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Typical semantic relations within a converted pair
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I. Verbs converted from noun (denominal verbs) denote:
1. action characteristic of the object ape (n) - to ape (v)
butcher (n) - to butcher (v)
2. instrumental use of the object screw (n) - to screw (v) whip (n) - to whip (v)
3. acquisition or addition of the object fish (n) - to fish (v)
II. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal nouns) denote: 1. instance of the action
to jump (v) -jump (n)
to move (v) - move (n) 2. agent of the action
to help (v) - help (n)
to switch (v) - switch (n)
3. place of action
to drive (v) - drive (n)
to walk (v) - walk (n) 4.object or result of the action
to peel (v) - peel (n)
to find (v) - find (n)
Билет № 11. (Сложение как тип словообразования)
Composition (compounding) is the means of building new ws. by joining two/more stems together.
Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units. They are formally and semantically dependent on the constituent bases and the semantic relations between them which mirror the relations between the motivating units.
Phonetically compound words are marked by three stress patterns — a unity stress (hard-cover, best-seller), a double stress(the primary stress on the 1st component, the seconary – on the 2nd - blood-vessel) and a level stress (snow-white, sky-blue). The first two are the commonest stress patterns in compounds.
Graphically as a rule compounds are marked by two types of spelling — solid spelling and hyphenated spelling. Some types of compound words are characterised by fluctuations between hyphenated spelling and spelling with a space between the components.
The meaning of compound words is derived from the combined lexical meanings of the components and the meaning of the derivational pattern. The stem of the word foot is polysemantic. For example, the base foot- in foot-print, foot-pump, foothold, foot-bath, foot-wear has the meaning of ‘the terminal part of the leg’, in foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone the base foot- has the meaning of ‘the lower part’, and in foot-high, foot-wide, footrule — ‘measure of length’. Derivational patterns in compound words may be mono- and polysemantic, in which case they are based on different semantic relations between the components.
The meaning of the compound is derived not only from the combined lexical meanings of its components, but also from the meaning signalled by the patterns of the order and arrangement of its ICs.
A mere change in the order of bases with the same lexical meanings brings about a drastic change in the lexical meaning of the compound or destroys it altogether. As an illustration let us compare life-boat — ‘a boat of special construction for saving lives from wrecks or along the coast’ with boat-life — ‘life on board the ship’; a fruit-market — ‘market where fruit is sold’ with market-fruit — ‘fruit designed for selling’; board-school with school-board, etc.
The derivational patterns in compounds may be monosemantic and polysemantic. If we take the pattern n+аdj -> adj (snow-white, world-wide, air-sick, we shall see that the pattern has two different meanings which may be interpreted: a) through semantic relations of comparison between the components as in world-wide — ‘wide as the world’, snow-white — ‘as white as snow’, etc. and b) through various relations of adverbial type (circumstantial) as in road-weary — ‘weary of the road’, colour-blind — ‘blind to colours’, etc. The structural pattern n+n -> N that underlies compound nouns is also polysemantic and conveys different semantic relations such as relations of purpose, e.g. bookshelf, bed-room, relations of resemblance, e.g. needle-fish, bowler-hat, instrumental or agentive relations, e.g. steamboat, windmill, sunrise, dogbite.
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The polysemy of the structure often leads to a certain freedom of interpretation of the semantic relations between the components and consequently to the polysemy of the compound.
Compound words may be described from different points of view and consequently may be classified according to different principles. They may be viewed from the point of view:
1) of general relationship and degree of semantic independence of components;
2) of the parts of speech compound words represent;
3) of the means of composition used to link the two ICs together;
4) of the type of ICs that are brought together to form a compound;
5) of the correlative relations with the system of free word-groups.
Each type of compound words based on the above-mentioned principles should also be described from the point of view of the degree of its potential power, i.e. its productivity, its relevancy to the system of Modern English compounds.
From the point of view of degree of semantic independence there are two types of relationship between the ICs of compound words that are generally recognised in linguistic literature: the relations of coordination and subordination, and accordingly compound words fall into two classes: coordinative compounds (copulative or additive - the components are semantically important - oak-tree, girl-friend) and subordinative (determinative - the components are neither structurally nor semantically equal in importance but are based on the domination of the head-member which is, as a rule, the second IC - stone-deaf, age-long, a wrist-watch, a baby-sitter). Coordinative compounds fall into three groups:
1) Reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base as in goody-goody, fifty-fifty, hush-hush, pooh- pooh. They are all only partially motivated.
2) Compounds formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms which either alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary the vowels as in chit-chat, zig-zag, sing-song, or rhyme by varying the initial consonants as in clap-trap, a walkle-talkie, helter-skelter.
Coordinative compounds of these subgroups are mostly restricted to the colloquial layer, are marked by a heavy emotive charge and possess a very small degree of productivity.
3) The bases of additive compounds such as a queen-bee, an actor-manager, unlike the compound words of the first two subgroups, are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of speech. They denote a person or an object that is two things at the same time. A bed-sitting-room (a bed-sitter) is both a bed-room and a sitting-room at the same time. Among additive compounds there is a specific subgroup of compound adjectives one of ICs of which is a bound root-morpheme. This group is limited to the names of nationalities such as Sino-Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asian, etc.
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Additive compounds of this group are mostly fully motivated but have a very limited degree of productivity.
It often happens that one and the same compound may with equal right be interpreted either way — as a coordinative or a subordinative compound, e.g. a woman-doctor may be understood as ‘a woman who is at the same time a doctor’ or there can be traced a difference of importance between the components and it may be primarily felt to be ‘a doctor who happens to be a woman’, cf. also a mother-goose, a clock-tower.
Functionally compounds are viewed as words of different parts of speech. It is the head-member of the compound, i.e. its second IC that is indicative of the grammatical and lexical category the compound word belongs to.
From the point of view of the means by which the components are joined together compound words may be classified into:
1) Words formed by merely placing one constituent after another in a definite order - rain-driven
As to the order of components, subordinative compounds are often classified as: a) asуntасtiс - in which the order of bases runs counter to the order in which the motivating words can be brought together under the rules of syntax of the language - pale-blue, rain-driven, oil-rich andb) syntactic compounds (whose components are placed in the order that resembles the order of words” in free phrases arranged according to the rules of syntax of Modern English. - blue-bell, mad-doctor, blacklist)
2) Compound words whose ICs are joined together with a special linking-element — the linking vowels [ou] and occasionally [i] and the linking consonant [s/z] — which is indicative of composition as in, e.g., speedometer, tragicomic, statesman.
Compounds may be also classified according to the nature of the bases and the interconnection with other ways of word-formation into the so-called compounds proper and’ derivational compounds.
Compounds proper are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or on the word-forms of independently functioning words with or without the help of special linking element such as doorstep, age-long, baby-sitter, looking-glass, street-fighting, handiwork.
Derivational compounds, e.g. long-legged, three-cornered, a break-down, a pickpocket differ from compounds proper in the nature of bases and their second IC. The two ICs of the compound long-legged — ‘having long legs' — are the suffix -ed meaning ‘having' and the base built on a free word-group long legs whose member words lose their grammatical independence, and are reduced to a single component of the word, a derivational base. Any other segmentation of such words, say into long- and legged- is impossible because firstly, adjectives like *legged do not exist in Modern English and secondly, because it would contradict the lexical meaning of these words.
According to the structural semantic correlation with free phrases compounds are subdivided into adjectival-nominal compound adjectives, verbal-nominal, verb-adverb and nominal compound nouns.
Structural and semantic correlation is understood as a regular interdependence between compound words and variable phrases. A potential possibility of certain types of phrases presupposes a possibility of compound words conditioning their structure and semantic type.
Билет № 12. (Сокращения)
Shortening is one of the two types of w.-creation in English, when a part of a w.or a w.-group is substituded for a word. The causes of the process can be linguistic and extra-linguistic (e.g. – the demnd of rhythm/changes in the life of people).
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There are 2 main types of shortenings: graphical and lexical.
Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening ws./w.-groups only in written speech, while orally the corresponding full forms are used. – from Latin e.g. – exampli gratia, p.a. – a year – per annum, lb – pound – libra; gr.abbr.of native origin – Mon. – Monday, Apr. – April, Yorks – Yorkshire, Mr,Mrs, B.A. – Bachelor of Arts etc.
Initialisms are the bordering case between gr.and lex.abbrev. it’s sometimes difficult to translate initialisms without special dictionaries. There are 2 types of init. –a) initialisms with alphabetic reading – UK, USA; b) – which are read as if they are ws. – NATO, UNESCO; c)- which coinsides with Engl/ws. in their sound form; such initialisms are called – acronyms – CLASS – Computor-based Laboratory for Automated School System.
Lexical abbr.are classified acc.to the part of the w.which is clipped. Mostly the end is cliped, as the beginning in most cases is the root and expresses the lex.mean.of the w. – apocope. – disco, intro, expo. In other cases the beginning of a w.is clipped – syncope. – chute – parachute, copter – helicopter. Smt shortening influences the spelling – Coke- coca-cola, trank – tranquuilizer.
There are some secondary ways of shortening. Such as blending – is a w.that is made by joining a w.-group or two synonyms into one word – branch – breakfast+lunch, slanguage, magalog (magazine+catalogue)
Back formation the process relevant only diachronically. It’s the way of w.-creation when a w.is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new w. It’s opposed to suffixation. Beggar – french origin – an in Engl. Formed a verb to beg. Other examples – to bach from bachelor, to collocate – collocation, to televise – television, to compute – computer.
Distinction should be made between shortening which results in new lex. items and a specific type of shortening prope r only to written speech resulting in numerous graphical abbreviations(restricted in use to written speech,occur. In various kinds of texts,articles,advertisments – e.g. Dr. =doctor, Mr. =mister, Oct. =October). Graphical abbreviations cannot be considered new lex voc. units.
BUT: in the course of language graph.abbrev turned into self-contained lex. unit used both in oral and written speech – e.g. a.m. ”in the morning”; p.m. “in the afternoon”; S.O.S.
1) transformation of w-groups into words involve diff. types of lex. shortening: substantivation; syllable abbreviation (also referred to acronyms), blending.
Substantivisation – dropping of the final nominal member of a frequent used attributive w-group (e.g: an incendiary – an incendiary bomb, the finals – the final examinations).It is accompanied by productive by productive suffixation as in a one-winger from one wing plane, a two-decker from two –deck bus or ship.
Acronyms are regular vocabulary units spoken as words. They are formed in various ways:
a) from the initial letters or syllables of a phrase,which may be pronounced differently:
· as a succession of sounds denoted by the constituent letters forming a syllabic(e.g. UNO,NATO,UNESCO;
· as a succession of the alphabetical readings of the constituent letters (e.g. BBC,YCL,MP);
b) formed from the initial syllables of each word of the phrase (e.g. interpol =inter/national pol/ice; Capcome =Capsule Communicator);
c) formed by a combination of the abbreviation of the first or the first two members of the phrase with the last member undergoing no change at all (e.g. V-day =Victory day, H-bomb =hydrogen bomb)
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All achronysms unlike letter abbreviations perform the syntactical functions of ordinary words taking on grammatical inflexions.
Blendings are the result of conscious creation of words by merging irregular fragments of several words which are aptly called “splinters”(e.g. tramsceiver,medicare =medical care, smog,brunch).Blends are coined not frequently in scientific and technical language as a means of naming new things,as trade names in advertisments.
2)Clipping – shortening word of two or more syllables(us. nouns and adj.) without changing its class memebership.Clipped words function as independent lex. units with a certais phonetic shape and lex.m-ng of their own.Clipped words differ from other words in the emotive charge and stylistic reference,they are characreristics of colloquial speech.There do not seem to be any clear rules by means of which we might predict where a word will be cut,though there are several types of clipping;
- words shortened at the end “pocope”(ad,lab,mike);
- shortened at the beginning “aphaeresis”(car,phone,copter);
- in which some syllables or sounds have been ommitted in the middle “syncope”(maths,pants,specs);
- clipped both at the beginning and at the end(flu,tec =detective,fridge)
Acronyms and clippings are the main ways of w-creation in pres,day Engl.
The shortening of words involves the shortening of both words and word-groups. Distinction should he made between shortening of a word in written speech (graphical abbreviation) and in the sphere of oral intercourse (l exical abbreviation). Lexical abbreviations may be used both in written and in oral speech. Lexical abbreviation is the process of forming a word out of the initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a word combination by a simultaneous operation of shortening and compounding.
Clipping consists in cutting off two or more syllables of a word. Words that have been shortened at the end are called apocope (doc-doctor, mit-mitten, vet-veterinary). Words that have been shortened at the beginning are called aphaeresis (phone-telephone). Words in which some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle are called syncope (ma'm - madam, specs - spectacles). Sometimes a combination of these types is observed (tec-detective, frig-refrigerator).
Non-productive means of word formation
Blendings (blends, fusions or portmanteau words) may be defined as formation that combine two words that include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element (slimnastics < slim+gymnasttcs; mimsy < miserable+flimsy; galumph < gallop+triumph; neutopia < new+utopia). The process of formation is also called telescoping. The analysis into immediate constituents is helpful in so far as it permits the definition of a blend as a word with the first constituent represented by a stem whose final part may be missing, and the second constituent by a stem of which the initial part is missing. The second constituent when used in a series of similar blends may turn into a suffix. A new suffix -on; is, for instance, well under way in such terms as nylon, rayon, silon, formed from the final element of cotton. This process seems to be very active in present-day English word-formation numerous new words have been coined recently: Reaganomics,. Irangate, blacksploitation, workaholic, foodoholic, scanorama etc.
Back formation is a semi - productive type of word-building. It is mostly active in compound verbs, and is combined with word-composition. The basis of this type of word-building are compound words and word-combinations having verbal nouns,gerunds, participles or other derivative nouns as their second component (rush-development, finger-printing, well-wisher). These compounds and word-combinations are wrongly considered to be formed from compound verbs which are nonexistent in reality. This gives a rise to such verbs as: to rush-develop, to finger-print, to well-wish.
Onomatop oeia (sound-imitation, echoism) is the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a natural sound associated with it (babble, crow, twitter). Semantically, according to the source of sound onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. Many verbs denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings (babble, chatter, giggle, grumble, murmur, mutter, titter, whisper). There are sounds produced by animals, birds and insects (buzz, cackle, croak, crow, hiss, howl, moo, mew, roar). Besides the verbs imitating the sound of water (bubble, splash), there are others imitating the noise of metallic things (clink, tinkle) or forceful motion (clash, crash, whack, whip, whisk).
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Sentence - condensation is the formation of new words by substantivising the whole locutions (forget-me-not, merry-go-round).
Sound and stress interchange (distinctive stress, the shift of stress). The essence of it is that to form a new word the stress of the word is shifted to a new syllable. It mostly occurs in nouns and verbs. Some phonetic changes may accompany the shift of the stress (export - to export, increase - to increase, break - breach, long -length
Билет № 13. (Понятие мотивации слова и словосочетания) Motivation of words and word-groups)
The term motivation is used to denote the relationship existing between the phonemic or morphemic composition and structural pattern of the word on the one hand and its meaning on the other.
There are three main types of motivation:
1) phonetical
2) morphological
3) semantic
1. Phonetical motivation is used when there there is a certain similarity between the sounds that make up the word. For example: buzz, cuckoo, gigle. The sounds of a word are imitative of sounds in nature, or smth. that produces a characteristic sound. This type of motivation is determined by the phonological system of each language.
2. Morphological motivation – the relationship between morphemic stucture and meaning. The main criterion in morphological motivation is the relationship between morphemes. One-morphemed words are non-motivated. Ex- means “former” when we talk about humans ex-wife, ex-president. Re- means “again”: rebuild, rewrite. In borowed words motivation is faded: “ expect, export, recover (get better)”. Morphological motivation is especially obvious in newly coined words, or in the words created in this century. In older words motivation is established etymologically.
The structure-pattern of the word is very important too: “finger-ring” and “ring-finger”. Though combined lexical meaning is the same. The difference of meaning can be explained by the arrangement of the components.
Morphological motivation has some irregularities: “smok er” – si not “the one who smokes”, it is “a railway car in which passenger may smoke”.
The degree of motivation can be different:
“endless” is completely motivated
“cranberry” is partially motivated: morpheme “cran-” has no lexical meaning.
3. Semantic motivation is based on the co-existence of direct and figurative meanings of the same word within the same synchronous system. “Mouth” denotes a part of the human face and at the same time it can be applied to any opening: “the mouth of a river”. “Ermine” is not only the anme of a small animal, but also a fur. In their direct meaning “mouth” and “ermine” are not motivated.
In compound words it is morphological motivation when the meaning of the whole word is based on direct meanings of its components and semantic motivation is when combination of components is used figuratively. For example “headache” is “pain in the head” (morphological) and “smth. annoying” (sematic).
When the connection between the meaning of the word and its form is conventional (there is no perceptible reason for the word having this phonemic and morphemic composition) the word is non-motivated (for the present state of language development). Words that seem non-motivated now may have lost their motivation: “earn” is derived from “earnian – to harvest”, but now this word is non-motivated.
Motivation may be faded when not every person can see it.
Motivation denotes the relationship between the phonemic or morphemic composition and structural pattern of the word on the one hand, and its meaning on the other.
1) morphological motivation implies a direct connection between the morphological structure of the word and its meaning..
One-morpheme words (sing, tell) are non-motivated.
The meaning of words composed of more then one morpheme is the combined meaning of the morphemes and the meaning of the structural pattern of the word itself.
Ex.: finger-ring (кольцо, которое носят на пальце руки) and ring –finger (палец, на котором носят обручальное кольцо) – the morphemes are phonetically identical with identical lexical meaning. The difference in the meaning can be accounted for by the difference in the arrangement of the component morphemes.
If we can observe a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word (порядок морфем в слове) and its meaning we say that this word is motivated.
a) singer; b) rewrite – are motivated by the morphemes they contain (a) process – doer; b) to do smth again – process)
If the connection between the structure of the lexical unit and its meaning is common or conventional, the word is non-motivated: matter, repeat
Morph. mot. is relative. The degree of motivation varies from complete motivation to lack of motivation with various grades of partial motivation. (endless - completely motivated (lexically and structurally); cranberry – partially (there is no lexical meaning of the morpheme cran-)
2) phonetic motivation is a direct connection between the phonetical structure the word and its meaning.
Swish, sizzle, boom, splash –are a direct imitation of of the sounds these word denote.
3) semantic motivation is based on co-existence of direct and figurative meanings of the same word. Mouth – a part of the human face, but at the same time it can be applied to any opening or outlet: the mouth of a river, of cave. Jacket is a short coat and also a protective cover for a book..
As to compounds, their motivation is morphological if the meaning of the whole is based on the direct meaning of the components, and semantic if the combination is used figuratively: watchdog – a dog kept for watching property (morphologically motivated); - a watchful human guardian (semantically motivated)
Every vocabulary is in a state of constant development. Words that seem non-motivated at present may have lost their motivation. When some people recognize the motivation, whereas others do not, motivation is said to be faded.
Semantically all word-groups may be classified into motivated and non-motivated. Non-motivated word-groups are usually described as phraseological units or idioms.
Word-groups may be described as lexically motivated if the combined lexical meaning of the groups is based on the meaning of their components. Thus take lessons is motivated; take place — ‘ occur’ is lexically non-motivated.
Word-groups are said to be structurally motivated if the meaning of the pattern is deduced from the order and arrangement of the member-words of the group. Red flower is motivated as the meaning of the pattern quality — substance can be deduced from the order and arrangement of the words red and flower, whereas the seemingly identical pattern red tape (‘ official bureaucratic methods’)cannot be interpreted as quality — substance.
Seemingly identical word-groups are sometimes found to be motivated or non-motivated depending on their semantic interpretation. Thus apple sauce, e.g., is lexically and structurally motivated when it means ‘a sauce made of apples’ but when used to denote ‘nonsense’ it is clearly non-motivated.
Билет № 14 (Лексическое и грамматическое значение слова. Структура лексического значения слов) Lexical and Grammatical meaning of the word.)
There are 2 main types of word-meaning:
· the grammatical meaning
· the lexical meaning.
They are found in all words.
The interrelation of these 2 types of meaning may be different in different groups of words.
GRAMMATICAL M-NG:
We notice, that word-forms, such as: girls, winters, joys, tables, etc. though denoting widely different objects of reality have something in common. This common element is the grammatical meaning of plurality, which can be found in all of them.
Gram. m-ng may be defined as the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual form of different words, as, e.g., the tense meaning in the word-forms of verb (asked, thought, walked, etc) or the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns (girl’s, boy’s, night’s, etc).
In a broad sense it may be argued that linguists, who make a distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning are, in fact, making a distinction between the functional [linguistic] meaning, which operates at various levels as the interrelation of various linguistic units and referential [conceptual] meaning as the interrelation of linguistic units and referents [or concepts].
In modern linguistic science it is commonly held that some elements of grammatical meaning can be identified by the position of the linguistic unit in relation to other linguistic units, i.e. by its distribution. Word-forms speaks, reads, writes have one and the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in identical distribution, e.g. only after the pronouns he, she, it and before adverbs like well, badly, to-day, etc.
It follows that a certain component of the meaning of a word is described when you identify it as a part of speech, since different parts of speech are distributionally different.
{ the grammatical m-hg will be different for different forms of 1 word and vice verse, various verbs may have 1 gr. m-ng}
LEXICAL M-NG:
Comparing word-forms of one and the same word we observe that besides gram. meaning, there is another component of meaning to be found in them. Unlike the gram. m-ng this component is identical in all the forms of the word. Thus, e.g. the word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone possess different gram. m-ng of tense, person and so on, but in each of these forms we find one and the same semantic component denoting the process of movement. This is the lexical m-ng of the word, which may be described as the component of m-ng proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this word.
The difference between the lexical and the grammatical components of meaning is not to be sought in the difference of the concepts underlying the 2 types of meaning, but rather in the way they are conveyed. The concept of plurality, e.g., may be expressed by the lexical m-ng of the word plurality; it may also be expressed in the forms of various words irrespective of their lexical m-ng, e.g. boys, girls, joys, etc. The concept of relation may be expressed by the lexical m-ng of the word relation and also by any of prepositions, e.g. in, on, behind, etc. (the book is in/on,behind the table).
It follows that by lexical m-ng we designate the m-ng proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions, while by grammatical m-ng we designate the m-ng proper to sets of word-forms common to all words of a certain class. Both the lexical and the grammatical m-ng make up the word-meaning as neither can exist without the other.
Lex. m-ng is not homogenous either and may be analysed as including the number of aspects. We define 3 aspects:
· denotational
· сonnotational
· pragmatic aspects.
a) It is that part of lex. m-ng, the function of which is to name the thing, concepts or phenomenon which it denotes. It’s the component of L. m-ng, which establishes correspondence between the name and the object. (den. m-ng – that component which makes communication possible).
e.g. Physict knows more about the atom than a singer does, or that an arctic explorer possesses a much deeper knowledge of what artic ice is like than a man who has never been in the North. Nevertheless they use the words atom, Artic, etc. and understand each other.
It insures reference to things common to all the speakers of given language.
b) The second component of the l. m-ng comprises the stylistic reference and emotive charge proper to the word as a linguistic unit in the given language system. The connot. component – emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word. It reflects the attitude of the speaker towards what he is speaking about. This aspect belongs to the language system.
c) Prag. aspect – that part of the L. m-ng, which conveys information on the situation of communication.
It can be divided into:
- inf-ion on the time and space relationship of communication.
Some inf-ion may be conveyed through the m-ng of the word itself.
To come – to go [space relationship]
To be hold – 17th cent [time relationship]
- inf-ion on the participant of communication or on this particular language community.
e.g. They chuked a stone at the cops’ and then did a bunk with the loot. [ criminal speaking]
After casting a stone at the police they escaped with the money. [ chief inspector speaking]
- inf-ion on the character of discourse [social or family codes]
e.g. stuff – rubbish
(Stuff - it’ll hardly be used by strangers, by smb. talking to boss)
- inf-ion on the register of communication.
e.g. com-ion: - formal (to anticipate, to aid, cordoal)
- informal (stuff, shut up, cut it off)
- neutral (you must be kidding) –?
Meaning is a certain reflection in our mind of objects, phenomena or relations that makes part of the linguistic sign - its so-called inner facet, whereas the sound-form functions as its outer facet.
Grammatical meanin g is defined as the expression in Speech of relationships between words. The grammatical meaning is more abstract and more generalised than the lexical meaning. It is recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words as the meaning of plurality in the following words students, boob, windows, compositions.
Lexical meaning. The definitions of lexical meaning given by various authors, though different in detail, agree in the basic principle: they all point out that lexical meaning is the realisation of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system.
1) The component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this word and in all possible distributions of these forms. / Ginzburg R.S., Rayevskaya N.N. and others.
2) The semantic invariant of the grammatical variation of a word / Nikitin M.V./.
3) The material meaning of a word, i.e. the meaning of the main material part of the word which reflects the concept the given word expresses and the basic properties of the thing (phenomenon, quality, state, etc.) the word denotes. /Mednikova E.M./.
Denotation. The conceptual content of a word is expressed in its denotative meaning. To denote is to serve as a linguistic expression for a concept or as a name for an individual object. It is the denotational meaning that makes communication possible.
Connotation is the pragmatic communicative value the word receives depending on where, when, how, by whom, for what purpose and in what contexts it may be used. There are four main types of connotations stylistic, emotional, evaluative and expressive or intensifying.
Stylistic connotations is what the word conveys about the speaker's attitude to the social circumstances and the appropriate functional style (slay vs kill), evaluative connotation may show his approval or disapproval of the object spoken of (clique vs group), emotional connotation conveys the speaker's emotions (mummy vs mother), the degree of intensity (adore vs love) is conveyed by expressive or intensifying connotation.
The interdependence of connotations with denotative meaning is also different for different types of connotations. Thus, for instance, emotional connotation comes into being on the basis of denotative meaning but in the course of time may substitute it by other types of connotation with general emphasis, evaluation and colloquial stylistic overtone. E.g. terrific which originally meant 'frightening' is now a colloquialism meaning 'very, very good' or 'very great': terrific beauty, terrific pleasure.
The orientation toward the subject-matter, characteristic of the denotative meaning, is substituted here by pragmatic orientation toward speaker and listener; it is not so much what is spoken about as the attitude to it that matters.
Fulfilling the significative and the communicative functions of the word the denotative meaning is present in every word and may be regarded as the central factor in the functioning of language.
The expressive function of the language (the speaker's feelings) and the pragmatic function (the effect of words upon listeners) are rendered in connotations. Unlike the denotative meaning, connotations are optional.
Connotation differs from the implicational meaning of the word. Implicational meaning is the implied information associated with the word, with what the speakers know about the referent. A wolf is known to be greedy and cruel (implicational meaning) but the denotative meaning of this word does not include these features. The denotative or the intentional meaning of the word wolf is"a wild animal resembling a dog that kills sheep and sometimes even attacks men". Its figurative meaning is derived from implied information, from what we know about wolves - "a cruel greedy person", also the adjective wolfish means "greedy".
Билет № 15. (Полисемия. Понятие семантической структуры слова)
Polysemy is characteristic of most words in many languages, however different they may be. But it is mere characteristic of the English voc-ry as compared with Russian, due to the monosyllabic character of English and the predominance of root words. Only few words in English have one meaning except terms (oxygen). All the other words in are polysemantic, i.e. have more than one meaning. The tendency here works both ways. The more widely a word is used, the more meanings it has to have (to go – 70 meanings). Different meanings of a polysemantic word make up the lexical semantic structure of a word. The meanings themselves are called the lexical semantic variants of a word. It’s not just a list of lexical semantic meanings. There is a special correspondence between the meanings of one and the same word. The correlation between the meanings corresponds to one of the same sound-form and forms a unity of meanings which is known as a semantic structure of a word.
Polysemy is very characteristic of the English vocabulary due to the monosyllabic character of English words and the predominance of root words The greater the frequency of the word, the greater the number of meanings that constitute its semantic structure. Frequency - combinability - polysemy are closely connected. A special formula known as "Zipf's law" has been worked out to express the correlation between frequency, word length and polysemy: the shorter the word, the higher its frequency of use; the higher the frequency, the wider its combinability, i.e. the more word combinations it enters; the wider its combinability, the more meanings are realised in these contexts.
The word in one of its meanings is termed a lexico-semantic variant of this word. For example the word table has at least 9 lexico-semantic variants:
1 A piece of furniture
2. The persons seated at table
3. The food put on a table
4. A thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood
5. A slab of stone
6. Plateau, extensive area of high land
7. An orderly arrangement of facts, etc.
The problem in polysemy is that of interrelation of different lexico-semantic variants. There may be no single semantic component common to all lexico-semantic variants but every variant has something in common with at least one of the others.
All the lexico-semantic variants of a word taken together form its semantic structure or semantic paradigm.
The word face, for example, according to the dictionary data has the following semantic structure:
1. The front part of the head: He fell on his face,
2. Look, expression: a sad face, smiling faces, she is a good judge of faces.
3. Surface, facade: .face of a clock, face of a building, He laid his cards face down.
4. fig. Impudence, boldness, courage; put a good/brave/ boldface on smth, put a new face on smth, the face of it, have the face to do, save one's face.
5. Style of typecast for printing: bold-face type.
In polysemy we are faced with the problem of interrelation and interdependence of various meanings in the semantic structure of one and the same word.
No general or complete scheme of types of lexical meanings as elements of a word's semantic structure has so far been accepted by linguists. There are various points of view. The following terms may be found with different authors: direct / figurative, other oppositions are: main / derived; primary / secondary; concrete/ abstract; central/ peripheral; general/ special; narrow / extended and so on.
Meaning is direct when it nominates the referent without the help of a context, in isolation; meaning is figurative when the referent is named and at the same time characterised through its similarity with other objects, e.g. tough meat - direct meaning, tough politician - figurative meaning. Similar examples are: head - head of a cabbage, foot -foot of a mountain, face - put a new face on smth
Differentiation between the terms primary / secondary main / derived meanings is connected with two approaches to polysemy: d iachronic and synchronic. '
If viewed diachronically polysemy, is understood as the growth and development (or change) in the semantic structure of the word.
The meaning the word table had in Old English is the meaning "a flat slab of stone or wood". It was its primary meaning, others were secondary and appeared later. They had been derived from the primary meaning.
Synchronically polysemy is understood as the coexistence of various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English language. In that case the problem of interrelation and interdependence of individual meanings making up the semantic structure of the word must be investigated from different points of view, that of main/ derived, central /peripheric meanings.
An objective criterion of determining the main or central meaning is the frequency of its occurrence in speech. Thus, the main meaning of the word table in Modern English is "a piece of furniture".
Polysemy is a phenomenon of language, not of speech. But the question arises: wouldn't it interfere with the communicative process?
As a rule the contextual meaning represents only one of the possible lexico-semantic variants of the word. So polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language because the situation and the context cancel all the unwanted meanings, as in the following sentences: The steak is tough This is a tough problem Prof. Holborn is a tough examiner.
Билет № 16. (Семантическая структура слова в синхронном и диахронном рассмотрении)
If polysemy is viewed diachronically, it is understood as the growth and development of or, in general, as a change in the semantic structure of the word. Polysemy in diachronic terms implies that a word may retain its previous meaning or meanings and at the same time acquire one or several new ones. In the course of a diachronic semantic analysis of the polysemantic word table we find that of all the meanings it has in Modern English, the primary meaning is 'a flat slab of stone or wood' which is proper to the word in the Old English period; all other meanings are secondary as they are derived from the primary meaning of the word and appeared later than the primary meaning. The terms secondary and derived meaning are to a certain extent synonymous. When we describe the meaning of the word as "secondary" we imply that it could not have appeared before the primary meaning was in existence. When we refer to the meaning as "derived" we imply not only that, but also that it is dependent on the primary meaning and somehow subordinate to it. In the case of the word table, e.g., we may say that the meaning 'the food put on the table' is a secondary meaning as it is derived from the meaning 'a piece of furniture (on which meals are laid out)'. It follows that the main source of polysemy is a change in the semantic structure of the word. Polysemy may also arise from homonymy. When two words become identical in sound-form, the meanings of the two words are felt as making up one semantic structure. Thus, the human ear and the ear of corn are from the diachronic point of view two homonyms. One is etymologically related to L. auris, the other to L. acus, aceris. Synchronically, however, they are perceived as two meanings of one and the same word. The ear of corn is felt to be a metaphor of the usual type (cf. the eye of the needle, the foot of the mountain) and consequently as one of the derived or, synchronically, minor meanings of the polysemantic word ear.
Synchronically we understand polysemy as the coexistence of various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English language. In connection with the polysemantic word table discussed above we are mainly concerned with the following problems: are all the nine meanings equally representative of the semantic structure of this word? Intuitively we feel that the meaning that first occurs to us whenever we hear or see the word table, is'an article of furniture'. This emerges as the basic or the central meaning of the word and all other meanings are minor in comparison. It should be noted that whereas the basic meaning occurs in various and widely different contexts, minor meanings are observed only in certain contexts, e.g. 'to keep the table amused', 'table of contents' and so on. Thus we can assume that the meaning 'a piece of furniture' occupies the central place in the semantic structure of the word table. As to other meanings of this word we find it hard to grade them in order of their comparative value.
A more objective criterion of the comparative value of individual meanings seems to be the frequency of their occurrence in speech. There is a tendency in modern linguistics to interpret the concept of the central meaning in terms of the frequency of occurrence of this meaning. In a study of five million words made by a group of linguistic scientists it was found that the frequency value of individual meanings is different. As far as the word table is concerned the meaning 'a piece of furniture' possesses the highest frequency value and makes up 52% of all the uses of this word, the meaning 'an orderly arrangement of facts' (table of contents) accounts for 35%, all other meanings between them make up just 13% of the uses of this word.
Of great importance is the stylistic stratification of meanings of a polysemantic word as individual meanings may differ in their stylistic reference. Stylistic (or regional) status of monosemantic words is easily perceived. For instance the word daddy can be referred to the colloquial stylistic layer, the word parent to the bookish. Stylistically neutral meanings are naturally more frequent. The polysemantic words worker and hand, e.g., may both denote 'a man who does manual work', but whereas this is the most frequent and stylistically neutral meaning of the word worker.
Different meanings of a polysemantic word make up the lexical semantic structure of a word. The meanings themselves are called the lexical semantic variants of a word. It’s not just a list of lexical semantic meanings. There is a special correspondence between the meanings of one and the same word. The correlation between the meanings corresponds to one of the same sound-form and forms a unity of meanings which is known as a semantic structure of a word.
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