changing its

meaning. c) a new lexical unit that develops in the language. d) a new lexical unit for denoting a new object or

phenomenon.



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Lecture 3 Etymological Characteristics of Modern English Vocabulary

Plan. I. Words of native origin. Characteristics of words of

native origin. II. Causes and ways of borrowings. III. Classification of borrowings. IV. Etymological doublets. I. According to the origin the wordstock may be

subdivided into two main sets. The elements of one are native, the elements of the other are borrowed.

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock, as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period.

The native words are further subdivided by diachronic linguistics into those of Indo-European stock and those of Common Germanic origin. The words having cognated in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer. It has been noticed that they readily fall into definite semantic groups. Among them we find terms of kinship: father, mother, son, daughter, brother; words naming the most important objects and phenomena of nature: sun, moon, star, wind, water, wood, hill, stone, tree; names of animals and birds: bull, cat, crow, goose, wolf; parts of the human body: arm, ear, eye, foot, heart, etc. some of the most frequent verbs are also of Indo-European common stock: bear, come, sit, stand and others. The adjectives of this group denote concrete physical properties: hard, quick, slow, red, white. Most numerals also belong here.

A much bigger part of this native vocabulary layer is formed by words of the Common Germanic stock, i.e. of words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, etc., but none in Russian or French. It contains a greater number of semantic groups. The following list may serve as an illustration of their general character. The nouns are: summer, winter, storm, rain,



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ice, ground, bridge, house, shop, room, coal, iron, lead, cloth, hat, shirt, shoe, care, evil, hope, life, need; the verbs are: bake, burn, buy, drive, hear, keep, learn, make, meet, rise, see, send, shoot and many more; the adjectives are: broad, dead, deaf, deep. Many adverbs and pronouns also belong to this layer.

Together with the words of the common Indo-European stock these Common Germanic words form the bulk of the most frequent elements used in any style of speech. They constitute no less then 80% of the 500 most frequent words listed by Thorndike and Lorge (E. L. Thorndike and I. Lorge “The Teacher’s Word-book of 30, 000 Words”)

Words belonging to the subsets of the native word-stock are for the most part characterized by a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency, high frequency value and a developed polysemy; they are often monosyllabic, show great word-building power and enter a number of set expressions.

For example, watch<OE wǽccan is one of the 500 most frequent English words. It may be used as a verb in more than ten different sentence patterns, with or without object or adverbial modifiers and combined with different classes of words. Its valency is thus of highest. Examples are as follows: Are you going to play or only watch (the others play)? He was watching the crowd go by. Watch me carefully. He was watching for the man lo leave the house. The man is being watched by the police.

The noun watch may mean “the act of watching”, “the guard”(on ships), “a period of duty for part of the ship’s crew”, “the team on duty”, “a period of wakefulness”, “close observation”, “a time piece”, etc.

Watch is the centre of a numerous word-family: watch-dog, watcher, watchful, watchfulness, watch-out, watchword, etc. some of the set expressions containing this root are to be on the watch, to watch one’s step, to keep watch, watchful as a hawk. There is also a proverb The watched pot never boils, used when people show impatience or are unduly worrying. In Modern English only 30% of native words are used. But they are more important to build speech.



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The phonetic characteristics of native words: 1) Short, monosyllabic. 2) The oppositions between long and short sounds. 3) The final voiced consonants are never devoiced.

The spelling characteristics: 1) graphical ch, th 2) native words are very good building material for

derivatives and phrases: hand-handful, handy. To live from hand to mouth.

II. Borrowing words from other languages is characteristic of English throughout its history. More than two thirds of the English vocabulary are borrowings. Mostly they are words of Romanic origin (Latin, French, Italian, Spanish). Borrowed words are different from native ones by their phonetic structure, by the phonological structure and also by their grammatical forms. It is also characteristic of borrowings to be non-motivated semantically English history is very rich in different types of contacts with other countries, that is why it is very rich in borrowings. The Roman invasion, the adoption of Christianity, Scandinavian and Norman conquests of the British Isles, the development of British colonialism and trade and cultural relations served to increase immensely the English vocabulary. The majority of these borrowings are fully assimilated in English in their pronunciation, grammar, spelling and can be hardly distinguished from native words. English continues to take in foreign words, but now the quantity of borrowings is not so abundant as it was before. All the more so, English now has become a “giving” language, it has become Lingua franca of the twentieth century.

III. Borrowings can be classified according to different criteria:

a) according to the aspect which is borrowed; b) according to the degree of assimilation;



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c) according to the language from which the word was borrowed. (In this classification only the main languages from which words were borrowed into English are described, such as Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Russian).

CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING TO THE BORROWED ASPECT.

There are the following groups: phonetic borrowings, translation loans, semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings.

Phonetic borrowings are most characteristic in all languages, they are called loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and meaning. Then they undergo assimilation, each sound in the borrowed word is substituted by the corresponding sound of the borrowing language. In some cases the spelling is changed. The structure of the word can also be changed. The position of the stress is very often influenced by the phonetic system of the borrowing language. The paradigm of the word, and sometimes the meaning of the borrowed word are also changed. Such words as: labour, travel, table, chair, people are phonetic borrowings from French; apparatchik, nomenklatura, sputnik are phonetic borrowings from Russian; bank, soprano, duet are phonetic borrowings from Italian etc.

Translation loans are word-for-word (or morpheme-for-morpheme ) translations of some foreign words or expressions. In such cases the notion is borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexical units, “to take the bull by the horns” (Latin), “living space” (German) etc. Some translation loans appeared in English from Latin already in the Old English period, e.g. Sunday (solis dies). There are translation loans from the languages of Indians, such as: “pipe of peace”, “pale-faced”, from German “masterpiece”, “homesickness”, “superman”.

Semantic borrowings are such units when a new meaning of the unit existing in the language is borrowed. It can happen when we have two relative languages which have common words with different meanings, e.g. there are semantic borrowings between



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Scandinavian and English, such as the meaning “to live” for the word “to dwell” which in Old English had the meaning “to wander”. Or else the meaning “дар”, “подарок” for the word “gift” which in Old English had the meaning “выкуп за жену”.

Semantic borrowing can appear when an English word was borrowed into some other language, developed there a new meaning and this new meaning was borrowed back into English, e.g. “brigade” was borrowed into Russian and formed the meaning “a working collective”, “бригада”. This meaning was borrowed back into English as a Russian borrowing. The same is true of the English word “pioneer”.

Morphemic borrowings are borrowings of affixes which occur in the language when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from one language into another, so that the morphemic structure of borrowed words becomes familiar to the people speaking the borrowing language, e.g. we can find a of Romanic affixes in the English word-building system, that is why there are a lot of words - hybrids in English where different morphemes have different origin, e.g. “goddess”, “beautiful” etc.

CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING TO

THE DEGREE OF ASSIMILATION The degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on the

following factors: a) from what group of languages the word was borrowed, if

the word belongs to the same group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier;

b) in what way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form, words borrowed orally are assimilated quicker;

c) how often the borrowing is used in the language, the greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated;

d) how long the word lives in the language, the longer it lives, the more assimilated it is.

Accordingly borrowings are subdivided into: completely assimilated, partly assimilated and non-assimilated (barbarisms).



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Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language, cf the French word “sport” and the native word “start”. Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs, e.g. correct -corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means of s-inflexion, e.g. gate- gates. In completely assimilated French words the stress has been shifted from the last syllable to the last but one.

Semantic assimilation of borrowed words depends on the words existing in the borrowing language, as a rule, a borrowed word does not bring all its meanings into the borrowing language, if it is polysemantic, e.g. the Russian borrowing “sputnik” is used in English only in one of its meanings.

Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:

a) borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed, e.g. sari, sombrero, taiga, kvass etc.

b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their plural forms: bacillus - bacilli, phenomenon - phenomena, datum -data, genius - genii etc.

c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with the initial sounds /v/ and /z/, e.g. voice, zero. In native words these voiced consonants are used only in the intervocal position as allophones of sounds /f/ and /s/ (loss - lose, life - live). Some Scandinavian borrowings have consonants and combinations of consonants which were not palatalized, e.g. /sk/ in the words: sky, skate, ski, etc (in native words we have the palatalized sounds denoted by the digraph “sh”, e.g. shirt); sounds /k/ and /g/ before front vowels are not palatalized e.g. girl, get, give, kid, kill, kettle. In native words we have palatalization, e.g. German, child.

Some French borrowings have retained their stress on the last syllable, e.g. police, cartoon. Some French borrowings retain special combinations of sounds, e.g. /a:3/ in the words:



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camouflage, bourgeois, some of them retain the combination of sounds /wa:/ in the words: memoir, boulevard.

d) borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greak borrowings «y» can be spelled in the middle of the word (symbol, synonym), “ph” denotes the sound /f/ (phoneme, morpheme), “ch” denotes the sound /k/ (chemistry, chaos), “ps” denotes the sound /s/ (psychology). Latin borrowings retain their polisyllabic structure, have double consonants, as a rule, the final consonant of the prefix is assimilated with the initial consonant of the stem, (accompany, affirmative).

French borrowings which came into English after 1650 retain their spelling, e.g. consonants «p», «t», «s» are not pronounced at the end of the word (buffet, coup, debris), Specifically French combination of letters «eau» /ou/ can be found in the borrowings : beau, chateau, troussaeu. Some of digraphs retain their French pronunciation: 'ch' is pronounced as /sh/, e.g. chic, parachute, 'qu' is pronounced as /k/ e.g. bouquet, «ou» is pronounced as /u:/, e.g. rouge; some letters retain their French pronunciation, e.g. «i» is pronounced as /i:/, e,g, chic, machine; «g» is pronounced as /3/, e.g. rouge.

Modern German borrowings also have some peculiarities in their spelling: common nouns are spelled with a capital letter e.g. Autobahn, Lebensraum; some vowels and digraphs retain their German pronunciation, e.g. «a» is pronounced as /a:/ (Dictat), «u» is pronounced as /u:/ (Kuchen), «au» is pronounced as /au/ (Hausfrau), «ei» is pronounced as /ai/ (Reich); some consonants are also pronounced in the German way, e.g. «s» before a vowel is pronounced as /z/ (Sitskrieg), «v» is pronounced as /f/ (Volkswagen), «w» is pronounced as /v/, «ch» is pronounced as /h/ (Kuchen).

Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarisms) are borrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom and are non-assimilated, e.g. addio (Italian), tete-a-tete (French), dolce vita (Italian), duende (Spanish), an homme, a femme (French), gonzo (Italian) etc.



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CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING TO THE LANGUAGE FROM WHICH THEY WERE BORROWED.

ROMANIC BORROWING. Latin borrowings. Among words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin

during the period when the British Isles were a part of the Roman Empire, there are such words as: street, port, wall etc. many Latin and Greek words came into English during the Adoption of Christianity in the 6-th century. At this time the Latin alphabet was borrowed which ousted the Runic alphabet. These borrowings are usually called classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words: alter, cross, dean and Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem.

Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle English period due to the Great Revival of Learning. These are mostly scientific words because Latin was the language of science at the time. These words were not used as frequently as the words of the Old English period, therefore some of them were partly assimilated grammatically, e.g. formula-formulae. Here also belong such words as: memorandum, minimum, maximum, veto, etc.

Classical borrowings continue to appear in Modern English as well. Mostly they are words formed with the help of Latin and Greek morphemes. There are quite a lot of them in medicine (appendicitis, aspirin), in chemistry (acid, valency, alkali), in technique (engine, antenna, biplane, airdrome), in politics (socialism, militarism), names of sciences (zoology, lexicography).

French borrowings. The influence of French on the English spelling. The largest group of borrowings are French borrowings.

Most of them came into English during the Norman conquest. French influenced not only the vocabulary of English but also its spelling, because documents were written by French scribes as the local population was mainly illiterate, and the ruling class was



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French. Runic letters remaining in English after the Latin alphabet was borrowed were substituted by Latin letters and combinations of letters, e.g. “v” was introduced for the voiced consonant /v/ instead of “f” in the intervocal position /lufian-love/, the digraph “ch” was introduced to denote the sound /ch/ instead of the letter “c” (chest) before front vowels where it had been palatalized, the digraph “sh” was introduced instead of the Runic letters “o” (this, thing), the letter “y” was introduced instead of the runic letter “3” to denote the sound /j/ (yet). The digraph “qu” substituted the combination “cw” to denote the combination of sounds /kw/ (queen), the digraph “ou” was introduced to denote the sound /u:/ (house) (the sound /u:/ was later on diphthongized and is pronounced /au/ in native words and fully assimilated borrowings). As it was difficult for French scribes to copy English texts they substituted the letter “u” before “v”,”m”, “n” and the digraph “th” by the letter “o” to escape the combination of many vertical lines /”sunu”- “son”, “luvu”-“love”/.

Borrowing of French words. There following semantic groups of French borrowings: a) words relating to government: administer, empire,

state, government: b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, banner,

soldier, battle; c) words relating to jury: advocate, petition, inquest,

sentence, barrister; d) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace,

pleat, embroidery; e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl; f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner,

appetite, to roast, to stew. Words were borrowed from French into English after 1650,

mainly through French literature, but they were not as numerous and many of them are not completely assimilated. There are the following semantic groups of these borrowings:

a) words relating to literature and music: belle-lettres, conservatorie, brochure, pirouette, vaudeville;



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b) words relating to military affairs: corps, echelon, fuselage, manouvre;

c) words relating to buildings and furniture: entresol, chateau, bureau;

d) words relating to food and cooking: ragout, cuisine.

Italian borrowings Cultural and trade relations between Italy and Europe

brought many Italian words into English. The earliest Italian borrowing came into English in the 14-th century, it was the word “bank” (from the Italian “banko”-“bench”). Italian money-lenders and money-changers sat the streets on benches. When they suffered losses they turned over their benches, it was called “banco rotta” from which the English word “bankrupt” originated. In the 17th century some geological terms were borrowed: volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms were borrowed: manifesto, bulletin.

But mostly Italian is famous by its influence in music and in all Indo-European languages musical terms were borrowed Italian: alto, baritone, basso, tenor, falsetto, solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet, opera, operette, libretto, piano, violin.

Among the 20th century Italian borrowings we can mention: gazette, incognitto, autostrada, fiasco, fascist, dilettante, grotesque, graffito etc.

Spanish borrowings

Spanish borrowing came into English mainly through its American variant. There are the following semantic groups of them:

a) trade terms: cargo, embargo; b) names of dances and musical instruments: tango,

rumba, habanera, guitar; c) names of vegetables and fruit: tomato, potato, tobacco,

cocoa, banana, ananas, apricot etc.



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GERMANIC BORROWINGS English belongs to the Germanic group of languages and

there are borrowings from Scandinavian, German and Holland languages, though their number is much less than borrowings from Romanic languages.

Scandinavian borrowings. By the end of the Old English period English underwent a

strong influence of Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. Scandinavians belonged to the same group of peoples as Englishmen and their languages had much in common. As the result of this conquest there are about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English. Scandinavians and Englishmen had the same way of life , their cultural level was the same, they had much in common in their literature therefore they were many words in these languages which were almost identical.

However there were also many words in the two languages which were different, and some of them were borrowed into English, such nouns as: bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window etc, such adjectives as: flat, ill, happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong, such verbs as: call, die, guess, give, scream and many others. Even some pronouns and connective words were borrowed which happens very seldom, such as: same, both, till, fro, though and pronominal forms with “th”: they, them, their.

Scandinavian influenced the development of phrasal verbs which did not exist in Old English, at the same time some prefixed verbs came out of usage, e.g. ofniman, beniman. Phrasal verbs are now highly productive in English (take off, give in etc.).

German borrowings. There are some 800 words borrowed from German into

English. Some of them have classical roots, e.g. in some geological terms, such as: cobalt, bismuth, zink, quarts, gneiss, wolfram. There are also words denoting objects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German: iceberg, lobby, rucksack, Kindergarten etc.



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In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Volkssturm, Luftwaffe, SS-man, Bundeswehr, Gestapo, gas chamber and many others. After the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Berufsverbot, Volkswagen etc.

Holland borrowings. Holland and English have constant interrelations for many

centuries and more than 2000 Holland borrowings were borrowed into English. Most of them are nautical terms and were mainly borrowed in the 14th century, such as: freight, skipper, pump, keel, dock, reef, deck, leak and many others.

Besides two main groups of borrowings (Romanic and Germanic) there are also borrowings from a lot of other languages. We shall speak about Russian borrowings, borrowings from the language which belongs to Slavonic languages.

Russian Borrowings. There are constant contacts between England and Russia

and they borrowed words from one language into the other. Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rouble, copeck, pood, vodka and also words relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe, etc.

There is also a large group of Russian borrowings which came into English through Russian literature of the 19th century, such as: Narodnik, moujik, duma, zemstvo, volost, ukase etc, and also words which were formed in Russian with Latin roots, such as: nigilist, intelligenzia, Decembrist etc.

One more group of Russian borrowings is connected with perestroika, such as: glasnost, nomenklatura, apparatchik etc.

IV. The changes of a loan word has had to undergo

depending on the date of its penetration are the main cause for the existence of the so-called etymological doublets. Etymological doublets (or, by ellipsis, simply doublets) are two or more words



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of the same language which were derived by different roots from the same basic word. They differ to a certain degree in form, meaning and current usage. Two words at present slightly differentiated in meaning may have originally been dialectal variants of the same word. Thus we find in doublets traces of Old English dialects. Examples are whole (in the old sense of “healthy” or “free from disease”) and hale. The latter has survived in its original meaning and is preserved in the phrase hale and hearty. Both come from OE hãl: the one by the normal development of OE ã into õ, the other from a northern dialect in which this modification did not take place. Similarity there are the doublets raid and road, their relationship remains clear in the term inroad which means “a hostile incursion”, “a raid”. The verbs drag and draw both came from OE dragan.

The words shirt, shriek, shabby come down from Old English, whereas their respective doublets skirt, screech, scar and scabby are etymologically cognate Scandinavian borrowings. These doublets are characterized by a regular variation of sh and sc.

The Latin word discus is the origin of a whole group of doublets:

dais < ME deis < OE deis < Lat discus dish < ME dish < OE dis c< Lat discus disc/disk < Lat discus discus (in sport) < Lat discus Other doublets that for the most part justify their names by

coming in pairs show in their various ways the influence of the language or dialect systems which they passed before entering the English vocabulary.

Compare words were borrowed in Middle English from Parisian French: chase, chieftain, chattels, guard, gage with their doublets of Norman French origin: catch, captain, cattle, ward, wage.



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Questions: 1. How many native words are used in modern English? 2. Give the phonetic characteristics of native words. 3. What is the spelling characteristics of native words? 4. What is a borrowing? 5. What are the groups of borrowings according to the

borrowed aspect? 6. What is classification of borrowings according to the

degree of assimilation? 7. What are the groups of borrowings according to the

language from which they were borrowed? 8. What are etymological doublets?

Test 3

1. In Modern English only: a) 30% of native words are used. b) 50% of native words are used. c) 10% of native words are used. d) 90% of native words are used.

2. Native words are usually: a) short. b) monosyllabic. c) short and monosyllabic. d) long and polysyllabic. 3. Borrowings are mostly words of: a) Romanic origin b) Russian origin. c) German origin. d) Latin origin.



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4. Semantic borrowings are such units when: a) a new meaning of the unit existing in the language is

borrowed. b) word-for-word (morpheme-for-morpheme) is

translated. c) words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation

and meaning. d) borrowings are fully assimilated in English. 5. Etymological doublets is: a) a borrowing which is connected with political life of a

giving language. b) a way of borrowing when we have two words with the

same spelling and different meaning. c) a way of borrowing when we have two words with

different spelling and different meaning and historically they came back to different words.

d) is a device when a word is borrowed twice from the same language.



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Lecture 4 Structure of English word and Word-building in English

Plan.

I. Morphemes, types of morphemes. II. Morphological analysis. III. Affixation as a way of word-building. IV. Compound words. V. Conversion. VI. Abbreviation.

I. If we describe a word as an autonomous unit of a

language in which a particular meaning is associated with a particular sound complex and which is capable of a particular grammatical employment and able to form a sentence by itself, we have the possibility to distinguish it from the other fundamental language unit, namely, the morpheme.

Morpheme is also an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. But unlike a word it is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of a single morpheme. Nor are they divisible into smaller meaningful language units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the minimum meaningful language unit. The term morpheme is derived from Gr morphē “form” + -eme. The greek suffix –eme has been adopted by linguists to denote the smallest unit of the minimum distinctive feature. (Cf. phoneme, sememe). The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases is a recurring discrete unit of speech.

A form is said to be free if it may stand alone without changing its meaning; if not it is a bound form, so called because it is always bound to something else. For example, if we compare the words sportive and elegant and their parts, we see that sport, sportive and elegant may occur alone as utterances, whereas eleg-, ive, -ant are bound forms because they never occur alone. A



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word is a minimum free form. A morpheme is said to be either bound or free. It means that some morphemes are capable of forming words without adding other morphemes: that is they are homonymous to free forms. According to the role they play in constructing words, morphemes are subdivided into roots and affixes. The latter are further subdivided, according to their position, into prefixes, suffixes and infixes, and according to their function and meaning, into derivational and functional affixes, the latter also called endings or outer formatives. When a derivational or functional affix is stripped from the word, what remains is a stem. The stem expresses the lexical and the part of speech meaning. For the word hearty and for paradigm heart-hearts the stem may be represented as heart-. This stem is a single morpheme, it contains nothing but the root, so it is a simple stem. It also a free stem because it is homonymous to the word heart.

A stem may also be defined as the part of the word that remains unchanged throughout the paradigm. The stem of the paradigm hearty-heartier- the heartiest is hearty-. It is a free stem, but as it consists of a root morpheme and an affix, it is not simple but derived. Thus, a stem containing one or more affixes is a derived stem. If after deducing the affix the remaining stem is not homonymous to a separate word of the same root, we call it bound stem. Thus, in the word cordial “proceeding as if from the heart”, the adjective-forming suffix can be separated on the analogy with such words as bronchial, radial, social. The remaining stem, however, cannot form a separate word by itself: it is bound. In cordially and cordiality, on the other hand, the stems are free.

II. A synchronic description of the English vocabulary deals

with its present-day system and its patterns of word-formation by comparing words simultaneously existing in it.

If the analysis is limited to stating the number and type of morphemes that makeup the word, it is referred to as morphemic. For instance, the word girlishness may be analysed into three morphemes: the root -girl- and two suffixes – ish, and –ness. The



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morphemic classification of words is as follows: one root morpheme – a root word (girl). One root morpheme plus one or more affixes – a derived word (girlish, girlishness), two or more stems – a compound word (girl-friend), two or more stems and a common affix – a compound derivative (old-maidish). The morphemic analysis establishes only the ultimate constituents that make up the word.

A structural word-formation analysis proceeds further; it studies the structural correlation with other words, the structural patterns or rules on which words are built.

This is done with the help of the principle of oppositions, i.e. by studying the partly similar elements, the differences between which are functionally relevant; in our case this difference is sufficient to create a new word. Girl and girlish are members of morphemic opposition. They are similar as the root morpheme -girl- is the same. Their distinctive feature is the suffix -ish. Due to this suffix the second member is a different word belonging to the different part of speech.

A correlation is a set of binary oppositions. It is composed of two subsets formed by the first and the second elements of each couple, i.e. opposition. Each element of the first set is coupled with exactly one element of the second set and vice versa. Each second element may be derived from the corresponding first element by a general rule valid for all members of the relation. Observing the proportional opposition: child/childish=woman/womanish=monkey/monkeyish=spinster/spinsterish=book/bookish

It is possible to conclude that there is in English a type of derived adjectives consisting of a noun stem and the suffix –ish. Observation also shows that the stems are mostly those of animate nouns, and permits us to define the relationship between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning. Any one word built according to this pattern contains a semantic component common to the whole group, namely: “typical of or having the bad qualities of”.



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In the above example the results of the morphemic analysis and the structural word-formation analysis practically coincide. There are other cases, however, they are of necessity separated. The morphemic analysis is, for instance, insufficient in showing the difference between the structure of inconvenience v and impatience n; it classifies both as derivatives. From the point of view of word-formation pattern, however, they are fundamentally different. It is only the second that is formed by derivation. Compare:

Impatience n/ impatient a=patience n/ patient a=corpulence n/corpulent a

The correlation that can be established for the verb inconvenience is different, namely:

Inconvenience v/ inconvenience n = pain v/ pain n=disgust v/disgust n=anger v/anger n=delight v/ delight n.

Here nouns denoting some feeling or state are correlated with verbs causing this feeling or state, there being no difference in stems between the members of each separate opposition. Whether different pairs in the correlation are structured similarly or differently is irrelevant. Some of them are simple root-words, others are derivatives; they might be compounds as well. In terms of word formation we state that the verb inconvenience when compared with the noun inconvenience shows relationships characteristic of the process of conversion. Cf. to position where the suffix – tion does not classify this word as an abstract noun but shows it is derived from one. This approach also affords a possibility to distinguish between compound words formed by composition and those formed by other processes. The words honeymoon n and honeymoon v are both compounds containing two free stems, yet the first is formed by composition: honey n + moon n = honeymoon n, and the second by conversion: honeymoon n > honeymoon v. The treatment remains synchronic because it is not the origin of the word that is established but its present correlations in the vocabulary and the patterns productive in present-day English.



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The analysis into immediate constituents describes below permits us to obtain the morphemic structure and provides the basis for the further word-formation analysis.

Word-building is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. There are four main ways of word-building in modern English: affixation, composition, conversion, abbreviation. There are also secondary ways of word-building: sound interchange, stress interchange, sound imitation, blends, back formation.

III. Affixation is one of the most productive ways of word-

building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. (e.g. «educate» is a verb, «educatee» is a noun, and «music» is a noun, «musicdom» is also a noun).

There are different classifications of suffixes: 1. Part-of-speecn classification. Suffixes which can form different parts of speech are given

here: a) noun-forming suffixes, such as: -er (criticizer), -dom

(officialdom), -ism (ageism); b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as: -able (breathable),

less (symptomless), -ous (prestigious), c) verb-forming suffixes, such as -ize (computerize), -ify

(micrify), d) adverb-forming suffixes, such as: -ly (singly), -ward

(tableward), e) numeral-forming suffixes, such as -teen (sixteen), -ty

(seventy).

2. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can denote:



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a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent (student),

b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English),

c) collectivity, e.g. -dom (moviedom), -ry (peasantry), -ship (readership), -ati (literati),

d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -ling (gooseling), -ette (kitchenette),

e) quality, e.g. -ness (kindness), -ity (answerability). 3. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes which

can be added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into:

a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as: -er (commuter), -ing (suffering), - able (flyable), -ment (involvement), -ation (computerization);

b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as: -less (smogless), ful (roomful), -ism (adventurism), -ster (pollster), -nik (filmnik), -ish (childish),

c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as: -en (weaken), -ly (pinkly), -ish (longish), -ness (clannish,ness).

4. Origin of suffixes. Here we can point out the following

groups: a) native (Germanic), such as -er,-ful, -less, -ly; b)Romanic, such as : -tion, -ment, -able, -eer; c)Greek, such as : -ist, -ism, -ize; d)Russian, such as -nik.

5. Productivity. Here we can point out the following

groups: a)productive, such as: -er, -ize, - ly, -ness; b)semi-productive, such as: -eer, -ette, -ward; c)non-productive , such as: -ard (drunkard), -th (length).



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Suffixes can be polysemantic, such as : -er can form nouns with the following meanings: agent, doer of the action expressed by the stem (speaker), profession, occupation (teacher), a device, a tool (transmitter). While speaking about suffixes we should also mention compound suffixes which are added to the stem at the same time, such as -ably, -ibly, (terribly, reasonably), -ation (adaptation from adapt).

There are also disputable cases whether we have a suffix or a root morpheme in the structure of a word, in such cases we call such morphemes semi-suffixes, and words with such suffixes can be classified either as derived words or as compound words, e.g. -gate (Irangate), -burger (cheeseburger), -aholic (workaholic) etc. Prefixation

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English it is characteristic for forming verbs. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead) (cf over the table ).

The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. But the recent research showed that about twenty-five prefixes in Modern English form one part of speech from another (bebutton, interfamily, postcollege etc).

Prefixes can be classified according to different principles: 1. Semantic classification: a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as: in-

(invaluable), non- (nonformals), un- (unfree) etc; b)prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as:

de- (decolonize), re-(revegetation), dis-(disconnect); c)prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as :

inter- (interplanetary), hyper-(hypertension), ex- (ex-student), pre- (pre-election), over- (overdrugging) etc.;



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2. Origin of prefixes: a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under- etc; b) Romanic, such as : in-, de-, ex-, re- etc; c) Greek, such as : sym-, hyper- etc. When we analyze such words as: adverb, accompany where

we can find the root of the word (verb, company) we may treat ad-, ac- as prefixes though they were never used as prefixes to form new words in English and were borrowed from Romanic languages together with words. In such cases we can treat them as derived words. But some scientists treat them as simple words. Another group of words with a disputable structure are such as: contain, retain, detain and conceive, receive, deceive where we can see that re-, de-, con- act as prefixes and -tain, -ceive can be understood as roots. But in English these combinations of sounds have no lexical meaning and are called pseudo-morphemes. Some scientists treat such words as simple words, others as derived ones.

There are some prefixes which can be treated as root morphemes by some scientists, e.g. after- in the word afternoon. American lexicographers working on Webster dictionaries treat such words as compound words. British lexicographers treat such words as derived ones.

COMPOSITION Composition is the way of wordbuilding when a word is

formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends upon : a) the unity of stress, b) solid or hyphenated - spelling, c) semantic unity, d) unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. These are characteristic features of compound words in all languages. For English compounds some of these factors are not very reliable. As a rule English compounds have one uniting stress (usually on the first component), e.g. hardcover, best-seller. We can also have a double stress in an English compound, with the main stress on the first component and with a secondary stress on the second component, e.g. blood-vessel. The third pattern of stresses is two level stresses, e.g. snow-white,sky-blue. The third pattern is easily mixed up with word-groups unless they have solid or hyphenated spelling.



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Spelling in English compounds is not very reliable as well because they can have different spelling even in the same text, e.g. war-ship, blood-vessel can be spelt through a hyphen and also with a break, (insofar, underfoot can be spelt solidly and with a break. All the more so that there has appeared in Modern English a special type of compound words which are called block compounds, they have one uniting stress but are spelt with a break, e.g. air piracy, cargo module, coin change, pinguin suit etc.

The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. In such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain-drain etc. In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. g., airbus, to bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics etc.

English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in a sentence as one part of it and only one component changes grammatically, e.g. These girls are chatter-boxes. «Chatter-boxes» is a predicative in the sentence and only the second component changes grammatically. There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

a) Both components in an English compound are free stems, that is they can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The sound pattern will be the same except for the stresses, e.g. “a green house” and “a greenhouse”. Whereas for example in Russian compounds the stems are bound morphemes, as a rule.

b) English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g. middle-of-the-road, off-the-record, up-and-down etc. The two-stem pattern distinguishes English compounds from German ones.

WAYS OF FORMING COMPOUND WORDS. Compound words in English can be formed not only by

means of composition but also by means of : a) reduplication, e.g. too-too, and also by means of

reduplication combined with sound interchange, e.g. rope-ripe,



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conversion from word-groups, e.g. to micky-mouse, can-do, makeup etc.;

b) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups, e.g. to bloodtransfuse, to fingerprint etc.;

c) analogy, e.g. lie-in (on the analogy with sit-in) and also phone-in, brawn-drain (on the analogy with brain-drain) etc.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF ENGLISH COMPOUNDS 1. According to the parts of speech compounds are

subdivided into: a) nouns, such as: baby-moon, globe-trotter, b) adjectives, such as: free-for-all, power-happy; c) verbs, such as: to honey-moon, to baby-sit, to henpeck; d) adverbs, such as: downdeep, headfirst; e) prepositions, such as: into, within; f) numerals, such as: fifty-five.

2. According to the way components are joined together compounds are divided into:

a) neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any joining morpheme, e.g. ball-point, to window-shop;

b) morphological where components are joined by a linking element: vowels “o” or “i” other consonant “s”, e.g. (“astrospace”, “handicraft”, “sportsman”);

c) syntactical where the components are joined by means of form-word stems, e.g. here-and-now, free-for-all, do-or-die .

3. According to their structure compounds are subdivided

into: a) compound words proper which consist of two stems, e.g.

to job-hunt, train-sick, go-go, tip-top; b) derivational compounds, where besides the stems we have

affixes, e.g. ear-minded, hydro-skimmer, c) compound words consisting of three or more stems, e.g.

cornflower-blue, eggshell-thin, singer-songwriter; d) compound-shortened words, e.g. boatel, tourmobile, VJ-

day, motocross, intervision. Eurodollar, Camford.



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4. According to the relations between the components compound words are subdivided into:

a) subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic and the structural center and the second component is subordinate; these subordinate relations can be different: with comparative relations, e.g. honey-sweet, eggshell-thin, with limiting relations, e.g. breast-high, knee-deep, with emphatic relations, e.g. dog-cheap, with objective relations, e.g. gold-rich, with cause relations, e.g. love-sick, with space relations, e.g. top-heavy, with time relations, e.g. spring-fresh, with subjective relations, e.g. foot-sore etc;

b) coordinative compounds where both components are semantically independent. Here belong such compounds when one person (object) has two functions, e.g. secretary-stenographer, woman-doctor, Oxbridge etc. Such compounds are called additive. This group includes also compounds formed by means of reduplication, e.g. fifty-fifty, no-no, and also compounds formed with the help of rhythmic stems (reduplication combined with sound interchange) e.g. criss-cross, walkie-talkie.

5. According to the order of the components compounds

are divided into compounds with direct order, e.g. kill-joy, and compounds with indirect order, e.g. nuclear-free, rope-ripe .

CONVERSION Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-

building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. The term “conversion” first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet “New English Grammar” in 1891. Conversion is treated differently by different scientists, e.g. professor A.I. Smirntitsky treats conversion as a morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech by changing its paradigm, e.g. to form the verb “to dial” from the noun “dial” we change the paradigm of the noun (a dial, dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed, dialing). A. Marchand in his book “The Categories and Types of



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Present-day English” treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because we have not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of the syntactic function, e.g. I need some good paper for my room. (The noun “paper” is an object in the sentence). I paper my room every year. (The verb “paper” is the predicate in the sentence).

Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings because of that, e.g:

a) verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of a human body e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to shoulder etc. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to machine-gun, to rifle, to nail,

b) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf, to ape;

c) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to paper;

d) verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to corner, to pocket;

e) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end.

Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote the change of the state, e.g. to tame (to become or make tame), to clean, to slim etc.

Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs. Converted nouns can denote: a) instant of an action e.g. a jump, a move; b) process or state e.g. sleep, walk; c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the

noun has been converted, e.g. a help, a flirt, a scold, object or



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result of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase;

d) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk.

Many nouns converted from verbs can be used only in the singular form and denote momentaneous actions. In such cases we have partial conversion. Such deverbal nouns are often used with such verbs as: to have, to get, to take etc., e.g. to have a try, to give a push, to take a swim.

ABBREVIATION In the process of communication words and word-groups can

be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms, initials, blends are formed because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more and more information in the shortest possible time.

There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and word-groups, such as the demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by monosyllabic words. When borrowings from other languages are assimilated in English they are shortened. Here we have modification of form on the basis of analogy, e.g. the Latin borrowing «fanaticus» is shortened to «fan» on the analogy with native words: man, pan, tan etc.

There are two main types of shortenings: graphical and lexical. Graphical abbreviations

Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening of words and word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are used for the economy of space and effort in writing.

The oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is of Latin origin. In Russian this type of abbreviation is not typical. In these abbreviations in the spelling Latin words are shortened, while orally the corresponding English equivalents are pronounced in the full form, e.g. for example (Latin exampli



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gratia), a.m. - in the morning (ante meridiem), No - number (numero), p.a. - a year (per annum), d - penny (dinarius), Ib - pound (libra), i. e. - that is (id est) etc.

Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have different English equivalents in different contexts, e.g. p.m. can be pronounced “in the afternoon” (post meridiem) and “after death” (post mortem).

There are also graphical abbreviations of native origin, where in the spelling we have abbreviations of words and word-groups of the corresponding English equivalents in the full form. We have several semantic groups of them:

a) days of the week, e.g. Mon - Monday, Tue - Tuesday etc; b) names of months, e.g. Apr - April, Aug - August etc; c) names of counties in UK, e.g. Yorks - Yorkshire, Berks -

Berkshire etc; d) names of states in USA, e.g. Ala - Alabama, Alas - Alaska

etc; e) names of address, e.g. Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. etc; f) military ranks, e.g. capt. -captain, col. - colonel, sgt -

sergeant etc; g) scientific degrees, e.g. B.A. - Bachelor of Arts, D.M. -

Doctor of Medicine . (Sometimes in scientific degrees we have abbreviations of Latin origin, e.g., M.B. - Medicinae Baccalaurus).

h) units of time, length, weight, e.g. f. / ft -foot/feet, sec. - second, in. -inch, mg. - milligram etc.

The reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on the context, e.g. «m» can be read as: male, married, masculine, metre, mile, million, minute, «l.p.» can be read as long-playing, low pressure.

Initial abbreviations. Initialisms are the bordering case between graphical and

lexical abbreviations. When they appear in the language, as a rule, to denote some new offices they are closer to graphical abbreviations because orally full forms are used, e.g. J.V. - joint venture. When they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of pronouncing and become closer to



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lexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC is as a rule pronounced in the shortened form.

In some cases the translation of initiaiisms is next to impossible without using special dictionaries.

Initiaiisms are denoted in different ways. Very often they are expressed in the way they are pronounced in the language of their origin, e.g. ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) is given in Russian as AHЗУС, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) was for a long time used in Russian as COЛТ, now a translation variant is used.

There are three types of initialisms in English: a) initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK, BUP,

CND etc; b) initialisms which are read as if they are words, e.g.

UNESCO, UNO, NATO etc; c) initialisms which coincide with English words in their

sound form, such initialisms are called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computer-based Laboratory for Automated School System).

Some scientists unite groups b) and c) into one group which they call acronyms.

Some initialisms can form new words in which they act as root morphemes by different ways of word-building:

a) affixation, e.g. AWALism, ex-rafer, ex- ROW, AIDSophobia etc;

b) conversion, e.g. to raff, to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules);

c) composition, e.g. STOLport, USAFman etc; d) there are also compound-shortened words where the first

component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading and the second one is a complete word, e.g. A-bomb, U-pronunciation, V -day etc. In some cases the first component is a complete word and the second component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. Three -Ds (Three dimensions).



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Abbreviation of words: Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word.

As a result we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or the style is different form the full form of the word. In such cases as “fantasy” and “fancy”, “fence” and “defence” we have different lexical meanings. In such cases as “laboratory” and “lab”, we have different styles.

Abbreviation does not change the part-of-speech meaning, as we have it in the case of conversion or affixation, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the primary word, e.g. “prof” is a noun and “professor” is also a noun. Mostly nouns undergo abbreviation, but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to “rev” from “to revolve”, “to tab” from “to tabulate” etc. But mostly abbreviated forms of verbs are formed by means of conversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to taxi, to vac etc. Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in school slang and are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy, dilly, mizzy etc. As a rule pronouns, numerals, interjections, conjunctions are not abbreviated. The exceptions are: fif (fifteen), teenager, in one's teens (apheresis from numerals from 13 to 19).

Lexical abbreviations are classified according to the part of the word which is clipped. Mostly the end of the word is clipped, because the beginning of the word in most cases is the root and expresses the lexical meaning of the word. This type of abbreviation is called apocope. Here we can mention a group of words ending in «o», such as disco (discotheque), expo (exposition), intro (introduction) and many others. On the analogy with these words there developed in Modern English a number of words where «o» is added as a kind of a suffix to the shortened form of the word, e.g. combo (combination) etc. In other cases the beginning of the word is clipped. In such cases we have apheresis, e.g. chute (parachute), versity (university), copter (helicopter), thuse (enthuse) etc. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart (market), fanzine (fan magazine) maths (mathematics). Such abbreviations are called syncope. Sometimes we have a combination of apocope with apheresis, when the



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beginning and the end of the word are clipped, e.g. tec (detective), van (avanguard) etc.

Sometimes shortening influences the spelling of the word, e.g. “c” can be substituted by “k” before “e” to preserve pronunciation, e.g. mike (microphone). Coke (coca-cola) etc. The same rule is observed in the following cases: fax (facsimile), teck (technical college), trank (tranquilizer) etc. The final consonants in the shortened forms are substituted by letters characteristic of native English words.

Questions:

1. What is a morpheme? 2. What two large groups morphemes are divided into? 3. What is the aim of derivational analysis? 4. What is a word-building? 5. What classifications of suffixes do you know? 6. What is a composition? 7. Give the definition of conversion. 8. What are two main types of shortening?

Test 4 1. Morpheme is: a) the main unit of lexical system. b) the smallest language unit which can stand alone as

complete utterance. c) the smallest meaningful language unit. d) A group of words which exists in the language as a

ready-made unit. 2. Affixation is: a) a way of word-building consisting in adding an affix

to the stem of a definite part of speech. b) a way of word-building consisting in adding an affix

to the stem of a noun. c) shortening of words. d) A type of morphological analysis.



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3. The main function of suffixes in Modern English is: a) to change the lexical meaning of a word. b) to form the verb. c) to ask questions. d) to form one part of speech from another. 4. Сonversion is a morphological way of forming words: a) when one part of speech is formed from another part of

speech. b) when a noun is formed from the verb. c) when a noun is formed from the adjective. d) when a verb is formed from another part of speech. 5. Abbreviation of words consists: a) in adding a part of a word. b) in clipping a part of a word. c) in clipping a prefix. d) in adding a suffix.



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Lecture 5 Semantic structure of English words and Semantic changes

Plan. I. Word-meaning. II. Elements of the semantic structure. III. Polysemy. IV. Various types of semantic changes.

I. The branch of the study of language concerned with the

meaning of the word is called semasiology. The name comes from the Greek sēmasia “signification” (from sēma “sign” and sēmantikos “significant”). As semasiology deals not with every kind of linguistic meaning but with lexical meaning only, it may be regarded as a branch of lexicology.

This does not mean that the semasiologist need to pay attention to grammatical meaning. On the contrary, grammatical meaning must be taken into consideration in so far as it bears a specific influence upon lexical meaning. This influence is manifold and will be discussed at length later. At this stage it will suffice to point out that a certain basic component of the word meaning is described when one identifies the word morphologically, i.e. states to what grammatical word class it belongs. 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 its general semantic system.

The main objects of semasiological study are as follows: semantic development of words, its causes and classification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of words, semantic grouping and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, terminological systems, etc.

It must be noticed that the two terms “semasiology” and “semantics” have so far been used as if synonymous. In fact, they



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are synonyms but not equally appropriate for our purpose. The fist term is preferable because it is less ambiguous. The term “semantics” on the other hand, is used to cover several different meanings. It is also used to denote the phenomena studied, i.e. the meaning of words and phrases. Had this been all, it might have been tolerated, because the same double purpose is served by the terms “phonetics” and “grammar”. In the case of “semantics”, however, there are other meanings, not sufficiently divorced from linguistics and apt to create confusion. “Academic semantics”, also called “pure semantics”, is a branch of symbolic or mathematic logic originated by R. Carnap. It aims at the building of an abstract theory of relationships between signs and their referents (things meant). It is a part of semiotics – the study of signs and languages in general, including all sorts of codes, such as military signals, traffic signals, etc. unlike linguistic semantics which deals with real languages, pure semantic has its subject formalized language. For a long time it was banned as idealistic and too abstract to be made use of by linguists. Recently, however, many scholars show a different attitude and appear to be deeply interested in the possibilities offered by some mathematical methods applied to linguistics, especially in the field of machine translation and information retrieval.

II. An exact definition of any basic term is no easy task altogether. In the case of lexical meaning it becomes especially difficult due to the complexity of the process by which language and human conscience serve to reflect outward reality and to adapt it to human needs.

The definition of lexical meaning has been attempted more than once in accordance with the main principles of different linguistic schools. The disciples of F. de Saussure consider meaning to be the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself. Descriptive linguistics of Bloomfieldian trend defines the meaning as the situation in which the word is uttered. Both ways of approach afford no possibility of a further investigation of semantic problems in strictly linguistic terms, and



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therefore, if taken as a basis for general linguistic theory, give no insight into the mechanism of meaning. Some of Bloomfield’s successors went so far as to exclude semasiology from linguistics on the ground that meaning could not be studied objectively, and was not part of language but an aspect of the use to which language is put. This point of view was never generally accepted. The more general opinion is well revealed in R. Jakobson’s pun. He said: “Linguistics without meaning is meaningless”. In our country definitions given by the majority of authors, however different in detail, agree in one basic principle: they all point out that the lexical meaning is the realization of the notion by means of a definite language system. It has also been repeatedly stated that the plane of content in speech reflects the whole of human consciousness, which comprises not only mental activity but emotions as well.

The notional content of a word is expressed by the denotative meaning (also referential or extensional meaning) which may be of two types, according to whether the word’s function is significative or identifying (demonstrative). To denote, then, is to serve as linguistic expression for a notion or as a name for an actually existing object referred to by a word. The term denotatum (pl. denotata) or referent means either a notion or an actually content of the word is its capacity to evoke or directly express emotion. It is rendered by the emotional or expressive counterpart of meaning, also called emotive charge, intentional or affective connotations of words.

The denotative meaning may be of two types according to whether the word function is significative and evokes a general idea, or demonstrative, i.e. identifying.

To find the words in their significative meaning it is best to turn to aphorisms and other sayings expressing general ideas. Thus A good laugh is sunshine in the house (THACKERAY) or A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies (WILDE) contain words in their significative meanings. The second type (demonstrative meaning) is revealed when it is the individual elements of reality that the word serves to name. Some large blue



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china jars and parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot coloured light of a summer day in London (WILDE).

Te expressive counterpart of meaning is optional, and even when it is present, its proportion with respect to the logical counterpart may vary within wide limits. The meaning of many words is subject to complex associations originating in habitual contexts, verbal or situational, of which the speaker and the listener are aware, and which from the connotational component of meaning. In some words the realization of meaning is accompanied by additional stylistic characteristics revealing the speaker’s attitude to the situation, the subject-matter, and to his interlocutor. Within the affective connotations of a word we distinguish its capacity to evoke or directly express: a) emotion e.g. daddy as compared to father; b) evaluation, e.g. clique as compared to group; c) intensity, e.g. adore as compared to love; d) stylistic colouring, e.g. slay as compared to kill. The complexity of the word meaning is manifold. Apart from the lexical meaning including denotative and connotative meaning it is always combined with the grammatical meaning. It is useful to remember that the grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationship between words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur. More than that, every denotational meaning is itself a combination of several more elementary components. The meaning of kill, for instance, can be described as follows: {cause [become(not + alive)]}. One further point should made: cause, become, not and alive in this analysis are not words of English or any other language; they are elements of meaning, which can be combined in various ways with other such elements in the meaning of different words. In what follows they will be called semantic components. To illustrate this idea of componential analysis we shall consider the word adored in the following epigram by Oscar Wilde: “Men can be analysed, women – merely



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adored”. Adored has a lexical meaning and a grammatical meaning. The grammatical meaning is that of a Participle II of a transitive verb. The denotational counterpart of the lexical meaning realizes the corresponding notion, and consists of several components, namely – feeling, attachment, intensity, respect. The connotational component is that of intensity and loftiness. The definition of adore is ‘to feel a great attachment and respect, to worship’.

III. One and the same word may have several meanings. A word that has more than one meaning is called polysemantic. The word ‘polysemy’ means ‘plurality of meanings’. It exists only in the language, not in speech. A word which has more than one meaning is called polysemantic. Different meanings of a polysemantic word may come together due to the proximity of notions which they express. E.g. the word ‘blanket’ has the following meanings: a woolen covering used on beds, a covering for keeping a horse warm, a covering of any kind /a blanket of snow/, covering all or most cases /used attributively/, e.g. we can say ‘a blanket insurance policy’. There are some words in the language which are monosemantic, such as most terms, /synonym, molecule, bronchitis/, some pronouns /this, my, both/, numerals. There are two processes of the semantic development of a word: radiation and concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the center and the secondary meanings proceed out it like rays. Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary one. E.g. in the word ‘face’ the primary meaning denotes ‘the front part of the human head’. Connected with the front position the meanings: the front part of a watch, the front part of a building, the front part of a playing card were formed. Connected with the word ‘face’ itself the meanings: expression of the face, outward appearance are formed. In cases of concatenation secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some meanings to the primary one. E.g. in the word ‘crust’ the primary



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meaning ‘hard outer part of bread’ developed a secondary meaning ‘hard part of anything /a pie, a cake/, then the meaning ‘harderr layer over soft snow’ was developed, then ‘a sullen gloomy person’, then ‘impudence’ were developed. Here the last meanings have nothing to do with the primary ones. In such cases homonyms appear in the language. It is called the split of polysemy.

Polysemy is inherent in the very nature of words and notions, as they always contain a generalization of several traits of the object. Some of these traits are common with other objects. Hence the possibility of identical names for objects possessing common features.

Thus polysemy is characteristic of most words in many languages, however different they may be. But it is more characteristic of the English vocabulary as compared with Russian, due to the monosyllabic character of English and the predominance of root words. The greater the relative frequency of the word, the greater the number of elements that constitute its semantic structure, i.e. the more polysemantic it is. This regularity is of course a statistical, not a rigid one. Word counts show that the total number of meanings separately registered in NED for the first thousand of the most frequent English words is almost 25, 000, i.e. the average number of meanings for each of these most frequent words is 25.

Consider some of the variants of a very frequent, and consequently polysemantic word run. We define the main variant as ‘to go by moving the legs quickly’ as in Tired I was, I began to run frantically home. The lexical meaning does not change in the forms ran and running. The basic meaning may be extended to inanimate things: I caught the bus that runs between C and B; or the word run may be used figuratively: It makes the blood run cold. Both the components “on foot” and “quickly” are suppressed in This self-service shop run by Co-op and The car runs on petrol. The idea of motion remains but it is reduced to “operate or function”. The difference of meaning is reflected in the difference of syntactic valency. It is impossible to use this



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variant about humans and say We humans run on foot. It is possible to use the active-passive transformation when the meaning implies “management”: The Co-op runs this self-service shop but not I was run by home. There are other variants of run where there is no implication of speed or “on foot”, or motion but the implication of direction is retained: On the other side of the stream the bank ran up steeply. The bank ran without the indication of direction is meaningless. The verb run has also several other variants, they all have something in common with some others. Thus, though there is no single semantic component common to all variants, every variant has something in common with at least one of the others. It is only recently that linguists have made serious attempt to give a systematic, account of grammar and semantics, semantics and context. Every meaning in language and every difference in meaning is signaled either by the form of the word itself or by context. Cf. ship :: sheep, brothers :: brethren, smoke screen :: screen star. In analyzing the polysemy of a word we have to take into consideration that the meaning is the content of a two-facet linguistic sign existing in unity with sound form of the sign and its distribution, i.e. its syntagmatic relations depending on the position in the spoken chain. We have therefore to search the cases of unity for both facets of the linguistic sign – its form and its content. This unity is present in the so-called lexico-grammatical variants of words. No universally accepted criteria for differentiating these variants within one polysemantic word can so far be offered, although the problem has lately attracted a great deal of attention. The main points can be summed up as follows: lexico-grammatical variants of a word are its variants characterized by paradigmatic or morphological peculiarities, different valency, different syntactic functions, very often they belong to different lexico-grammatical groups of the same part of speech thus run is intransitive in I run home, but transitive in I run this office.



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All the lexical and lexico=grammatical variants of a word taken together form its semantic structure. Thus, in the semantic structure of the word youth three lexico-grammatical variants may be distinguished: the first is an abstract uncountable noun, as in the friends of one’s youth, the second is a countable personal noun ‘a young man’ (plural youths) that can be substituted be the pronoun he in the singular and they in the plural; the third is a collective noun ‘young man or woman” having only one form, that of the singular, substituted by the pronoun they. Within the first lexico-grammatical variant two shades of meaning can be distinguished with two different referents, one denoting the state of being young, and the other the time of being young. These shades of meaning are recognized due to lexical peculiarities of distribution and sometimes are blended together as in to feel that one’s youth has gone, where both the time and the state can be meant. These variants form a structured set because they are expressed by the same sound complex and are interrelated in meaning as they all contain the semantic component ‘young’ and can be explained by means of one another. The difference in syntactic context is best seen in verbs. Among the many variants of the verb carry one can distinguish a lexico-grammatical variant with the meaning ‘to support the weight of a thing, and to move it from one place to another”. In this variant there is always an object after the verb which may be followed by an adverbial or a prepositional object, as in the following formulas: N1 + carry + N2 (Railways and ships carry goods) or N1 + carry +N2 + prep + N3 (She was carrying the baby in her arms). In both cases carry is a transitive verb. There is also an intransitive variant in which carry is followed by a predicative or a adverbial of distance, time, etc. and means ‘to have power to reach’: N1 + carry + prep + N2 (His voice carried across the room). Nonce usage takes place in cases of occasional figurative meanings. Nonce usage is also sometimes called application and defined as the extensional meaning of a word or term. The



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following example serves to illustrate nonce usage as application: Tom possessed a formidable capacity for psychological bustling. In an easy agreeable way he bustled other people into doing things they don’t want to do. (W. COOPER) Here the word bustle does not show any of its dictionary meaning. This is nonce usage which is clearly motivated and readily understood. To sum up this discussion the semantic structure of a word we return to its definition as a structured set of interrelated lexical variants with different meanings. These variants belong to the same set because they are expressed by the same combination of morphemes, although on different conditions or distribution. The elements are interrelated due to some common semantic component. In other words, the word’s semantic structure is an organized whole comprised by recurrent meanings and shades of meaning a particular sound complex can assume in different contexts, together with emotional or stylistic colouring and other connotations, if any. Polysemy and semantic structure exist only in language, not in speech. The sum total of many contexts in which the word may occur permits us to observe and record cases of identical meaning and cases that differ in meaning. They are registered and classified by lexicographers and found in dictionaries. For example, we read that bother has two variants as: 1) ‘to worry or to cause trouble’ and 2) to take the trouble. It is very important to distinguish between the lexical meaning of a word in speech and its semantic structure in language. The meaning in speech is contextual. If one examines, for example, the word bother in the following: Any woman will love any man who bothers her enough (H. PHILIPPS) one sees it in a definite context that that particularizes it and makes possible only one meaning: ‘to cause trouble’. This notion receives the emotional colouring of irony revealing the protagonist’s view of love as cynical and pessimistic. This colouring in the word bother is combined with a colloquial stylistic tone. Actually used it has only on meaning, it is monosemantic but it may render a complicated notion or emotion with many features.



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Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language because in every particular case the situation and context, i.e. the environment of the word, cancel all the unnecessary meanings and make speech unambiguous.

IV. The meaning of a word can change in the course of time. Changes of lexical meaning of the noun ‘pen’ was due to extra linguistic causes. Primarily ‘pen’ come a back to the Latin word ‘penna’ (a feather of a bird). As people wrote with goose pens the name was transferred to steel pens which were later on used for writing. Still later any instrument for writing was called ‘a pen’. On the other hand causes can be linguistic, e.g. the conflict of synonyms when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some other language one of them may specialize in its meaning, e.g. the noun ’tide’ in Old English was polysemantic and denoted ‘time’, ‘season’, ‘hour’. When the French words ‘time’, ‘season’, ‘hour’ were borrowed into English they ousted the word ‘tide’ in this meaning. It was specialized and now means ‘regular rise and fall of the sea caused by attraction of the moon’. The meaning of the word can also change due to ellipsis, e.g. the word-group ‘a train of carriages’ had the meaning of a ‘row of carriages’, later on ‘of carriages’ was dropped and the noun ‘train’ changed its meaning, it is used now in the function and with the meaning of the whole word-group. Semantic changes have been classified by different scientists. The most complete classification was suggested by a German scientist Herman Paul in his work ‘Prinzipien des Sprachgeschichte’. It is based on the logical principle. He distinguishes two main ways where the semantic change is gradual (specialization and generalization), two momentary conscious semantic changes (metaphor and metonymy) and also secondary ways: gradual (elevation and degradation), momentary (hyperbole and litote). Specialization is a gradual process when a word passes from a general sphere to some special sphere of communication, e.g. ‘case’ has general meaning ‘circumstances in which a person or a



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thing is’. It is specialized in its meaning when it is used in law (a law suit), in grammar (a form in the paradigm of a noun), in medicine (a patient, an illness). The difference between these meanings is revealed in the context. The meaning of a word can specialize when it remains in the general usage. It happens in the case of the conflict between two absolute synonyms when one of them must specialize in its meaning to remain in the language, e.g. the native word ‘meat’ had the meaning ‘food’, this meaning is preserved in the compound ‘sweetmeats’. The meaning ‘edible flesh’ was formed when the word ‘food’, its absolute synonym, won in the conflict of absolute synonyms (both words are native). The English verb ‘to starve’ was specialized in its meaning after the Scandinavian verb ‘die’ was borrowed into English. ’Die’ became the general verb with this meaning because in English there were the noun ‘death’ and the adjective ‘dead’. ‘Starve’ got the meaning ‘to die of hunger’. The third way of specialization is the formation of Proper names from common nouns, it is often used in toponimics, e.g. the City –the business part of London, Oxford – university town in England, the Tower – originally a fortress and palace, later – a prison, now – a museum. The fourth way of specialization is ellipsis. In such cases primarily we have a word-group of the type ‘attribute + noun’, which is used constantly in a definite situation. Due to the attribute can be dropped and the noun can get the meaning of the whole word-group, e.g. ‘room’ originally meant ‘space’, this meaning is retained in the adjective ‘roomy’ and word combinations: ‘no room for’, ‘to take room’, ‘to take no room’. The meaning of the word ‘room’ was specialized because it was often used in combinations: ‘dining room’, ‘sleeping room’ which meant ‘space for dining’, ‘space for sleeping’. Generalization is a process contrary to specialization, in such cases the meaning of a word becomes more general in the course of time.



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To transfer from a concrete meaning to an abstract one is most frequent, e.g. ‘ready’ (a derivative from the verb ‘ridan’-‘ride’) meant ‘prepared for a ride’, now its meaning is ‘prepared for anything’. ‘Journey’ was borrowed from French with the meaning ‘one day trip’, now it means ‘a trip of any duration’. All auxiliary verbs are cases of generalization of their lexical meaning, because they developed a grammatical meaning: ‘have’, ‘be’, ‘do’, ‘shall’, ‘will’ when used as auxiliary verbs are devoid of their lexical meaning which they have when used as notional verbs or modal verbs, e.g. cf. ‘I have several books by this writer’ and ‘I have read some books by this author’. In the first sentence the verb ‘have’ has the meaning ‘possess’, in the second sentence it has no lexical meaning, its grammatical meaning is to form Present Perfect. Metaphor is a transfer of meaning on the basis of comparison. Herman Paul points out that metaphor can be based on different types of similarity:

1) similarity of shape, e.g. head (of a cabbage), bottleneck, teeth (of a saw, a comb);

2) similarity of position, e.g. foot ( of a page, of a mountain), head ( of a procession);

3) similarity of function, behaviour e.g. a whip (an official in the British Parliament whose duty is to see that members were present at the voting);

4) similarity of colour, e.g. orange, hazel, chestnut etc. In some cases we have a complex similarity, e.g. the leg of a

table has a similarity to human leg in its shape, position and function.

Many metaphors are based on parts of human body, e.g. an eye of a needle, arms and mouth of a river, head of an army.

A special type of metaphor is when Proper names become common nouns, e.g. philistine – a mercenary person, vandals – destructive people, a Don Juan – a lover of many women etc.

Metonymy is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of contiguity. There are different types of metonymy:



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1) the material of which an object is made may become the name of the object, e.g. a glass, boards, iron etc;

2) the name of the place may become the name of the people or of an object placed there, e.g. the House – members of Parliament, Fleet Street – bourgeois press, the White House – the Administration of the USA etc;

3) names of musical instruments may become names of musicians, e.g. the violin, the saxophone;

4) the name of some person may become a common noun, e.g. “boycott” was originally the name of the Irish family who were so much disliked by their neighbours that they did not mix with them, “sandwich” was named after Lord Sandwich who was a gambler. He did not want to interrupt his game and had his food brought to him while he was playing cards between two slices of bread not to soil his fingers;

5) names of inventors very often become terms to denote things they invented, e.g. “watt”, “om”, “rentgen” etc;

6) some geographical names can also become common nouns through metonymy, e.g. holland (linen fabrics), Brussels (a special kind of carpets), china (porcelain), astrakhan (a sheep fur) etc.

Elevation is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes better in the course of time, e.g. “knight” originally meant “a boy”, then “a young servant”, then “a military servant”, then “a noble man”. Now it is a title of nobility given to outstanding people, “marshal” originally meant “a horse man” now it is the highest rank etc.

Degradation is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes worse in the course of time. It is usually connected with nouns denoting common people, e.g. “villain” originally meant “working on villa” now it means “a scoundrel”.

Hyperbole is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker uses exaggeration, e.g. “to hate” (doing something), (not to see somebody) “for ages”.

Hyperbole is often used to form phraseological units, e.g. “to make a mountain out of a molehill”, “to split hairs” etc.



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Litote is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker expresses affirmative with the negative or vica versa, e.g. not bad, no coward etc.

Questions: 1. How do the linguists try to explain the word meaning? 2. What are the elements of word-meaning? 3. What is the seme? 4. What does the word polysemy mean? 5. What is lexico-semantic wordbuilding? 6. What is generalization? 7. What is specialization? 8. Give the definition of metaphor. 9. Give the definition of metonomy.

Test I. Linguists try to explain the word-meaning through: a) semantic triangle. b) definition of a word. c) grammatical forms. d) pronunciation.

II. Seme is: a) the biggest element of the lexical meaning. b) the grammatical characteristics. c) a suffix of some nouns. d) the smallest element of lexical meaning.

III. The word “polysemy” means: a) secondary meaning of a word. b) connotational meaning. c) plurality of meanings. d) the process of semantic development.



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IV. The causes of semantic changes can be: a) phonological. b) morphological. c) specialized. d) extra-linguistic and linguistic. V. Metaphor is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of: a) comparison. b) contiguity. c) similarity. d) oppositions.

Final test. I. The central problem of lexicology is a) word b) word-group c) sentence d) meaning II. Archaisms are words which: a) ousted some new words. b) are no longer used in everyday speech. c) are used to express unimportance. d) are used instead of new meanings.

III. Semantic borrowings are such units when: a) a new meaning of the unit existing in the language is

borrowed. b) word-for-word (morpheme-for-morpheme) is

translated. c) words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation

and meaning. d) borrowings are fully assimilated in English.



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IV. Morpheme is: a) the main unit of lexicl system. b) it is the smallest language unit which can stand alone

as a complete utterance. c) the smallest meaningful language unit. d) a group of words that exists in the language as a ready-

made unit.

V. Seme is: a) the biggest element of the lexical meaning. b) the grammatical characteristics. c) a suffix of some nouns. d) the smallest element of lexical meaning.

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