Семинар 1
1. Lexicology, its subject, branches and connection with other linguistic disciplines.
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. 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. Another branch of lexicology is called descriptive and
studies the vocabulary at a definite stage of its development.
Distinction is naturally made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology. General Lexicology is 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 (e.g. English, Russian, etc.),
Lexicology is closely connected with other branches of linguistcs:
1. Lexicological Phonetics. It studies the expression plane of lexical units in isolation and in the flow of speech.
2. Semasiology. It deals with the meaning of words and other linguistic units: morphemes, word-formation
types, morphological word classes and morphological categories.
3. Onomasiology or Nomination Theory. It deals with the process of nomination: what name this or that object
has and why.
4. Etymology. It studies the origin, the original meaning and form of words.
5. Phraseology. It deals with phraseological units.
6. Lexicography. It is a practical science. It describes the vocabulary and each lexical unit in the form of
dictionaries.
7. Lexical Morphology. It deals with the morphological stricture of the word.
8. Word-formation. It deals with the patterns which are used in coining new words.
2. What is a word? Structure of the word.
The term word denotes the main lexical unit of a language resulting from the 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 word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human
communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical
employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.)
The modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external and the internal structures
of the word.
By external structure of the word we mean its morphological structure. For example, in the word postimpressionists the following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefixes post-, im-, the root press, the nounforming suffixes -ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s. All these morphemes constitute the
external structure of the word post-impressionists.
The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is commonly referred to as the word’s semantic structure.
This is the word’s main aspect. Words can serve the purposes of human communication solely due to their
meanings.
The area of lexicology specializing in the semantic studies of the word is called semantics.
3. Lexical meaning. The referential approach (подход).
Among the word’s various characteristics, meaning is the most important. Meaning can be described as a
component of the word through which a concept is communicated, in this way endowing the word with
the ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions and abstract notions. Semasiology is a branch of
linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents.
Referential approach to meaning: The common feature of any referential approach is that meaning is in some
form or other connected with the referent (object of reality denoted by the word). The meaning is formulated
by establishing the interdependence between words and objects of reality they denote. So, meaning is often
understood as an object or phenomenon in the outside world that is referred to by a word.
4. Meaning and concept.
When examining a word one can see that its meaning though closely connected with the underlying concept is
not identical with it. To begin with, concept is a category of human cognition. Concept is the thought of the
object that singles out the most typical features of the object. So all concepts are almost the same for the whole
of humanity in one and the same period of its historical development. The meanings of words, however, are
different in different languages. That is to say, words expressing identical concept may have different semantic
structures in different languages. E.g. the concept of "a building for human habitation" is expressed in English
by the word "house", in Russian - "дом", but their meanings are not identical as house does not possess the
meaning of "fixed residence of family or household", which is part of the meaning of the Russian word дом; it
is expressed by another English word home.
The difference between meaning and concept can also be observed by comparing synonymous words and wordgroups expressing the same concept but possessing linguistic meaning which is felt as different in each of the
units, e.g. big, large; child, baby, babe, infant.
Concepts are always emotionally neutral as they are a category of thought.
5. Types of word meaning: lexical, grammatical meanings.
Lexical meaning is the realization of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system.
Grammatical meaning is defined as the expression in speech of relationships between words. The grammatical
meaning is more abstract and more generalized 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, windows,
compositions.
6. Denotational and connotational components of lexical meaning.
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
Exercise l.
Using a dictionary determine the direct meaning of the underlined words, which are used here in their figurative
metaphorical meanings.
1. Art is a vehicle of propaganda. 2. Raise the bonnet of the car. 3. Don't fumble for excuses. 4. He's always
ready to shove the responsibility on others. 5. I'm sure he didn't steal the thing. It had been planted 6. This event
is a milestone in the history of the country. 7. It will soil his reputation. 8. I'll swelter in this coat on such a hot
day. 9. There is a snag in your argument 10. A smile creased his face. 11.1 stumbled through the text somehow.
12. You have a fertile imagination. ,
Exercise 2.
Determine the meanings of the words "house", "white", "die" in the following contexts. Say what concept is
realised in these lexical meanings. Discuss the problem "concept-meaning".
1. A house in the country. A full house. Every word was heard in all parts of the house. White House. An ancient
trading house in the city. A noisy cheerful house. To keep house. To bring down the house. To leave one's
father's house. On the house. 2. White clouds. White hair. A white elephant. The white race. White magic.
White meat. As white as snow. White wine. It's white of you. White lie. 3. Die of hunger. Die a violent death.
Die in one's bed. The day is dying. Die to the world. I'm dying to know. His secret died with him. Die in harness.
Die game. Never say die.
Exercise 3.
The common term for a word's objective reference is denotation. The common term for a word's emotional and
stylistic content is connotation. Determine the denotative and connotative meanings in the following pairs of
words.
Muzzle vs face, fat vs plump, obstinate vs mulish, infant vs kid, beg vs implore, friend vs crony,
fragrance vs reek, love vs adore, talent vs genius, famous vs notorious, gobble vs eat.
Семинар 2
1.
Types of morphemes.
Morphemes are divided into two groups: free (a morpheme which is identical with the word form - in our
example only “nation” can be said as a free morpheme, as it is like a word form and can be used in isolation)
and bound (de-,-al,-ize - they can’t be used separately and do not coincide with word forms).
Most of the words are made up of morphemes. Morpheme is the smallest indivisible language unit.
Morphemes might be divided into phonemes. But if we divide morphemes into phonemes, phonemes unlike
morphemes have no meaning. (ex.t/ea/ch/er-teacher). Phonemes are used to make up morphemes. So the
difference between morphemes is that morphemes have meaning but phonemes have not.
How do we analyze the composite nature of words? The method by which the segmentation of words into
morphemes is carred out is known as I.C. analysis (morphemic analysis):
“denationalize” – de (“deform”,”denature”,”denominate”)/nation(“national”-into “nation” and “al” because
“al” occurs in a number of words such as: (occupational, musical, conditional etc))/al /ize(remaining part
“nationalize”can be broken into “national” and “ize”: the reason is the same (organize, standardize etc).
The part of the word “denationalize”de,-nation,alize-, are ultimate (конечные) constituents (составляющие)
because they can not be divided further. They are morphemes.
Morphemes may have different phonemic shapes. In the word-cluster please, pleasing, pleasure,
pleasant the root-morpheme is represented by phonemic shapes: in please, pleasing, in pleasure and
in pleasant. In such cases we say that the phonemic shapes of the word stand in complementary distribution
or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme that manifest alteration are
called allomorphs of that morpheme or morpheme variants.
According to the number of morphemes words are divided into monomorphemic and polymorphemic.
Monomorphemic words consist of one root morpheme.
Ex. boy, girl, dog, cat.
Polymorphemic words consist of more than two morphemes. Ex. teach/er, un/reason/able. The basic unit at
the derivational level is the stem. The stem is a part of the word which remains unchanged throughout its
paradigm. In the word forms “talk, talks, talked, talking” we can receive the stem “talk”. The stem which
comes in the paradigm boy, boys, boy’s, boys’ is boy. In “teacher”, “teacher’s”, “teachers”, “teachers” the
stem is “teacher”.
There are three structural types of stems: simple, derived and compound. A simple stem is a part of the word
which is identical which a root morpheme and to which the grammatical elements are added. Ex. book, tram,
teach, table, girl, boy.
A derived stem is such a stem which can be divided into a root and an affix: girlish, agreement, acceptable,
teacher. But derived stems are not always polymorphimic.
2.
The stem and its types.
The basic unit at the derivational level is the stem. The stem is a part of the word which remains unchanged
throughout its paradigm. In the word forms “talk, talks, talked, talking” we can receive the stem “talk”.
There are three structural types of stems: simple, derived and compound. A simple stem is a part of the word
which is identical which a root morpheme and to which the grammatical elements are added. Ex. book, tram,
teach, table, girl, boy.
A derived stem is such a stem which can be divided into a root and an affix: girlish, agreement, acceptable,
teacher. But derived stems are not always polymorphimic.
3.
The main ways of enriching (обогащения) the English vocabulary. Derived words (производные)
are extremely numerous in the English vocabulary. Successfully competing with this structural type is the socalled root word which has only a root morpheme in its structure. This type is widely represented by a great
number of words belonging to the original English stock or to the earlier borrowings (house, room, book,
table, etc.), and, in Modern English, has been greatly enlarged by the type of word-building
called conversion (e.g. to hand v. formed from the noun hand; to can v. from can n.). Another wide-spread
word-structure is a compound word consisting of two or more stems. E.g. dining-room, bluebell, mother-inlaw, good-for-nothing (негодяй, бездельник). Words of this structural type are produced by the word-building
process called composition.
4.
Affixation (or Derivation). Words which consist of a root and an affix (or several affixes) are
called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word-building known as affixation
(or derivation).
Affixation is building new words by adding afaffixes to the stem of the word. The two main types of affixation
are prefixation and suffixation. Affixes can be classified according to different principles.
They can be divided into convertive and non-convertive according to their ability to convert the word into
another part of speech. For example, the prefix be is convertible since it is used to build verbs from
nouns: head → behead; the prefix re is inconvertible: arrange→rearrange. The majority of prefixes are nonconvertible. The majority of suffixes are convertible, as, for instance, the suffix en: hard→harden.
According to the part of speech formed affixes (suffixes, to be exact) are divided into noun-forming (-er, ness, -ship, -hood, -ance, -ist, etc.), adjective-forming (-ful, -less, -ic, - al, -able, -ate, -ish, -ous, etc.), verbforming (-en, -ate, -fy, - ize, etc.), adverb-forming (-ly, -wide, etc.).
According to their origin affixes are classified into native and borrowed. The native suffixes are -er, -ed, dom, -en, -ful, -less, -hood, -let, -ly, -ness, -ship, -some, -teen, -th, -y, ward, -wise, -lock. Prefixes: un-, mis-,
up-, under-, over-, out-.
Borrowed affixes are by their origin Latin (-or, -ant, -able), French (-ard, -ance, -ate), or Greek (-ist, -ism, oid). There exist numerous prefixes of Latin and Greek origin used to form new words in English: anti-,
contra-, sub-, super-, post-, vice-, etc.
Affixes may be classified according to their lexico-grammatical meaning. Prefixes possess the following main
meanings: 1) negation (un-, mis-, dis-, in-), 2) repetition or reversal of the action (re-), 3) excessiveness or
insufficiency (over-, under-), 4) time and order (pre-, post-, after-), 5) place (super-, sub-, trans-, in-), 6)
counter activity (anti-, counter-). Suffixes may point to: 1) the doer of the action (-er), 2) female sex (-ess, ine, -ette), 3) quality (-ness), 4) the presence or absence of quality (-full, -less), 5) collectivity (-dom, -ery, hood, -ship, -ry).
According to their productivity (the ability to form new words) affixes may be divided into productive (-er, ish, -less, etc.) and non-productive (-ard, -ive, -th, -ous, fore-, etc.). Productive affixes are always frequent,
but not every frequent affix is productive (-ous, for example, is a very frequent affix as it is found in many
words, but it is not productive).
According to their connotational characteristics affixes may be emotionally coloured (stinkard, drunkard,
gangster, youngster, etc. – derogatory emotional charge) and neutral (-er, able, -ing); stylistically marked
(ultra-, -oid, -eme, -tron, etc. – bookish) and neutral (-er, able, -ing).
5. Conversion. Conversion is making a new word by changing the part of speech characteristics of
the word without changing its morphemic shape. The word, which is converted into another part of speech,
changes its paradigm (nurse, n – s, ‘s → to nurse, v - -s, -ed, -ing).
The most productive pattern of conversion (конверсионная модель) is N→V: honeymoon→to honeymoon.
Less productive is the pattern Adj→N: slow→to slow (us. to slow down – сбавлять скорость). The pattern
V→N is much less frequent than the pattern N→V: to fall – a fall.
The semantic relations between the members of converted pairs are various.
Verbs formed from nouns acquire such meanings as: 1) to fulfil the action characteristic of the noun
(father→to father, ape→to ape); 2) to act with the instrument denoted by the noun (hammer→to hammer); 3)
to provide with the thing denoted by the noun (cuff→to cuff); 4) to deprive of the thing (skin→to skin) 5) to
put in the place denoted by the noun (bottle→to bottle, blacklist→to blacklist) and some other meanings.
Nouns formed from verbs may possess the following meanings: 1) a singular action (to jump→a jump), 2)
the doer of the action (help→a help), 3) the place of the action (to dump→a dump), 4) the object or result of
the action (to find→a find, to peel→a peel), 5) the distance covered by the action (to pace→a pace (величина
шага)), etc.
It is often difficult to identify the direction of derivation in converted pairs. The following criteria may help
to do this. A derived word usually a) is less frequent in usage (author→to author), b) has fewer meanings than
the word it is derived from (book→to book). Besides, irregular verbs and nouns with noun-forming suffixes
can’t be derived: to catch→a catch, caution→to caution.
6.
Composition. Composition consists in making new words by combining two or more stems which
occur in the language as free forms. It is most characteristic of adjectives and nouns. Compound words may
be divided into several groups.
7.
A compound and a word-group.
Compound words may be divided into several groups. According to the type of composition compounds are
divided into those formed by juxtaposition without linking elements (skyblue), into compounds with a linking
vowel or consonant (Anglo-saxon, saleswoman) and compounds with a linking element represented by a
preposition or conjunction (up-to-date, bread-and-butter). Compounds may also be formed by lexicalized
phrases: forget-me-not, stick-in-the-mud (отсталый, безынициативный). Such words are called syntactic
compounds. There also exist derivational compounds (compound derivatives) which represent the structural
integrity of two free stems with a suffix referring to the combination as a whole: honey-mooner, teen-ager,
kind-hearted.
According to the structure of their ICs compounds are classified into those containing:
1) two simple stems: pen-knife, bookcase;
2) one derived stem: chainsmoker, cinema-going;
3) one clipped stem: B-girl, H-bomb;
4) one compound stem: wastepaper-basket.
There is a problem of differentiation of compounds and homonymous word combinations. There are five
criteria which help to solve this problem:
1) graphical criterion: the majority of English words are spelled either solidly or are hyphenated;
2) phonological criterion: compounds usually have a heavy stress on the first syllable (cf.: `blackbird vs
`black `bird);
3) semantic criterion: the meaning of a compound word is not a total sum of the meanings of its components
but something different. There are compound words the semantic motivation of which is quite clear (tablecloth, shipwreck, etc.), but many compounds are idiomatic (non-motivated): butterfinger (a person who can’t
do things well), blue-stocking (a pedantic woman);
4) morphological criterion (criterion of formal integrity (A. I. Smirnitsky)): a compound word has a paradigm
of its own: inflexions are added not to each component but to the whole compound (handbags, handbag’s)
5) syntactic criterion: the whole compound but not its components fulfils a certain syntactic function.
Nothing can be inserted between the components of a compound word.
It should be noted that a single criterion is not sufficient to state whether we deal with a compound word or a
combination of words.
More than ⅓ of neologisms in English are compound words, so it’s a highly productive way of wordbuilding.
1. Identify the root of the following word as
A.a free morpheme B. a bound morpheme
1. She reminded herself of the color coding of the doors: pink for facial rooms; yellow for massage; orchid
for herbal wraps; white for steam cabinets; blue for sloofing. (Clark. Weep…) (suffix –al; a bound
morpheme – the root “herb” ) 2. Often, Celia went on, such nostrums and folk remedies were marketed by
families. It was some of the same families who opened early drugstores. Later still, their descendants
continued the family tradition and built drug manufacturing firms… (Hailey. Strong…) (suffix – ant; a
bound morpheme – the root „descend”, “S” – the ending of plurals)
3. An over-excited imagination… (Wodehouse. Life…) (prefix – nation; a bound morpheme)
4. Silent teamster boss gets unusual punishment… (Lederer. Anguished…) (suffix – ster (a suffix used in
forming nouns, often derogatory, referring especially to occupation, habit, or association); a bound
morpheme – the root “team“)
5. Recasting larger problems into smaller ones means finding something you can start right now that yields a
quick and perceptible result. (Reader’s Digest) (suffix of adjectives – ible (variant of -able, occurring in
words borrowed from Latin (credible; horrible; visible), or modeled on the Latin type); a bound morpheme –
the root “percept”)
6. … if I thought I was a ruddy osteopath. (Wodehouse. Life…) (A bound morpheme – the root „rudd“- the
suffix of adjectives„y“ )
7. The great comfort of turning 49 is the realization that you are now too old to die young. (Reader’s
Digest). (suffix – ation (Adding the suffix -ation, turns a verb into a noun.);a bound morpheme – the root
„realiz“)
8. My husband was under so much pressure at work when our first child was born that he became somewhat
distant from me and the baby. (Reader’s Digest) (A bound morpheme – the root „dista“, the suffix of
adjectives „nt“ Distant – distance, по аналогии с fluent - fluency)
9. “Last week a grain of sand got into my wife’s eye and she had to go to a doctor. It cost me three dollars.”
(free morpheme – the root „doctor“)
“That’s nothing. Last week a fur coat got in my wife’s eye and it cost me three hundred.” (English Humour)
10. It’s not always easy to let those you love experience pain, frustration or anger. (Reader’s Digest) (a
bound morpheme – the latin root „experie” means “to try/to test” (этот же корень в слове the same root in
the word «experiential» , the suffix of the nouns -nce)
11. … three subdivisions: flop, flopperoo and kerplunk. (Chapman) (a bound morpheme – the root „Flop“ in
russian еру муки «to flop» - «плюхнуться», the suffix -er means «a person», the suffix “roo“)
12. The Emperor closed his eyes, held his head forward and breathed in. (Golding) (a bound morpheme –
the root „Emper“comes from the word «empire» , the suufix -or means «a person»)
13. Jeff prided himself on being the best confidence artist in the business, and she had outsmarted him.
(Sheldon. If…) (suffix – ence (a suffix used to form nouns either from adjectives); a bound morpheme- the
root “confid”
2. Each of the following sets contains a derivative that does not belong to the word family. Can you
identify it?
1. AMB (to go, to walk)
A. Ambitious, strongly desirous (of a thing; to do)
B. Ambivalent, acting in opposite ways; having conflicting attitudes
or feelings
C. Ambulance, a vehicle, boat or airplane equipped to carry sick,
injured, or wounded persons
D. Ambulatory, having to do with walking; not fixed, changing
E. Preamble, a preliminary statement
F. Perambulator, a baby carriage
2. CANT/CENT/CHANT (to sing)
A. Decanter, a vessel used for decanting, esp. a bottle for serving wine
B. Chant, a melody in which a number of words are sung on the
same note
C. Enchant, to attract and delight; entrance
D. Incantation, a charm or spell used in ritual recitation
E. Recant, to make a formal denial of
F. Accent, vocal emphasis given to a particular syllable, word, or phrase
3. CUB/CUMB (to lie down)
A. Succumb, to submit or yield to something overwhelming
B. Recumbent, lying down, reclining
C. Cubicle, a small compartment, as for work or sleeping
D. Cubic, having a shape of a cube
E. Incubate, to maintain at optimal environmental conditions for
development
F. Incumbent, imposed as an obligation or duty; obligatory
4. DAC/DOC (to teach)
A. Dactylogram, a fingerprint
B. Didactic, morally instructive
C. Docile, easily managed or taught
D. Doctor, a person trained in the healing arts and licensed to practice
E. Document, a paper that provides evidence or information
F. Indoctrinate, to teach a doctrine, belief, or principle to
5. FER ( to bring, to carry, to bear)
A. Conference, a meeting for consultation or discussion
B. Defer, to put off, postpone
C. Ferment, to undergo a gradual chemical decomposition, giving off
bubbles of gas, and changing in character
D. Fertile, capable of initiating, sustaining, or supporting
reproduction
E. Offer, to present for acceptance or rejection
F. Vociferous, making an outcry; clamorous
3. Make new words with the following prefixes: dis-, in-, un-, ircharge, loyal, just, significant, attentive, able, observed, organize, order, employment, to tie, expected
Charge - discharge
Loyal - disloyal
Just - unjust
Significant - insignificant
Attentive - inattentive
Able – unable, disable
Observed - unobserved
Organize - disorganize
Order - disorder
Employment - unemployment
To tie – to untie
Expected - unexpecte
4. Analyze morphological structure of the following words, divide them in groups, according to their
structure:
babysit, black-eyed, bluestocking, building site, colour-blind, crystal-clear, daybreak, forget-me-not, goodfor-nothing, good-looking, H-bomb, hot-blooded, hunting-knife, ice-cold, navy-blue, oarsman, pearl-grey,
salesman, skyscraper, son-in-law, terror-stricken, three-cornered, T-shirt, up-to-date, U-turn
5. Deduce the meanings of the following derivatives from the meanings of their constituents. Explain
your deduction. What are the meanings of the affixes in the words under examination?
1. Reddish, adj. - slightly red in colour: the adjective red used to describe sth of the colour of fresh blood;
the suffix -ish used to form adjectives from other adjectives, with the sense of “somewhat,” “rather”
2. overwrite, v. - to write something in a way that is not clear and simple or is more detailed than it needs to
be: over- as a prefix means ‘too much’
3 irregular, adj. - not according to usual rules or what is expected: the prefix ir- used with some adjectives
and nouns that begin with ‘r’ to give the opposite meaning
4 illegal, adj. - not allowed by law: the prefix il- used with some adjectives and nouns that begin with ‘l’ to
give the opposite meaning
5 retype, v. - type (text) again, especially to correct errors: the prefix re- used with the meaning “again” to
indicate repetition
6 old-womanish, adj. - having characteristics considered typical of an old woman (e.g. excessive fussiness or
timidity): the suffix –ish has the sense of “having the characteristics of”
7 disrespectable, adj.; - unworthy of respect: the prefix dis- has a negative force, the suffix –able usually
means ‘able to be …’.
8 inexpensive, adj. - not costing a lot of money: expense is the use of money, time, or effort; the prefix in
means “no, not”; the suffix -ive adds the meaning “tending to” or “doing” or “being.”
9 unladylike, adj. - not graceful or polite, or not behaving in a way that is thought to be socially acceptable
for a woman; un is a prefix meaning “not,” and giving negative or opposite force in adjectives; definition of
–like is “similar to something”.
10 disorganize, v. – to destroy or interrupt the orderly structure or function: -ize is a verb-forming suffix
denoting activities; the prefix dis- has s negative or reversing force
11 renew, v. - to increase the life of or replace something old; re- is a prefix with the meaning “again” to
indicate repetition
12 eatable, adj. - fit or able to be eaten: the suffix able- is used to form adjectives meaning “possible,
suitable for”
13 overdress, v. - to dress or adorn to excess: over- as a prefix means ‘too much’
14 disinfection, n. - the process of cleaning something in order to destroy bacteria: to infect is to pass a
disease; a suffix -tion is used to form abstract nouns from verbs or stems to express an action
15 snobbish, adj. - too proud of their social status, intelligence, or taste:–ish is a suffix used to form
adjectives from nouns, with the sense “having the characteristics of”
16 handful, n. - an amount of something that can be held in one hand: -ful means having the ability or
tendency to
17 tallish, adj. - quite tall: the suffix is used to form adjectives from other adjectives, with the sense of
“somewhat,” “rather”
18 sandy, adj. - covered with sand or containing sand: the suffix –y means “full of” or “having”
19 breakable, adj. - capable of being broken: -able is used with verbs to make adjectives describing
something that can be done
20 underfed, adj. - fed insufficiently: under- means “not enough”
6. In the following examples the italicized words are formed from the same root by means of different
affixes. Translate these derivatives into Russian and explain the difference in meaning.
l. a) Sallie is the most amusing (приносящая веселье, удовольствие, забавная для других - funny and
giving pleasure) person, in the world — and Julia Pendleton the least so.
b) Ann was wary, but amused (о человеке, которого что-то заставило смеяться, радоваться,
веселиться - thinking that somebody/something is funny, so that you smile or laugh)
2. a) He had a charming smile, almost womanish (женственный - в разговоре о мужчине, который
ведёт себя таким образом, который более свойственен женщине - (especially of a man) behaving in
a way that is more suitable for a woman) in sweetness,
b) I have kept up with you through Miss Pittypat but she gave me no information that you had developed
womanly (свойственный женщинам - behaving, dressing, etc. in a way that people think is typical of
or very suitable for a woman) sweetness.
3. a) I have been having a delightful (восхитительная, очень приятная - very pleasant) and entertaining
conversation with my old chum, Lord Wisbeach.
b) Thanks for your invitation. I'd be delighted (с удовольствием, быть довольным - very pleased) to
come.
4. a) Sally thinks everything is funny — even flunking — and Julia is bored at everything. She never makes
the slightest effort to be pleasant (быть приятной, хорошей - fun, attractive, or giving pleasure)
b) — Why are you going to America? — To make my fortune, I hope. — How pleased (быть
удовлетворённым, обрадованным - feeling happy about something) your father will be if you do.
5. a) Long before he reached the brownstone house... the first fine careless (беззаботный - not giving enough
attention and thought to what you are doing, so that you make mistakes) rapture of his mad outbreak had
passed from Jerry Mitchell, leaving nervous apprehension in its place,
b) If your nephew has really succeeded in his experiments you should be awfully careful. (осторожный giving attention or thought to what you are doing so that you avoid hurting yourself, damaging
something or doing something wrong)
6. a) The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you've never learned. It's
very confusing (сбивает с толку - difficult to understand; not clear) at times,
b) That platform was a confused (запутанной, беспорядочной - not clear or easy to understand) mass of
travellers, porters, baggage, trucks, boys with magazines, friends, relatives.
7. a) At last I decided that even this ratner mannish (мужеподобная - (of a woman or of something
belonging to a woman) having qualities that are thought of as typical of or suitable for a man) efficient
woman could do with a little help,
b) He was only a boy not a man yet, but he spoke in a manly (мужественный - having the qualities or
physical features that are admired or expected in a man) way.
8. a) The boy's respectful (уважительные, почтительные - showing or feeling respect) manner changed
noticeably,
b) It may be a respectable (уважаемое, почтенное - considered by society to be acceptable, good or
correct) occupation, but it sounds rather criminal to me.
9. a) "Who is leading in the pennant race?" said this strange butler in a feverish (лихорадочный,
неспокойный - showing strong feelings of excitement or worry, often with a lot of activity or quick
movements) whisper
b) It was an idea peculiarly suited to her tem­perament, an idea that she might have suggested her­self if she
had thought of it ...this idea of his fevered (воспалённый - suffering from a fever) imagination.
10. Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you? And I've been
peppering you with letters every few days! But I've been so excited (взволнован - nervous or upset and
unable to relax) about all these new adventures that I must talk to somebody... Speaking of classics, have you
ever read Hamlet? If you haven't, do it right off. It's perfectly exciting. (захватывающий - causing great
interest or excitement) I've been hearing about Shakespeare all my life but I had no idea he really wrote so
well, I always suspected him of going largerly on his reputation. (J. Webster)
7. Explain the difference between the meanings of the following words produced from the same root
by means of different affixes. Translate the words into Russian.
Watery — waterish, embarrassed — embarrassing, manly — mannish, colourful — coloured, distressed —
distressing, respected — respectful — respectable, exhaustive — exhausting — exhausted, bored — boring,
touchy — touched — touching.
8. One of the italicized words in the following examples was made from the other by conversion. What
semantic correlations exist between them?
1. a) "You've got a funny nose," he added, b) He began to nose about. He pulled out drawer after drawer,
pottering round like an old bloodhound. 2. a) I'd seen so many cases of fellows who had become perfect slaves
of their valets, b) I supposed that while he had been valeting old Worplesdon Florence must have trodden on
his toes in some way. 3. a) It so happened that the night before I had been present at a rather cheery
little supper, b) So the next night I took him along to supper with me. 4. a) Buck seized Thorton's hand in his
teeth, b) The desk clerk handed me the key. 5. a) A small haify object sprang from a basket and stood yapping
in the middle of the room, b) There are advantages, you see, about rooming with Julia. 6. a) "I'm engaged
for lunch, but I've plenty of time." b) There was a time жп he and I had been lads about town
together, lunching and dining together practically every day. 7. a) Mr. Biffen rang up on the telephone while
you were in your bath, b) I found Muriel singer there, sitting by herself at a table near the door. Corky, I took
it, was out telephoning. 8. Use small nails and nail the picture on the wall. 9. a) I could just see that he was
waving a letter or something equally foul in my face. b) When the bell stopped, Crane turned around
and faced the students seated in rows before him. 10. a) Lizzie is a good cook, b) She cooks the meals in Mr.
Priestley's house. 11. a) The wolf was suspicious and afraid, b) Fortunately, however, the second course
consisted of a chicken fricassee of such outstanding excellence that the old boy, after wolfing a plateful,
handed up his dinner-pail for a second instalment and became almost genial. 12. Use the big hammer for those
nails and hammer them in well. 13. a) "Put a ribbon round your hair and be Alice-in-Wonderland," said
Maxim. "You look like it now with your finger in your mouth." b) The coach fingered the papers on his desk
and squinted through his bifocals. 14. a) The room was airy but small. There were, however, a few vacant
spots, and in these had been placed a washstand, a chest of drawers and a midget rocker-chair, b) "Well, when
I got to New York it looked a decent sort of place to me ..." 15. a) These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they
wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles... and furry coats to protect them from the frost. b) "Jeeves," I
said, "I have begun to feel absolutely haunted. This woman dogs me."
9. Explain the semantic correlations within the following pairs of words.
Shelter — to shelter, park — to park, groom — to groom, elbow — to elbow, breakfast — to breakfast, pin
— to pin, trap — to trap, fish — to fish, head — to head, nurse — to nurse.
10. Which of the two words in the following pairs is made by conversion? Deduce the meanings and
use them in constructing sentences of your own.
1. star, n. — to star, v. N - a fixed luminous point in the night sky which is a large, remote incandescent
body like the sun. "Wow, this star is so bright!" V - (of a film, play, or other show) have (someone) as a
principal performer. "Look, Ryan Gosling starring this film"
2. picture, n. - to picture, v. N - a painting or drawing. "To draw a picture of a tree" V - represent in a
photograph or picture. "he is pictured with party guests"
3. colour, n. — to colour, v. N - the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the
eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light. "the lights flickered and changed colour" v - change the
colour of (something) by painting, dyeing, or shading it. "He coloured his head, now he is red"
4. blush, n. - to blush, v. N - a reddening of the face as a sign of shyness, embarrassment, or shame. "he had
brought a faint blush to her cheeks" V - show shyness, embarrassment, or shame by becoming red in the
face. " blushed at the unexpected compliment"
5. key, n - to key, v. N - a small piece of shaped metal with incisions cut to fit the wards of a particular lock,
which is inserted into a lock and turned to open or close it. "there were two keys to the cupboard" V - enter
or operate on (data) by means of a computer keyboard or telephone keypad. "she keyed in a series of
commands"
6. fool, n. — to fool, v. N - a silly person. "I felt a bit of a fool" V - trick or deceive (someone). "don't be
fooled into paying out any more of your hard-earned cash"
7.breakfast, n. — to breakfast, v. N - a meal eaten in the morning. "a breakfast of bacon and eggs" B - to eat
breakfast. "she breakfasted on fried bread and bacon"
8. house, n. — to house, v. N - a building for human habitation. "It is my house" V - provide with shelter or
accommodation "they converted a disused cinema to house twelve employees". 9. monkey, n. — to monkey,
v. N - a small to medium-sized primate that typically has a long tail, most kinds of which live in trees in
tropical countries. V - behave in a silly or playful way. "I saw them monkeying about by the shop"
10. fork, n. — to fork, v. N - an implement with two or more prongs used for lifting food to the mouth or
holding it when cutting. V - (especially of a route) divide into two parts. "the place where the road forks"
11. slice - to slice n - a thin, broad piece of food, such as bread, meat, or cake, cut from a larger portion.
"four slices of bread" v - cut (something, especially food) into slices. "slice the onion into rings"
12. age - to age n - the length of time that a person has lived or a thing has existed. he died from a heart
attack at the age of 51 v - grow old or older. "the tiredness we feel as we age"
13. touch, n. — to touch, v. N - an act of touching someone or something. "her touch on his shoulder was
hesitant" V - come into or be in contact with. "he leaned back so that only two legs of his chair touched the
floor"
14. make, n. — to make, v. N - form (something) by putting parts together or combining substances; create.
"my grandmother made a dress for me" V - the manufacturer or trade name of a product. (Марка) "the
make, model, and year of his car"
15. finger, n. — to finger, v. N - each of the four slender jointed parts attached to either hand (or five, if the
thumb is included). "she raked her hair back with her fingers" V - touch or feel with the fingers. "the thin
man fingered his moustache" 16. empty, adj. — to empty, v. adj. - containing nothing; not filled or occupied.
"she put down her empty cup" v. - remove all the contents of (a container). "we empty the till at closing
time". 17. poor, adj. — the poor, n. adj. - lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered
comfortable or normal in a society.
"they were too poor to afford a telephone" n. -(used with a plural verb)Usually the poor . poor persons
collectively: sympathy for the poor.
18. pale, adj. — to pale, v. adj. - (of a person or a person's skin) light-colored or lacking in color: a pale
complexion; his pale face; a pale child. V. - verb (used without object), paled, palling. to become pale: to
pale at the sight of blood. 19. dry, adj. — to dry, v. ADJ. - free from moisture or excess moisture; not moist;
not wet: a dry towel; dry air. V - to make dry; free from moisture: to dry the dishes.
20. nurse, n. — to nurse, v. noun. - a person formally educated and trained in the care of the sick or
infirm.Compare nurse-midwife, nurse-practitioner, physician's assistant, practical nurse, registered nurse. v.
- to try to cure.
21. dress, n. — to dress, v. noun. - an outer garment for women and girls, consisting of bodice and skirt in
one piece. v. - to put clothing upon.
22. floor, n. — to floor, v. n. - that part of a room, hallway, or the like, that forms its lower enclosing surface
and upon which one walks v. - to confound or puzzle; nonplus: I was floored by the problem.
11. Read the following joke, explain the type of word-building in the italicized words and say
everything you can about the way they were made.
A success|ful (affixation, convertible, adjective-forming, native by origin, according to their connotational
characteristics – neutral), old lawy|er (affixation, convertible, noun-forming, native by origin, productive,
neutral by connotation characteristic) tells the follow|ing (affixation, convertible, adjective-forming, native,
productive, neutral) story about the begin|ing (affixation, convertible, noun-forming, origin, activity,
productive, neutral) of his profession|al (affixation, convertible, adjective-forming, quality, relation,
productive, neutral) life:
"I had just installed myself in my office, had put in a phone, when, through the glass of my door I saw a
shadow. It was doubt|less (affixation, convertible, adjective-forming, native, the presence or absence of
ability, productive, neutral) my first client to see me. Picture (conversion, conversional pattern N—>V, to
provide with the thing denoted by the noun) me, then, grabbing the nice, shiny (affixation, convertible,
adjective-forming, origin, ‘marked by’, productive, neutral) receiv|er (affixation, convertible, noun-forming,
the doer of the action, native by origin, productive, neutral by connotation characteristic) of my new phone
and plunging into an imagin|ary (affixation, convertible, adjective-forming, relating to quality, native,
productive, neutral) conversation (???). It ran something like this:
'Yes, Mr. S!' I was saying as the strang|er (affixation, convertible, noun-forming, native by origin, productive,
neutral by connotation characteristic) entered the office. 'I'll attend to that corpora|tion (affixation,
convertible, noun-forming, origin, activity, productive, neutral) matter for you. Mr. J. had me on the phone
this morning and wanted me to settle a damage (conversion, conversional pattern N—>V, to provide with the
thing denoted by the noun) suit, but I had to put him off, as I was too busy with other cases. But I'll manage to
sandwich (conversion, conversional pattern N—>V, to fulfil the action characteristic of the noun) your case
in between the others somehow. Yes. Yes. All right. Goodbye.'
Being sure, then, that I had dul|y (affixation, convertible, adverb-forming, native, in the manner of, productive,
neutral) impressed my prospect|ive (affixation, convertible, adjective-forming, native, having the quality of,
productive, neutral) client, rhung up the receiver and turned to him. 'Excuse me, sir,' the man said, 'but I'm
from the telephone company. I've come to connect your instrument.'
12. Find compounds in the following jokes and extracts and write them out in three columns: A.
Neutral compounds. B. Morphological compounds. C. Syntactic compounds.
1. Pat and Jack were in London for the first time. During a tour of the shops in the West End they came to an
expensive-looking barber's. "Razors!" exclaimed Pat. "You want one, don't you? There's a beauty there for
twenty-five bob,1 and there's another for thirty bob. Which would you sooner have?" "A beard," said Jack,
walking off.
Bob – a shilling (pl. bob) a free-for-all-a fight without rules
2.
The children were in the midst of a free-for-all.2 "Richard, who started this?" asked the father as he
came into the room. "Well, it all started when David hit me back."
3.
That night, as they cold-suppered together, Barmy cleared his throat and looked across at Pongo with a
sad sweet smile. "I mean to say, it's no good worrying and trying to look ahead and plan and scheme and
weigh your every action, because you never can tell when doing such-and-such won't make so-and-so
happen — while, on the other hand, if you do so-and-so it may just as easily lead to such-and-such."
4.
When Conan Doyle arrived in Boston, he was at once recognized by the cabman whose cab he
engaged. When he was about to pay his fare, the cabman said:
"If you please, sir, I should prefer a ticket to your lecture."
Conan Doyle laughed. "Tell me," he said, "how you knew who I was and I'll give you tickets for your whole
family."
"Thank you, sir," was the answer. "On the side of your travelling-bag is your name."
5. An old tramp sailed up to the back door of a little English tavern called The George and Dragon and beckoned to the landlady.
"I've had nothing to eat for three days," he said. "Would you spare an old man a bite of dinner?"
"I should say not, you good-for-nothing loafer," said the landlady and slammed the door in his face.
The tramp's face reappeared at the kitchen window. "I was just wonderin'," he said, "if I could 'ave a word or
two with George."
6. "Where are you living, Grumpy?"
"In the Park. The fresh-air treatment is all the thing nowadays."
7.
Arriving home one evening a man found the house locked up. After trying to get in at the various
windows on the first floor he finally climbed upon the shed roof and with much difficulty entered through a
second-story window. On the dining-room table he found a note from his absent-minded wife: "I have gone
out. You'll find the key under the door mat."
8.
One balmy, blue-and-white morning the old woman stood in her long, tidy garden and looked up at her
small neat cottage. The thatch on its tip-tilted roof was new and its well-fitting doors had been painted blue.
Its newly-hung curtains were gay... Bird-early next morning Mother Farthing went into the dew-drenched
garden. With billhook and fork she soon set to work clearing a path to the apple tree.
(From Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by R. Dahl)
Семинар 3
Other ways of word-building.
1. Shortening (Clipping or Curtailment) is building new words by subtraction (отнятие, удаление) of a part
of the original word. Shortenings are produced in two main ways: a) by clipping some part of the word; b)
by making a new word from the initial letters of a word group.
According to the position of the omitted part, shortenings are classified into those formed by:
1) clipping the final part of the word (apocope): lab←laboratory;
2) clipping the initial part of the word (aphaeresis): phone←telephone;
3) clipping the middle part of the word (syncope): specs←spectacles;
4) clipping both the initial and the final part of the word: flue←influenza.
A lot of neologisms are formed by clipping: detox (клиника для лечения алкоголиков и
наркоманов) ←detoxification, lib←liberation, scrip←prescription. A clipped word differs from its prototype
in meaning, style and usage.
According to their reading, initial shortenings, or abbreviations are classified into:
1) abbreviations which are pronounced as a series of letters: FBI, CIA, NBA (National Basketball Association),
etc.
2) abbreviations which are read as ordinary English words (acronyms): UNO, NATO, radar (radio detection
and ranging), etc.
A special group is represented by graphical abbreviations used in written speech: N.Y., X-mas, PhD, etc. A
number of Latin abbreviations are used in writing: e.g., p.m., i.e., P.S., etc.
Shortening
Shortening falls into clipping (curtailment, contraction, or shortening proper) and acronymy (initial
abbreviation). Clippings are derived from single words (e.g., mike from microphone); acronyms are derived
from phrases (e.g., MP from Member of Parliament). Though some clippings can be due to ellipsis of
phrases, too (pub from public house).
Clipping.
It consists in taking away any part of the word. The remaining part, which may be neither a morpheme nor
even a syllable, acquires all the characteristic of the word: formal and semantic unity (semantic integrity),
formal and semantic variation, grammatical paradigm and syntactic use. E.g., Tony spoke with
the vet's wife. Vet is a usual word with all its characteristics.
Structural and morphological characteristics of clippings.
There are three structural types of clipping with respect to the position of the clipped part of the word:
1. initial clipping, or apheresis. The initial part of the word is taken away, e.g., history > story;
2. medialclipping, or syncope. The middle part is taken away, e.g., spectacles > specs;
3. finalclipping, or apocope. The end of the word is taken away, e.g., demonstration > demo.
There may be mixed types of clipping, e.g., detective > tec (initial + final clipping). There may be also some
changes in the remaining part of the word: pronunciation may change, e.g., laboratory > lab; or spelling may
change, e.g., microphone > mike.
Clipping is a source of new morphemes. Clipped words often serve as word building bases, e.g. taxi is a
clipping of taximeter cab. This new stem is a base for taxicab, taxi-driver, taxi-man, to taxi.
Clipping is often combined with derivation (e.g., comfy from comfortable, hanky from handkerchief) and
composition (e.g., lab-assistant, go-getter).
Semantic peculiarities of clippings.
Polysemantic words are usually clipped in one meaning, but they may further develop new meanings.
Compare fantasy and fancy, history and story. Homonymy among clippings is rather frequent, e.g., vac –
1. vacation, 2. vacuum cleaner.
Stylistic peculiarities of clippings.
Clipping is typical of colloquial speech, and clippings, especially the latest ones, are stylistically coloured as
colloquial. E.g., exam, pro, dip, dorm. Most of the earliest clippings have become stylistically neutral,
e.g., fend, strange, storyformed fromdefend, estrange, history.
Acronymy.
Only initial letters of the phrase are left which may be pronounced in two ways:
1.alphabetic (D.C., USA);
2. according to the rules of reading (AIDS, UNO, UNESCO).
Acronymy is especially widely used in the press for the names of the governmental, social and other
institutions, movements, organizations, countries, etc.: e.g., TUC, CIS, ELT, etc. It is also spreading in
colloquial English, too, e.g., BF (boy-friend), GF (girl-friend). There are also some abbreviated
terms: ТВ, AIDS, HIV.
Acronyms behave as usual words, they may have the paradigm of the part of speech they belong to and its
distribution: e.g., She is my BF's GF. Some of the acronyms turned into regular morphemes, e.g., jeep< GP(a
car for general purposes). They may also serve as word building bases, e.g., MP'ess.
Homonymy of acronyms is even more regular than that of clippings. E.g., MP may stand for Member of
Parliament, Military Police, Marine Police, Municipal Police, Mounted Police, etc.
Shortening of both types (clipping and acronymy) is becoming highly productive nowadays. The reasons for
it are both linguistic and extralinguistic. The extralinguistic factor is the ever-growing pace of life. The
linguistic factors are:
1) bringing long words in conformity with the orthographic and phonetic standards of Modem English;
2) economy of linguistic expression. So, such words as microphone, laboratory, mackintosh, miserable,
impossible and the like easily turn into mono- or disyllabic words: mike, lab, mac, mizzy, imposs.
2. Back-formation (Reversion) is a way of word-building by which a new word is formed by cutting off a real
or supposed suffix: burglar→to burgle, enthusiasm→to enthuse. It is called back-formation, because the
process of derivation is opposite to the traditional one. Usually, a derived word is longer (work→worker), in
back-formation the derived word is shorter than the one from which it was derived. By way of back-formation
verbs may be derived from nouns (beggar→to beg, television→to televise) and adjectives
(peevish (сварливый) →to peeve), nouns from adjectives (greedy→greed). A very productive type of backformation in present-day English is derivation of verbs from compounds in –er and –ing as final elements: to
baby-sit (from baby-sitter), to air-condition (from air-conditioner), to house-clean (from house-cleaner).
The minor ways of word-building are blending, sound imitation, reduplication and ellipsis.
It is coining new words by subtracting a real or supposed suffix as a result of misinterpretation of the structure
of the word or of its word-building history. This word-building type is reverse to suffixation.
The first examples of conversion date back to the Old English – Middle English period, when some Old French
borrowed nouns were misinterpreted as suffixal words. For example, peas, cherries were taken to be the
plural forms of the nouns pea and cherry; butler, beggar, cobbler were interpreted as derivative nouns from
the verbs to buttle, to beg, to cobble, by analogy with other real derivatives.
Some words were formed from native bases, e.g., the OE adverbs groveling and sideling with the suffix ling were reinterpreted as suffixal words with the suffix -ing; so, the verbs to sidle, to grovel came into being.
In present-day English this type is productive in verbs. The following suffixes are most often subtracted:
• -er: to donate < donator, to vivisect < vivisector;
• -ing: to fact-find < fact-finding, to night-fly < night-flying:
• -y: to laze < lazy, to cose < cosy. Diachronically, the nouns greed, pet were derived in this way
from greedy and petty, and the adjective difficult from difficulty.
• -ion: to automate < automation, to aggress < aggression;
• -asm/-ism: to enthuse < enthusiasm.
Back formation is not to be confused with shortening, because the subtracted part is an affix (real or supposed),
but not any accidental part of the word.
3. Blending is a way of building words by merging parts of words (not morphemes) into one new word. Thus,
the noun smog is composed of the parts of the nouns smoke and fog, the noun brunch – of breakfast and lunch,
motel – of motor and hotel. Such words are called blends (сращения), fusions, telescope words.
Blends are built either by merging two clipped stems (dramedy←drama+comedy) or merging one full and
one clipped stem (teleplay←television+play). Most blends are nouns, but sometimes verbs and adjectives are
formed by blending: flush←flash+blush, fantabulous←fantastic+fabulous.
Blending is either viewed as a separate type of word-building, or as a variety of composition or shortening. It
plays an important role in building neologisms in the sphere of advertising, mass media, colloqual speech,
trade and marketing: Adidas←Adi+Dassler (основатель компании), slimnastics←slim+gymnastics,
pollutician←pollution+politician, cottonopolis (Манчестер как центр хлопчатобумажной
промышленности), Ameringlish←American English, swacket←sweater+jacket, etc.
Blending
Blending is a particular type of shortening, combining some features of both clipping and composition. It
consists in combining parts of two words into one word: e.g., flush < flame + blush; smog < smoke + fog.
There are several structural types of blends, depending on which parts of the words are brought together:
initial part+ final part, e.g., electrocute;
initial part+ initial part, e.g., sci-fi, hi-tech;
full word + final part, e.g., slimnastics;
full word + initial part, e.g., paratroops, narcodollars.
When the second constituent of a blend is frequent enough, it may turn into a sort of a suffix, e.g., gate in Reagangate, Irangate, Russiagate, Monicagate.
Semantically. there are two types of blends:
1. additive, transformable into coordinative word-groups with the conjunction and,
e.g., brunch < breakfast + lunch, dunch < dinner + lunch;
2. restrictive, transformable into a subordinative attributive or adverbial group, e.g., electrocute < execute
by electricity, fruice < fruit juice.
This type of word-building is now rapidly gaining in productivity, especially in advertising, technical
terminology, political jargon and in every-day speech,
e.g., Euroshima, transceiver, transistor, telecast, motel, shampoo, Europarliament, etc.
4. Sound imitation (Onomatopoeia) is a way of word-formation which consists in imitating the sounds made
by animals, birds, insects, men and different objects: bang, giggle, quack. Some scholars suggest that sounds
have a certain meaning of their own: the sound [l] in glide, slide, slip conveys the nature of smooth, easy
movement over a slippery surface. The sound of the verbs to rush, to dash, to flash reflects the brevity and
energetic nature of these actions, but the theory has not been yet fully developed.
It is of some interest that sounds produced by the same kind of animal are. frequently represented by quite
different sound groups in different languages. For instance, English dogs bark (cf. the R. лаять) or howl (cf.
the R. выть). The English cock cries cock-a-doodle-doo (cf. the R. ку-ка-ре-ку). In England ducks quack and
frogs croak (cf. the R. крякать said about ducks and квакать said about frogs). It is only English and
Russian cats who seem capable of mutual understanding when they meet, for English cats mew or miaow
(meow). The same can be said about cows: they moo (but also low).
Some names of animals and especially of birds and insects are also produced by sound-imitation: crow,
cuckoo, humming-bird, whip-poor-will, cricket.
5. Reduplication (Repetition) consists in a complete or partial repetition of the stem or of the whole word (byebye), often with a variation of the root vowel or consonant (ping-pong).
These words are always colloquial or slang, among them there many nursery words. There exist three types
of such words: 1) the words in which the same stem is repeated without any changes (pretty-pretty, goodygoody, never-never (утопия); 2) words with a vowel variation (chit-chat (сплетни), ping-pong, tip-top); 3)
words with pseudomorphemes (rhyme combinations) (lovey-dovey, walkie-talkie, willy-nilly); the parts of
such words don’t exist as separate words.
This type of word-building is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number of monosyllables.
Stylistically speaking, most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang.
E. g. walkie-talkie ("a portable radio"), riff-raff ("the worthless or disreputable element of society"; "the dregs
of society"), chi-chi (sl. for chic as in a chi-chi girl).
In a modern novel an angry father accuses his teenager son of doing nothing but dilly-dallying all over the
town.
(dilly-dallying — wasting time, doing nothing, loitering)
Non-productive ways of word-building are sound interchange and distinctive stress which are regarded as
a means of word-building only diachronically because in Mod. English not a single word is formed by
changing the root sound or by shifting the place of stress.
Sound interchange implies vowel-interchange (to sing – song, to live – live) and consonant-interchange (use
– to use [z], advice – to advise). Consonant interchange may be combined with vowel interchange: bath – to
bathe. Sound interchange only serves to distinguish one long-established word from another.
Distinctive stress is found in groups like `present – pres`ent, `conduct – con`duct, `abstract – abstr’act, etc.
These words were French borrowings with the original stress on the last syllable. Verbs retained it, while in
nouns and adjectives it was shifted. The place of stress helps to distinguish verbs and nouns or pronouns in
speech.
Exercise 1
Many of the words in the English language are shortened forms of longer words. For instance, the word
"modem" is the shortened form of "modulator-demodulator." Guess the full form of the words from which
the following clipped words were formed.
1. pants - pantaloons
2. movie – moving picture
3. limo - limousine
4. math – Mathematics
5. flu – influenza
6. auto – automobile
7. burger – hamburger
8. ad - advertisement
9. varsity - university
10. lab - laboratory
11. lunch - luncheon
12. memo - memorandum
13. mum - mother
14. typo – typographer
Exercise 2
PORTMANTEAU WORDS
The standard linguistic term for this type of word is a blend. It was Lewis Carroll in Through The Looking
Glass who coined the word portmanteau to describe them. In the book Humpty Dumpty explains that: "Well,
'slithy' means 'lithe and slimy'. 'Lithe' is the same word as 'active'. You see, it's like a portmanteau - there are
two meanings packed into one word." Among several other words Carroll created chortle (a combination of
'chuckle' and 'snort') and galumph (a combination of 'gallop' and 'triumph').
So, a portmanteau or blend word is one derived by combining portions of two or more separate words.
Interestingly, portmanteau itself is a blend word, originating from the French portemanteau, a compound
formed from porter (to carry) and manteau (cloak).
Now guess the full form of the words from which the following portmanteau words were formed.
1. advertainment
1. Beatles
1. bionic
1. bit
1. blog
1. camcorder
1. docudrama
1. email
1. fanzine
1. freeware
1. malware
1. pulsar
1. Spanglish
1. sitcom
1. webinar
Exercise 3.
Match the following onomatopoeic words with the subjects producing the sounds.
To chirp, to splash, to neigh, to hoot, to bellow, to bleat, to cackle, to croak, to yap, to bark, to grunt, to mew,
to twitter, to quack, to warble, to roar, to coo, to squeak.
A horse, a bull, a tiger, a mouse, a bird, a sheep, a pigeon, a hen, water, a frog, a nightingale, a dog, a cat, a
duck, an owl, a pig.
Exercise 4.
How were these words formed?
A bike, to baby-sit, to hiss, identical, unreasonable, to buzz, old-fashioned, to book, to dilly-dally, a greenhorn,
a dress coat, an exam, a merry-go-round, RBC, to quack, an earthquake, a make, a freshman, Anglo-Saxon,
hurry-scurry, to tape-record, a break-through, a find, M.P., to babble, a passer-by, to doctor, eatable, to
overcome, smog, brunch, super duper.
Семинар 4
Lexical units may be classified in different ways. In an adequate classification the definition of various classes
must be based on the same kind of criteria. Features of English vocabulary
1. English words are mainly polysemantic - they have more than one possible meaning. The meaning of most
English words is a complex structure of meanings.
2. English has a lot of borrowed words (ca 80%) which were mainly adopted from different Indo-European
languages (most borrowed words came from Latin and French).
3. English is characterised by well-developed synonymy with many sources for synonyms.
4. English is characterised by well-developed homonymy (e.g. bare/bear, hair/hare etc.).
5. Most words in English are mono- and disyllabic.
6. English has a unique phenomenon: phrasal verbs, which consist of a verb and a preposition or adverb that
modifies or changes the meaning; e.g. ‘give up’ is a phrasal verb that means ‘stop doing’ something, which is
very different from ‘give’.
7. Many words have rather general meaning specified by context.
8. English has a special type of word-formation — conversion (zero-derivation).
1. Synonyms. Criteria of synonymy.
Synonyms can be defined in terms of linguistics as two or more words of the same language, belonging to the
same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings,
interchangeable, at least in some contexts, without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but
differing in morphemic composition, phonetic shape, connotations, affective value, style and idiomatic use.
The
verbs
like,
admire
and
love,
all
describe
feelings
of
attraction (привлекательность), approbation (одобрение), fondness (любовь, нежность. Yet, each of the
three verbs, though they all describe more or less the same feeling of liking, describes it in its own way.
Synonyms add precision to each detail of description and show how the correct choice of a word from a group
of synonyms may colour the whole text. The principal function of synonyms is to present the same
phenomenon in different aspects, shades and variations.
The problem of criteria of synonymy
Synonymy is associated with some theoretical problems which at present are still an object of controversy.
The most controversial among these is the problem of criteria of synonymy. We are still not certain which
words should correctly be considered as synonyms.
1) Traditional linguistics solved this problem with the conceptual criterion and defined synonyms as words
of the same category of parts of speech conveying the same concept but differing either in shades of meaning
or in stylistic characteristics.
Some aspects of this definition have been critisized. It has been pointed out that linguistic phenomena should
be defined in linguistic terms and that the use of the term concept makes this an extralinguistic definition.
2) In contemporary research on synonymy semantic criterion is frequently used. In terms of componential
analysis synonyms may be defined as words with the same denotation, or the same denotative component, but
differing in connotations, or in connotative components.
A group of synonyms may be studied with the help of their dictionary definitions (definitional analysis). In
this work the data from various dictionaries are analysed comparatively. After that the definitions are subjected
to transformational operations (transformational analysis). In this way, the semantic components of each
analysed word are singled out.
Let us consider the results of the definitional and transformational analysis of some of the numerous
synonyms for the verb to look.
Denotation
Connotations
to stare:
to look
+ steadily, lastingly + in surprise, curiosity
to glare:
to look
+ steadily, lastingly + in anger, rage, fury
to gaze:
to look
+ steadily, lastingly + in tenderness, admiration, wonder
to glance:
to look
+ briefly, in passing
to peep:
to look
+ quickly, secretly + by stealth; through an opening
to peer:
to look
+ steadily, lastingly + with difficulty or strain
The common denotation to look shows that, according to the semantic criterion, the words grouped in the
table: to stare, to glare, to glance, to peep (to look quickly and secretly at sth), to peer (to look closely or
carefully at sth) are synonyms. The connotative components: steadily, lastingly, briefly, in surprise, in anger,
etc. highlight their differentiations.
3) In modern research on synonyms the criterion of interchangeability is sometimes applied. According to
this, synonyms are defined as words which are interchangeable at least in some contexts without any
considerable alteration in denotational meaning.
This criterion of interchangeability has been much criticized. Almost every attempt to apply it to this or that
group of synonyms seems to lead one to the inevitable conclusion that either there are very few synonyms or
that they are not interchangeable. It is sufficient to choose any set of synonyms placing them in a simple
context to demonstrate the point. Confer: glare – gaze – glance – peer.
Consequently, it is difficult to accept interchangeability as a criterion of synonymy because the specific
characteristic of synonyms is that they are not, cannot and should not be interchangeable, in which case
they would simply become useless ballast in the vocabulary.
All this does not mean that no synonyms are interchangeable. One can find whole groups of words which
can readily be substituted one for another. The same girl can be described as pretty, good-looking, handsome
or beautiful. Yet, even these words are far from being totally interchangeable.
In conclusion, let us stress that even if there are some synonyms which are interchangeable, it is quite certain
that there are also others which are not. A criterion should be applicable to all synonyms and not just to some
of them.
2. The dominant synonym.
All (or, at least, most) synonymic groups have a “central” word whose meaning is equal to the denotation
common to all the synonymic group. This word is called the dominant synonym.
Here are examples of some dominant synonyms with their groups:
To tremble – to shiver – to shudder – to shake.
To make – to produce –to create – to fabricate – to manufacture.
Angry – furious – enraged.
The dominant synonym expresses the notion common to all synonyms of the group in the most general way,
without contributing any additional information as to manner, intensity, duration or any attending feature of
the referent. Its meaning, which is broad and generalized, more or less “covers” the meanings of the rest of
the synonyms, so that it may be substituted for any of them. It seems that here the idea of interchangeability
of synonyms comes into its own. And yet, each such substitution would mean an irreparable loss of the
additional information supplied by connotative components of each synonym. So, using to look instead of to
glare, to stare, to peep we preserve the general sense of the utterance but lose a great deal of precision,
expressiveness and colour.
Summing up what has been said, the following characteristic features of the dominant synonym can be
underlined:
1. High frequency of usage.
2. Broad combinability, i.e. ability to be used in combinations with various classes of words.
3. Broad general meaning.
4. Lack of connotations. (This goes for stylistic connotations as well, so that neutrality as to style is also a
typical feature of the dominant synonym).
3. Classification of synonyms by Vinogradov.
The only existing classification system for synonyms was established by V.V. Vinogradov, the famous
Russian scholar. In his classification system there are three types of synonyms: ideographic (which he defined
as words conveying the same concept but differing in shades of meaning), stylistic (differing in stylistic
characteristics) and absolute (coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics).
However, the following aspects of his classification system are open to question.
Firstly, absolute synonyms are rare in the vocabulary. The vocabulary system tends to abolish them either
by rejecting one of the absolute synonyms or by developing differentiation characteristics in one or both, or
all of them. Therefore, it does not seem necessary to include absolute synonyms, which are a temporary
exception, in the system of classification.
Secondly, there seems to be no rigid demarcation line between synonyms differing in their shades of meaning
and in stylistic characteristics. There are numerous synonyms which are distinguished by both shades of
meaning
and
stylistic
colouring.
Therefore,
even
the
subdivision
of
synonyms
into ideographic and stylistic is open to question.
4. Classification of synonyms based on their connotation.
A more modern and a more effective approach to the classification of synonyms may be based on the
definition describing synonyms as words differing in connotations. It seems convenient to
classify connotations by which synonyms differ rather than synonyms themselves.
Types of connotations
I. The connotation of degree or intensity can be traced in such groups of synonyms as to surprise – to
astonish – to amaze – to astound; to like – to admire – to love – to adore – to worship.
II. In the group of synonyms to stare – to glare – to gaze – to glance – to peep – to peer, all the synonyms
except to glance, to peep denote a lasting act of looking at somebody or something, whereas to glance, to
peep describe a brief look. These synonyms may be said to have a connotation of duration in their semantic
structure.
III. The synonyms to stare – to glare – to gaze are differentiated from other words of the group by emotive
connotations, and from each other by the nature of the emotion they imply.
One should be warned against confusing words with emotive connotations and words with emotive
denotative meanings, e.g. angry – furious – enraged; fear – terror – horror. In the latter, emotion is expressed
by the leading semantic component whereas in the former it is an accompanying, subsidiary characteristic.
IV. The evaluative connotation conveys the speaker’s attitude towards the referent, labelling it
as good or bad. So in the group well-known – famous – notorious – celebrated, the adjective notorious bears
a negative evaluative connotation and celebrated a positive one. Confer: a notorious murderer, robber,
coward, but a celebrated scholar, artist, singer.
V. The causative connotation can be illustrated by the examples to shiver and to shudder, in whose
semantic structures the cause of the act or process of trembling is encoded: to shiver with cold, from a chill;
to shudder with horror, fear, etc.
VI. The connotation of manner can be singled out in some groups of verbal synonyms. The verbs to stroll
– to stride – to trot – to swagger – to stagger – to stumble all denote different ways and types of walking.
VII. The above mentioned verbs to peep and to peer are differentiated by connotations of duration and
manner. But there is some other peculiarity in their semantic structures.
One peeps at smb./smth. through a hole, an opening, a newspaper, a curtain, etc. It seems as if “the set of
scenery” is actually built within the word’s meaning and is reflected in the word’s semantic structure. We
shall call this the connotation of attendant circumstances.
One peers at smb./smth. in darkness, through the fog, from a great distance. So, in the semantic structure
of to peer are encoded circumstances preventing one from seeing clearly.
VIII. The synonyms pretty, handsome, beautiful have been mentioned as the ones which are more or less
interchangeable. Yet, each of them describes a special type of human beauty: beautiful is mostly associated
with classical features and a perfect figure, handsome with a tall stature and fine proportions, pretty with small
delicate features and a fresh complexion. This connotation may be defined as the connotation of attendant
features.
IX. Stylistic connotations stand somewhat apart for two reasons. Firstly, some scholars do not regard the
word’s stylistic characteristic as a connotative component of its semantic structure. Secondly, stylistic
connotations are subject to further classification, namely: colloquial, slang, dialect, poetic, terminological,
archaic. Here again we are dealing with stylistically marked words, but this time we approach the feature of
stylistic characteristics from a different angle: from the point of view of synonyms’ frequent differentiation
characteristics.
Here are some examples of synonyms which are differentiated by stylistic connotations. The word in
brackets starting the group shows the denotation of the synonyms.
(Girl). Girlie (coll.) – девушка, lass, lassie (dial.); bird, birdie, jane, fluff, skirt (sl.), maiden (poet.)
– дева; damsel (arch.) – девица.
5. Euphemisms.
There are words in every language which people instinctively avoid because they are considered indecent,
indelicate, rude or impolite. As the “offensive” referents, for which these words stand, must be alluded too,
they are often described in a round-about way, by using substitutes called euphemisms. This device is
dictated by social conventions which are sometimes apt to be over-sensitive, see “indecency” where there is
none and seek refinement in absurd avoidances and pretentiousness.
The word lavatory has produced many euphemisms: powder room, washroom, restroom, and ladies’
(room), gentlemen’s room.
Pregnancy is another topic for “delicate” references. Here are euphemisms used as substitutes for the
adjective pregnant: in an interesting condition, in a delicate condition, in the family way, expecting.
There are words which are easy targets for euphemistic substitution. These include words associated with
drunkenness, which are very numerous. The adjective drunk has a great number of such substitutes,
e.g. intoxicated (form.),
tipsy,
high,
merry,
overcome,
full (coll.), drunk
as
a
lord (coll.), boiled (sl. набравшийся), soaked (sl. насосавшийся).
Euphemisms may be used due to genuine concern not to hurt someone’s feelings. For instance, a liar can be
described as a person who does not always tell the truth and a stupid man can be said to be not exactly brilliant.
All the euphemisms that have been described so far are used to avoid the so-called social taboos. Their use
is inspired by social convention.
Superstitious taboos gave rise to the use of other type of euphemisms. The reluctance to call things by their
proper names is also typical of this type of euphemisms, but this time it is based on a deeply-rooted
subconcious fear.
Superstitious taboos have their roots in the distant past of mankind when people believed that there was a
supernatural link between a name and the object or creature it represented. Therefore, all the words denoting
evil spirits, dangerous animals, or the powers of nature were taboo. If uttered, it was believed that unspeakable
disasters would result not only for the speaker but also for those near him. That is why all creatures, objects
and phenomena threating danger were referred to in a round-about descriptive way. So, a dangerous animal
might be described as the one-lurking-in-the-wood. Euphemisms are probably the oldest type of synonyms.
The Christian religion also made certain words taboo. The proverb Speak of the devil and he will appear
(лёгок на помине) must have been used and taken quite literally when it was first used, and the fear
of calling the devil by name was inherited from ancient superstitious beliefs. So, the word devil became taboo,
and a number of euphemisms were substitutes for it: the Prince of Darkness, the black one, the evil one,
deuce (coll.), (Old) Nick (coll.).
The word God, also had a great number of substitutes which can still be traced in such phrases as Good
Lord!, By Heavens!, Good Heavens!, (My) goodness gracious!
Even in our modern emancipated times, old superstitious fears still lurk behind words associated with death
and fatal diseases. People are not superstitious nowadays and yet they are reluctant to use the verb to die which
has a long chain of substitutes, e.g. to pass away, to be taken, to close one’s eyes, to go West (sl.), to kick
off (sl.).
1. Make synonymic rows.
ailing, arrogant, bicker, brawl, bright, hoity-toity, clever, consume, devour, diseased, eat, engorge, haughty,
high-hat, ill, inept, ingest, intelligent, mandicate, pace, proud, quarrel, sagacious, shrewd, snobbish, stride,
snooty, squabble, stroll, stupid, supercilious, walk, wise.
2. Analyze the following groups of words. Explain why elements of one group are synonyms, find the
dominant synonym:
1. to glare – to gaze – to peep – to look – to stare – to glance ; 2. smell – scent – odour – aroma – perfume; 3.
to walk – to stroll – to saunter – to wander; 4. to want – to wish – to desire; 5.weak – feeble – frail – fragile;
6. large – big – great; 7. to jump – to leap – to spring – to skip – to hop; 8. pain – ache – pang – twin
3. Comment on the existence and origin of the following synonyms:
popular – pop, anxiety – anxiousness, to laugh – to give a laugh, radio – wireless, empty –vacuous, pretty –
bonny, worker – labourer, musician – minstrel, house – residence, charm – glamour
4. Make synonyms by shortening:
vanguard, omnibus, physiognomy, taximeter-cabriolet, periwig, popular, dormitory, quacksalver, influenza.
Семинар 5
1. Antonymy. Classification of antonyms.
We use the term antonyms to indicate words of the same category of parts of speech which have
contrasting meanings, such as hot – cold, light – dark, to accept – to reject, up – down.
If synonyms form whole, often numerous, groups, antonyms usually appear in pairs.
On the other hand, a polysemantic word may have an antonym (or several antonyms) for each of its
meanings. So, the adjective dull has the antonyms interesting, amusing, entertaining for its meaning of
“deficient in interest”, clever, bright, capable for its meaning of “deficient in intellect”, etc.
Antonymy is not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms
are adjectives which is only natural because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and
contrasted: high – low, wide – narrow, old – young.
Verbs take second place: to lose – to find, to live – to die, to close – to open.
Nouns are not rich in antonyms: friend – enemy, joy – grief, good – evil.
Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups: a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly –
coldly, merrily – sadly; b) adverbs proper: now – then, here – there, ever – never.
***
Not so many years ago antonomy was not universally accepted as a linguistic problem, and the opposition
within antonymic pairs was regarded as purely logical and finding no reflection in the semantic structures of
these words. The contrast between heat and cold or big and small, said most scholars, is the contrast of things
opposed by their nature.
Nowadays most scholars agree that in the semantic structures of all words, which regularly occur in
antonymic pairs, a special antonymic connotation can be singled out. We are so used to coming
across hot and cold together, in the same contexts, that even when we find hot alone, we cannot help
subconsciously registering it is not cold. The word possesses its full meaning for us not only due to its direct
associations but also because we subconsciously oppose it to its antonym, with which it is regularly used, in
this case to hot. Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that the semantic structure of hot can be said to include
the antonymic connotation of “not cold”, and the semantic structure of enemy the connotation of “not a friend”.
Together with synonyms, antonyms represent the language’s important expressive means. Antonyms are
often used as a stylistic device of contrast.
2.
Homonyms. Homophones and homographs.
Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling (or, at least, in one of these aspects),
but different in their meaning, e.g.: bank, n. – a shore; bank, n. – an institution for receiving, lending,
exchanging money.
If groups of synonyms and pairs of antonyms are created by the vocabulary system and can be regarded as
the treasury of the language’s expressive resources, homonyms are accidental creations, and therefore
purposeless. In the process of communication they are more of an encumbrance, leading sometimes to
confusion and misunderstanding.
Homonyms which are the same in sound and spelling are traditionally termed homonyms proper: spring
– весна, spring – пружина, spring – источник, родник.
The second type of homonyms is called homophones – these are words the same in sound but different in
spelling: night – ночь, knight – рыцарь; peace – мир, piece – кусок, right – правый, write – писать, rite
– обряд.
The third type of homonyms is called homographs. These are words which are the same in spelling but
different in sound: bow – лук, bow – поклон; tear n –слеза, tear v –рвать; wind n – ветер, wind v –
заводить часы.
3.
Classification of homonyms by Smirnitsky
Professor A.I.Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes: I. Full lexical homonyms, II. Partial
homonyms.
Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of parts of speech and have the same
paradigm, e.g. match, n – a game, a contest; match, n – a short piece of wood used for producing fire.
Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:
A. Simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words which belong to the same category of parts of
speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it is never the same form, as will be seen from the
examples: (to) found, v - found, v (Past Simple, Past Part. of to find); to lay (класть, положить), v (Past
Simple – laid) - lay, v (Past Simple of to lie) – лежать.
B. Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of parts of speech
which have one identical form in their paradigms. E.g. rose, n – rose, v (Past Simple of to rise); left, adj. –
left, v (Past Simple, Past Part. of to leave)
C. Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical only in
their corresponding forms. E.g. to lie (lay, lain), v – to lie (lied,lied),v – лгать.
4.
Sources of homonymy.
1). One source of homonyms are phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of their historical
development. As a result of such changes, two or more words which were formely pronounced differently
may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms. Night (ночь) and knight (рыцарь), for
instance, were not homonyms in Old English as the initial k in the second word was pronounced, and not
dropped as it is in its modern sound form.
2) Borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed word may duplicate in form either a native word
or another borrowing. So, in the group of homonyms rite, n (обряд) – to write, v – right, adj. the second and
third words are of native origin whereas rite (обряд) is a Latin borrowing.
3). Word-building also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy, and the most important type
in this respect is conversion. Such pairs of words as comb, n (гребень) – to comb, v (расчёсывать); to make,
v (делать) – make, n (работа) are numerous in the vocabulary. Homonyms of this type, which are the same
in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of speech, are called lexico-grammatical
homonyms.
4). Shortening is a further type of word-building which increases the number of homonyms. E.g. fan, n in
the sense of “an admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer” is a shortening produced from fanatic. Its
homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, n which denotes an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current
of air.
5). Words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of homonyms with other words: e.g. bang, n (a
loud, sudden, explosive noise) – bang, n (a fringe of hair combed over the forehead – чёлка).
The above-described sources of homonyms have one important feature in common. In all the mentioned
cases the homonyms developed from two or more different words, and their semilarity is purely accidental.
In this respect, conversion presents an exception for in pairs of homonyms formed by conversion one word of
the pair is produced from the other: a find < to find.
6). Now we come to a further source of homonyms which differs from all the above cases. Two or more
homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when the semantic structure of the word
breaks
into
several
parts.
This
type
of
formation
of
homonyms
is
called split polysemy (распад полисемии). The semantic structure of a polysemantic word presents a system
within which all its constituent meanings are held together by logical associations. In most cases, the function
of the arrangement and the unity is determined by one of the meanings (e.g. the meaning “flame” in the
noun fire). If this meaning happens to disappear from the word’s semantic structure, associations between the
rest of the meanings may be severed, the semantic structure loses its unity and falls into two or more parts
which then become accepted as independent lexical units.
Let us consider the history of three homonyms:
board, n – a long, thin piece of timber
board, n – daily meals provided for pay, e.g. room and board
board, n – an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity, e.g. a
board of directors.
5.
Polysemy.
It should be stressed, however, that split polysemy as a source of homonyms is not accepted by some
scholars. It is really difficult sometimes to decide whether a certain word has or has not been subjected to the
split of the semantic structure and whether we are dealing with different meanings of the same word or with
homonyms, for the criteria are subjective and imprecise. The imprecision is recodered in the data of different
dictionaries which often contradict each other on this very issue, so that board is represented as two
homonyms in Müller’s dictionary and as one and the same word in Hornby’s dictionary.
I. Find antonyms:
1. Flying instructors say that pilot trainees are divided into optimists and pessimists when reporting the amount
of fuel during flights. Optimists report that their fuel tank is half full while pessimists say its half empty. 2. The
canvas homes, the caravans, the transportable timber frames – each had its light. Some moving, some
still. 3. His words seemed to point out that sad, even, tragic things could never be gay. 4. It was warm in the
sun but cool under the shady trees. 5. He is my best friend and he is my bitter enemy. 6. Every man has
feminine qualities and every woman has masculine ones. 7. He hated to be exposed to strangers, to be accepted
or rejected.
II. Find antonyms for the following words:
deep, to reject, strong, to laugh, joy, evil, up, sad, to die, legal, courage, distinct
III. Find cases of homonymy in the text, define them as homographs, homophones or homonyms proper:
1. “Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. “It is a long tail, certainly,
said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?” 2. a) My seat was in
the middle of a row. b) “I say, you haven’t had a row with Corky, have you?” 3. a) Our Institute football team
got a challenge to a match from the University team and we accepted it. b) Somebody struck a match so that
we could see each other. 4. a) It was nearly December but the California sun made a summer morning of the
season. b) On the way home Crane no longer drove like a nervous old maid. 5. a) She loved to dance and had
every right to expect the boy she was seeing almost every night in the week to take her dancing at least once
on the weekend. b) “That’s right,” she said. 6. a) Do you always forget to wind up your watch? b) Crane
had an old Ford without a top and it rattled so much and the wind made so much noise. 7. a) Iron and
lead are base metals. b) Where does the road lead?
IV. Find homophones for the following words:
fare, flour, hair, lyre, pain, pear, plain, rite, soul, weak, sent, steel, sum, sight
V. Explain the difference in pronunciation and meaning of the homographs:
bow, bow; desert, desert; lead, lead; minute, minute; row, row: wind, wind; tear, tear.
Семинар 6 Polysemy
1. Polysemy. Causes of change of meaning.
The semantic structure of the word does not necessarily stand for one concept. It is known that most words
convey several concepts. A word having several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words to
have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy.
The complicated processes of polysemy development involve both the appearance of new meanings and
the loss of old ones. Yet, the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is to
increase the total number of its meanings and in this way to provide for a quantitative and qualitative growth
of the language’s expressive resources.
The semantic structure of a word should be investigated at both these levels: a) of different meanings, b)
of semantic components within each separate meaning. For a monosemantic word (i.e. a word with one
meaning) the first level is excluded.
Causes of development of new meanings
The systems of meanings of polysemantic words evolve gradually. The older a word is, the better developed
is its semantic structure. The normal pattern of a word’s semantic development is from monosemy to a simple
semantic structure encompassing only two or three meanings, with a further movement to an increasingly
more complex semantic structure.
There are two aspects to this problem, which can be described in the following way: a) Why should new
meanings appear at all? What circumstances cause and stimulate their development? b) How does it happen?
What is the nature of the process of development of new meanings?
The first group of causes is traditionally termed historical or extra-linguistic.
Different kinds of changes in a nation’s social life, in its culture, knowledge, technology, arts lead to gaps
appearing in the vocabulary. Newly created objects, new concepts and phenomena must be named. We know
of two ways for providing new words (word-building) and borrowing foreign ones. One more way of filling
such vocabulary gaps is by applying some old word to a new object or notion.
When the first textile factories appeared in England, the old word mill was applied to these early industrial
enterprises. In this way, mill (a Latin borrowing of the first century B.C.) added a new meaning to its former
meaning “a building in which corn is ground into flour”. The new meaning was “textile factory”.
New meanings can also be developed due to linguistic factors (the second group of causes).
The development of new meanings, and also a complete change of meaning, may be caused through the
influence of other words, mostly of synonyms.
In Old English the noun deer had a general meaning denoting any beast. In that meaning it collided with the
borrowed word animal and changed its meaning to the modern one (“a certain kind of beast”, R. олень).
2. Transfer of meaning based on similarity.
This type of transference is also referred to as linguistic metaphor. A new meaning appears as a result of
associating two objects (phenomena, qualities, etc.) due to their outward similarity. Box and stall are examples
of this type of transference.
Other examples can be given in which transference is also based on the association of two physical objects.
The noun eye, for instance, has for one of its meanings “hole in the end of a needle” (cf. with the
R. ушко иголки), which also developed through transference based on resemblance. A similar case is
represented by the neck of a bottle.
The noun star on the basis of the meaning “heavenly body” developed the meaning “famous actor or
actress”. Nowadays the meaning has considerably widened its range, and the word is applied not only to screen
idols, but, also, to popular sportsmen (e.g. football stars), pop-singers, etc.
The meanings formed through this type of transference are frequently found in the informal strata of the
vocabulary, especially in slang. A red-headed boy is almost certain to be nicknamed carrot or ginger
(рыжий) by his schoolmates, and the one who is given to spying and sneaking gets the derogatory nickname
of rat. Both these meanings are metaphorical, though, the children using them are quite unconscious of this
fact.
The slang meanings of words such as nut, onion (= head), saucers (= eyes) and very many others were all
formed by transference based on resemblance.
3. Transfer of meaning based on contiguity.
Another term for this type of transference is linguistic metonymy. The association is based upon subtle
psychological links between different objects and phenomena, sometimes traced and identified with much
difficulty. The two objects may be associated together because they often appear in common situations, and
so the image of one is easily accompanied by the image of the other; or they may be associated on the principle
of cause and effect, of common function, of some material and an object which is made of it, etc.
Let us consider some cases of transference based on contiguity of different kinds.
The foot of a bed is the place where the feet rest when one lies in the bed, but the foot of a mountain got its
name by another association: the foot of a mountain is its lowest part, so that the association here is founded
on common position.
The meaning of the noun hand realized in the context hand of a clock (watch) originates from the main
meaning of this noun “part of human body”. It is also developed due to the association of the common function:
the hand of a clock points to the figures of the face of the clock, and one of the function of human hand is also
that of pointing to things.
Meanings produced through transference based on contiguity sometimes originate from geographical or
proper names. China in the sense of “dishes made of porcelain” originated from the name of the country which
was believed to be the birthplace of porcelain.
The name of a painter is frequently transferred onto one of his pictures: a Matisse = a painting by Matisse.
4. Broadening of meaning.
Sometimes, the process of transference may result in a considerable change in range of meaning. For
instance, the verb to arrive (French borrowing) began its life in English in the narrow meaning “to come to
shore, to land”. In Modern English it has greatly widened its combinability and developed the general meaning
“to come (e.g. to arrive in a village, town, country, at a hotel, college, theatre, place, etc.). The meaning
developed through transference based on contiguity, but the range of the second meaning is much broader.
It is interesting to trace the history of the word girl as an example of the changes in the range of meaning in
the course of the semantic development of a word.
In Middle English it had the meaning of “a small child of either sex”. Then the word underwent the process
of transference based on contiguity and developed the meaning of “a small child of the female sex”, so that
the range of meaning was somewhat narrowed. In its further semantic development the word gradually
broadened its range of meaning. In modern colloquial English it is practically synonymous to the
noun woman (e.g. The old girl must be at least seventy), so that its range of meaning is quite broad.
Here are some examples of narrowing of meaning:
Deer: any beast > a certain kind of beast
Meat: any food > a certain food product
Boy: any young person of the male sex > servant of the male sex
It should be pointed out once more that in all these words the second meaning developed through
transference based on contiguity, and that when we speak of them as examples of narrowing of meaning we
simply imply that the range of the second meaning is more narrow than that of the original meaning.
5. Narrowing of meaning.
6. Degeneration and elevation of meaning.
“Degeneration” (“Degradation”) and “Elevation” of meaning
Let us see what stands behind the examples of change of meaning which illustrate degeneration and elevation
of meaning.
I. “Degeneration” of meaning.
Knave: boy >swindler, scoundrel
Gossip: god parent > the one who tells slanderous stories about other people
These examples show that the second meaning, in contrast with the one from which it developed, denotes a
person of bad repute or character. The second meaning developed a negative evaluative connotation which
was absent in the first meaning.
The same process can be observed in other parts of speech, and not only in nouns.
E.g. Silly: happy > foolish
II. “Elevation” of meaning.
Fond: foolish > loving, affectionate
Nice: foolish > fine, good
In these two cases the situation is reversed: the first meaning has a negative evaluative connotation, and the
second meaning has not.
I. Consider the change of meaning of the words:
deer, meat, to starve, hound, season, pipe, style, fowl, nice, sad, silly, lord, lady
II. Find examples of narrowing or broadening of the meaning:
1. While the others waited the elderly executive filled his pipe and lit it. 2. Finn was watching the
birds. 3. The two girls took hold of one another, one acting gentleman, the other lady; three or four more
pairs of girls immediately joined them and began a waltz. 4. He was informed that the president had not
arrived at the bank, but was on his way. 5. Smokey had followed a dictum all his life: If you want a woman
to stick beside you, pick an ugly one. Ugly ones stay to slice the meat and stir the gravy.
III. Explain the cases of the meaning transfer.
the wing of a bird – the wing of a building; the hand of a child – the hand of a clock; the bridge across the
river – the bridge of the nose; glass – a glass; the tooth of a boy – the tooth of a comb; green grass – green
years; copper (metal) – a copper (coin); Damascus –damask
IV. Explain the cases of the meaning transfer.
a) tongues of flame, a sour smile, to burn with a desire, the foot of a mountain, head of a cabbage, wandering
thoughts;
b) Morocco, hooligan, limerick, silhouette, mercury, colt, diesel, ampere, dunce, mackintosh, sandwich.
V. Below are listed the original meanings of some simple words in Old English. As you see these
meanings are different from those the words have now. Consult dictionaries and say what kind of
semantic change was involved in the development of these words.
Bird, N- OE brid - nestling, fledgling; camp, N. - OE camp = battle, struggle, contest; deal, V. - OE daelan =
share, distribute, take part; deer, N. -OE deor = animal, beast; dwell, V. - OE dwellan - lead astray, deceive,
make a mistake; fair, A. - OE fzer = beautiful, pretty, sweet; fear, N. - OE faer -sudden attack, danger; fowl,
N. - OE fuzol = bird; lord, N. - OE leaford -master; silly, A. - OE saliz = happy, blessed, holy.
Семинар 7 Modern English word-stock
Modern English vocabulary is very rich and extensive. Lexical units of of this enormous word-stock don't
exist independently. They should be viewed as a certain structured system. The term system as used in presentday lexicology denotes not merely the sum total of English words, it denotes a set of elements associated and
functioning together according to certain laws. The members of the system have some common features which
allow to classify them. Lexical units may be classified in different ways. In an adequate classification the
definition of various classes must be based on the same kind of criteria.
Features of English vocabulary
1. English words are mainly polysemantic, i.e. they have more than one possible meaning. The meaning of
most English words is a complex structure of meanings.
2. English has a lot of borrowed words (ca 80%) which were mainly adopted from different Indo-European
languages (most borrowed words came from Latin and French).
3. English is characterised by well-developed synonymy with many sources for synonyms.
4. English is characterised by well-developed homonymy (e.g. bare/bear, hair/hare etc.).
5. Most words in English are mono- and disyllabic.
6. English has a unique phenomenon: phrasal verbs, which consist of a verb and a preposition or adverb that
modifies or changes the meaning; e.g. ‘give up’ is a phrasal verb that means ‘stop doing’ something, which is
very different from ‘give’.
7. Many words have rather general meaning specified by context.
8. English has a special type of word-formation — conversion (zero-derivation).
The meaning relations that hold within the vocabulary of a language between words themselves are called
lexical or sense relations. Lexemes can be grouped together into lexical fields on the bases of shared meaning
and that most, if not all, the vocabulary of a language can be accounted for in this way. The description of
meaning, the definition of lexemes is then undertaken within each lexico-semantic field and involves defining
each lexeme in relation to the other lexemes in its field. Hence, we distinguish between synonymic, antonymic
andhyponymic fields.
The Etymological Structure of English Vocabulary
From the point view of their etymology all the words of the English language are subdivided into native
words (исконно английские) and loan words or borrowed (заимствованные).
Native words in English, their role and classification
Among native we can distinguish those of the Common Indo-European stock and those of the Common
Germanic origin.
Words having cognates in various Indo-European languages present the oldest layer. They were inherited from
the Indo-European parent languages (праязык).
Father (OE fæder, Gothic fadar, Icel. faDir, Swedish fader, Dutch wader, German Vater, Greek patér, Latin
páter, Persian pedær, Sanscrit pitr).
Son (OE sunu, Gothic sūnus, Russian сын, Ice. Sunr, Danish søn, Swedish son, German Sohn, Lithuanian
sūnus, Sanscript sunu).
Indo-European words fall into several semantic groups:
- Terms of kinship: Father, mother, daughter, sister, son.
- Names of natural phenomena: Fire, moon, hill, night, day, star, snow, sun, summer, stone, water, tree, wind,
wood.
- Names of animals and birds: Bull, crow, cat, fish, cow, mouse, goose, wolf.
- Basic verbs: Come, know, eat, sleep, sit, stand, bear.
- Basic physical properties and colours: Red, hard, light, quick, thin, white, slow, cold.
- Parts of human body: Heart, eye, foot, nose, mouth, ear, arm, knee, tongue.
- Numerals: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, hundred.
Words belonging to Germanic word-stock are more numerous. We can find among them:
- Nouns: Bone, chicken, cheek, cloth, hand, hope, life, meal, ship, sea, storm, winter, house, room, rain;
- Verbs: Drink, forget, hear, follow, live, make, send, sing, shake, burn, bake, keep, learn, meet, rise, see;
- Adjectives: Dead, dear, deep, heavy, sharp, soft, broad, deaf;
- Pronouns: All, each, he.
Hand (OE hand, hond, Gothic handus, Swedish hand, German Hand, Icelandic hond, Danish hånd).
To have (OE habban, Gothic haban, Icelandic hafa, Dutch hebben, Swedish hava, German haben).
Together with the words of the common IE stock common Germanic words form the bulk of the most frequent
elements used in every style of speech. They constitute no less than 80% of the 500 most frequent words in
English.
These words are mostly simple in their structure, show great word-building power and form a number of
phraseological units. They are known from the earliest available manuscripts of the OE period and have lived
a very long life in the language.
The importance of native words in the English vocabulary is often overlooked because of a multitude of
foreign words in Modern English.
But the examination of actual usage as opposed to the dictionary shows how important native words are. The
native words stock include auxiliary and modal verbs, most verbs of the strong conjugation, pronouns and
most numerals, prepositions, articles, conjunctions. Ordinary English and the vocabulary of colloquial speech
contain fewer foreign words, than, for example, the language of technical literature.
Native words in the English vocabulary are very often simple in their structure, but serve as a basis for wordformation.
Hand – handy, handle, handwork, handicraft, handful, handbook, handcuff, handbag.
They enter a number of set- expressions and proverbs:
Hand in hand, hands off, at hand, in hand, with a heavy hand, with a high hand.
The peculiar feature of native words in the language is their stability. They live for centuries. But in the course
of time a certain number of old English words have fallen out of the vocabulary.
The OE verb niman (брать) - German nehmen is replaced by the Scandinavian verb taka (Modern English
“take”).
The OE noun Beorg (гора) - German Berg is replaced by the French “mountain” (Latin “mouns”).]
The English language is unique in its etymology: it has always welcomed borrowings, and their source, their
scope and etymology depend on the specific conditions of the language’s development, such as the Roman
invasion, the introduction of Christianity, the Danish and Norman conquests, the British colonial expansion,
technical revolution, the Ist and IInd World Wars which caused numerous changes in its vocabulary.
It is necessary to distinguish between the “source of borrowing” and “origin of borrowing”, the language
from which, the word is taken and the language to which it may be traced. (tabula la table a table).
Translation and semantic loans (кальки) are words and word-combinations formed from the native elements
according to foreign patterns: Übermensch (superman), Heimweh (homesickness), Meisterstück
(masterpiece).
We cannot deny the mixed character of the English vocabulary and the great importance of borrowed elements
in the language’s development but we must not ignore its power to build new words and various semantic
changes.
1. 1. The earliest group of English borrowings
English vocabulary contains an immense number of words of foreign origin. Explanations for this should be
sought in the history of the language which is closely connected with the history of the nation speaking the
language.
The first century B.C. Most territory now known to us as Europe is occupied by the Roman Empire. Among
the inhabitants of the continent are Germanic tribes, “barbarians” as the arrogant Romans call them. Theirs is
really a rather primitive stage of development, especially if compared with the high civilization and refinement
of Rome.
It is from the Romans that they learn how to make butter and cheese and, as there are no words for these
foodstuffs in their tribal languages, they are to use the Latin words to name them. It is also to the Romans that
the Germanic tribes owe the knowledge of some fruits and vegetables, and the Latin names of these fruits and
vegetables enter their vocabularies: cherry, pear, plum, pea, beet, pepper. It is interesting to note that the
word plant is also a Latin borrowing of this period. (By a borrowing or loan-word we mean a word which
came into the vocabulary of one language from another and was assimilated by the new language).
All these Latin words were destined to become the earliest group of borrowings in the future English
language which was built on the basis of the Germanic tribal languages.
1. 2.
Celtic borrowings. The fifth century A.D.
Several of the Germanic tribes (the most numerous amongst them being the Angles, the Saxons and the
Jutes) migrated across the sea now known as the English Channel to the British Isles. There they were
confronted by the Celts, the original inhabitants of the Isles. The Celts desperately defended their lands against
the invaders.
Through their numerous contacts with the defeated Celts, the conquerors got to know and assimilated a
number of Celtic words (Modern English bald, down, glen (лощина), druid (кельтский жрец), bard,
cradle(колыбель). Especially numerous among the Celtic borrowings were place names, names of rivers,
hills, etc. Ironically, even the name of the English capital originates from Celtic.
3. The period of Cristianization. The seventh century A.D.
This century was significant for the hristianization of England. Latin was the official language of the
Christian church, and consequently the spread of Christianity was accomplished by a new period of Latin
borrowings. These no longer came from spoken Latin as they did eight centuries earlier, but from church
Latin. Also, these new Latin borrowings were very different in meaning from the earlier ones. They mostly
indicated persons, objects and ideas associated with church and religious rituals. E.g. priest (священник),
bishop (епископ), monk (монах), nun (монахиня), candle (свеча).
Additionally, there were educational terms. It was quite natural that these were also Latin borrowings, for
the first schools in England were church schools, and the first teachers – priests and monks. The very
word school is a Latin borrowing.
4. The characteristic features of Scandinavian borrowings.
From the end of the 8th c. to the middle of the 11th c. England underwent several Scandinavian invasions
which left their trace on English vocabulary. Here are some examples of early Scandinavian borrowings: call
v, take v, die v, law n, husband, window, ill.
Some of the words of this group are easily recognizable as Scandinavian borrowings by the
initial sk- combination. E.g. sky, skill, skin, ski, skirt.
5. Norman French borrowings (1066).
With the famous Battle of Hastings, when the English were defeated by the Normans under William the
Conqueror, we come to the eventful epoch of the Norman Conquest. The epoch can be called eventful not
only in national, social, political and human terms, but also in linguistic terms. England became a bi-lingual
country, and the impact on the English vocabulary made over this two-hundred-years period is immense.
French words from the Norman dialect penetrated every aspect of social life. Here is a brief list of examples
of Norman French borrowings.
Administrative words: state, government, parliament.
Legal terms: court, judge, justice, crime, prison.
Military terms: army, war, soldier, officer, enemy.
Educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil.
Numerous terms of everyday life were also borrowed from French in this period: e.g. table, plate, saucer,
dinner, supper, autumn, uncle, etc.
6. The Renaissance Period.
In England, as in all European countries, this period was marked by significant developments in science, art
and culture and, also, by a revival of interest in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome and their
languages. Hence, there ntellig a considerable number of Latin and Greek borrowings. They were mostly
abstract words (e.g. major, minor, filial (дочерний, сыновний), moderate (умеренный), ntelligent,
permanent, to create). There were numerous scientific and artistic terms (datum, status, phenomenon,
philosophy, music). Phenomenon, philosophy, method, music, etc. were borrowed into English from Latin and
had earlier come into Latin from Greek. Greek Renaissance borrowings are, e.g. atom, cycle, ethics.
The Renaissance was a period of extensive cultural contacts between the major European states. Therefore,
it was only natural that new words also entered the English vocabulary from other European languages. The
most significant once more were French borrowings. This time they came from the Parisian dialect of French
and are known as Parisian borrowings. Examples : regime, routine, police, machine, ballet, matinée
(дневное представление), scene, technique, bourgeois, etc.
Italian also contributed a considerable number of words to English, e.g. piano, violin, opera, alarm.
It is necessary to distinguish between the “source of borrowing” and “origin of borrowing”, the language from
which, the word is taken and the language to which it may be traced. (tabula la table a table).
I. Celtic (5th – 6th c. A.D.)
II. Latin
1st group: 1st c. B.C.
2nd group: 7th c. A.D.
3rd group: the Renaissance period
III. Scandinavian (8th – 11th c.A.D.): sister,
husband; happy, low; take, die
IV. French
Norman borrowings: 11th – 13th c. A.D.
Parisian borrowings (Renaissance)
V. Greek (Renaissance)
VI. Italian (Renaissance and later)
VII. Spanish (Renaissance and later)
VIII. German
IX. Indian
X. Russian: steppe (степь), rouble
And some other groups
1. Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. As the result, we have two different words
with different spellings and meanings but historically they come back to one and the same word. Such
words are called etymological doublets. In other words, two or more words in the same language are
called doublets or etymological twins(or possibly triplets, etc.) when they have the same etymological
root but have entered the language through different ways. They differ to a certain degree in form,
meaning and current usage.
Etymological twins are usually a result of chronologically separate borrowing from a source language. In
the case of English, this usually means once from French during the Norman invasion, and again later,
after the word had evolved
According to the degree of Assimilation, borrowings are subdivided into:
1. completely/fully assimilated words. They correspond to all phonetic, morphological
and semantic laws of English and do not felt as borrowings. They are found in all the
layers of older borrowings (Latin, Scandinavian, French). Many of them belong to the
native word stock of English (cheese, street – Latin; husband, to die, to take –
Scandinavian; table – French).
2. partially assimilated borrowed words. They’ve retained:
1). foreign pronunciation (vase, restaurant)
2). foreign morphological characteristics (datum – data)
3). they are not assimilated semantically denoting notion of foreign cultures, nature,
customs (steppe, taiga, sombrero). These are foreign realies which have no
corresponding equivalents in English.
3. barbarisms (unassimilated borrowed words). These are foreign words used by
English people in oral speech or in writing but not assimilated in any way. They usually
have corresponding English equivalents, e.g. “Chiao” (Italian)
Лекция 8 Function of styles / Stylistic stratification of the English vocabulary
Functional styles
The social context in which the communication is taking place determines the modes of speech. When placed
in different situations, people instinctively choose different kinds of words and structures to express their
thoughts. It always depends on situation. The suitability or unsuitability of a word for each particular situation
depends on its stylistic characteristics or, in other words, on the functional style it represents. Professor I.V.
Arnold (Russian pr.) defines it as “a system of expressive means peculiar to a specific sphere of
communication” (специфичная лексика для спец.сферы общения).
By the sphere of communication we mean the circumstances attending the process of speech in each
particular case: professional communication, a lecture, an informal talk, a formal letter, an intimate letter, a
speech in court, etc.
All these circumstances or situations can be classified into two types: formal - parent (a lecture, a speech
in court, an official letter, professional communication) and informal – dad (an informal talk, an intimate
letter).
Accordingly, functional styles are classified into two groups, with further subdivisions depending on
different situations.
Neutral vocabulary – не имеет отношения ни к какому стилю – father
The greater part of the literаrу layer of Modern English vocabulary are words of general use, possessing no
specific stylistic reference and known as neutral words. Against the background of neutral words we can
distinguish two major subgroups — standard colloquial words and literary or bookish words. This may be best
illustrated by comparing words almost identical in their denotational meaning, e. g., ‘parent — father —
dad’. In comparison with the word father which is stylistically neutral, dad stands out as colloquial
and parent is felt as bookish. The stylistic reference of standard colloquial words is clearly observed when
we compare them with their neutral synonyms, e.g. chum — friend, rot — nonsense, etc. This is also true of
literary or bookish words, such as, e.g., to presume (cf. to suppose), to anticipate (cf. to expect) and others.
Literary (bookish) words are not stylistically homogeneous. Verbs: to begin (neu) – to start (inf) – to
commence (form)
Informal style
Informal vocabulary is used in one’s immediate circle: family, relatives, or friends. One uses informal words
when at home or feeling at home (feel very close to people).
Informal style is relaxed, free-and-easy and familiar. But it should be pointed out that the informal talk of
well-educated people considerably differs from that of the illiterate or the semi-educated; the choice of words
with adults is different from the vocabulary of teenagers; people living in the provinces use certain regional
words and expressions. Consequently, the choice of words is determined in each particular case not only by
an informal (or formal) situation, but also by the speaker’s educational and cultural background, age group,
and his occupational and regional characteristics.
Informal words and word-groups are divided into three types: colloquial, slang and dialect words and
word-groups.
Colloquial words
Among other informal words, colloquialisms are used by everybody, and their sphere of communication is
comparatively wide, at least of literary colloquial words (to snake-перекусить). These are informal words
that are used in everyday conversational speech both by cultivated and uneducated people of all age groups.
The sphere of communication of literary colloquial words also include the printed page.
Vast use of informal words is one of the prominent features of 20th century English and American literature.
It is quite natural that informal words appear in dialogues in which they realistically reflect the speech of
modern people.
However, in modern fiction informal words are not restricted to conversation in their use, but frequently
appear in descriptive passages as well. In this way the narrative is endowed with conversational features. The
author creates an intimate, warm, informal atmosphere.
Here are some more examples of literary colloquial words. Pal (кореш, друг) and chum (приятель,
дружок) are colloquial equivalents of friend; girl, when used colloquially, denotes a woman of any
age; bite and snack (quick meal – перекусить) stand for meal; hi, hello are informal greetings, and so long a
form of parting; start, go on, finish and be through (покончить) are also literary colloquialisms.
A considerable number of shortenings are found among words of this type. E.g. pram, exam, fridge, flu, zip,
movie.
Verbs with post-positional adverbs are also numerous among colloquialisms: put up, put over, make up,
make out, turn up, etc.
Literary colloquial words (fridge, hello, exam) are to be distinguished from familiar colloquial (shut up,
what’s up – не сильно грубая лексика) and low colloquial (rude words, просторечия и неграмотные
слова).
The borderline between the literary and familiar colloquial is not always clearly marked. Yet the circle of
speakers using familiar colloquial is more limited: these words are used mostly by the young and the semieducated. This vocabulary group closely verges on slang and has something of its coarse flavour.
E.g. doc (for doctor), ta-ta (for good-bye), to kid smb.(for tease, banter – подшутить), to pick up
smb. (for make a qick and easy acquaintance), shut up (for keep silent).
Low colloquial (просторечие) is defined as uses characteristic of the speech of persons who may be
broadly described as uncultivated. This group is stocked with words of illiterate (неграмотный) English
which do not present much interest for our purposes (неправильные, ошибочные формы).
The problem of functional styles is not one of purely theoretical interest, but represents a particularly
important aspect of the language-learning process. Students often misunderstand the term “colloquial” and
use it for “conversational”. The marker “colloquial” is a sign of restricted usage – not in formal
circumstances or in reports. But literary colloquial words should be included in functional vocabulary,
presented and drilled in suitable contexts and situations, mainly in dialogues. It is important to associate these
words with informal, relaxed situations.
a. Literary colloquiallisms are used in everyday conversational speech both by cultivated and uneducated
people: kid (for “child”), pal, chum (for “friend”), hi, hello, zip (for “zip fastener”), exam, fridge, flu.
b. Familiar colloquial words are used mostly by the young and the semi-educated: doc (doctor), ta-ta (goodbye), shut up, beat it (go away).
c. The low colloquial group is formed by obscene, vulgar, swear words used mostly in the speech of
uncultivated people.
Colloquial words should not be used under formal circamstances, in compositions and reports.
Slang
The Oxford English Dictionary defines slang as “language of a highly colloquial style, considered as below
the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in
some special sense.” These words are very methathorically.
All or most slang words are current words whose meanings have been metaphorically shifted. Each slang
metaphor is rooted in a joke, but not in a kind or amusing joke. This is the criterion for distinguishing slang
from colloquialisms: most slang words are metaphors and jocular, often with a coarse, mocking, cynical
colouring.
Then why do people use slang?
For a number of reasons. To be picturesque, arresting, striking and, above all, different from others. To
demonstrate one’s spiritual independence and daring. To sound “modern” and “up-to-date”.
It doesn’t mean that all these aims are achieved by using slang. But these are the main reasons for using it.
The circle of users of slang is more narrow than that of colloquialisms. It is mainly used by the young and
uneducated.
All or most slang words are metaphores
“faces”), flippers (ласты) (for “hands”), etc.
rooted
in
a
joke: nuts (for
“heads”), mugs (for
Slang is mainly used by the young and uneducated and helps the speakers dissosiate themselves from others.
In the course of time slang words either disappear or become neutral lexical units (slang is colourful,
humourous and catching and may be accepted by all the groups of speakers).
Dialect words
Dialect is a variety of a language which prevails in a district, with local peculiarities of vocabulary,
pronunciation and phrase. England is a small country, yet it has many dialects which have their own distinctive
features (e.g. the Lancashire, Dorsetshire, Norfolk dialects).
So dialects are regional forms of English. Standard English is defined as the language as it is written and
spoken by literate people in both formal and informal usage and that is universally current while incorporating
regional differences.
Dialectal peculiarities, especially those of vocabulary, are constantly being incorporated into everyday
colloquial speech or slang. From these levels they can be transferred into the common stock, i.e. words which
are not stylistically marked and a few of them even into formal speech and into the literary language. Car,
trolley, tram began as dialect words. Some examples of dialects: tha (thee) – the objective case of thou; brass
– money; nivver – never; nowt – nothing.
Dialectal words can be transferred into the common stock (or the basic vocabulary): many frequent words of
common use are dialectal in origin, such as girl, one, raid, glamour, car, tram, gloomy.
In works of fiction dialect words are used to render the speech of the characters, to create a realistic effect.
Formal style
Learned words
Formal style is restricted to formal situations. In general, formal words fall into two main groups: words
associated with professional communication and a less exclusive group of so-called learned words.
These words are mainly associated with the printed page. It is in this vocabulary stratum that poetry and
fiction find their main resources.
1. We find here numerous words that are used in scientific prose and can be identified by their dry, matterof-fact flavour (e.g. comprise, experimental, heterogeneous, homogeneous, conclusive, divergent, etc).
To this group also belongs so-called ‘officialese’ (канцеляризмы). These are the words of the official,
bureaucratic
language.
They
should
be
avoided
in
speech
and
in
print,
e.g. assist (for help), endeavour (for try), proceed (for go), approximately (for about), sufficient (for enough)
, inquire (for ask).
2. Refined words. Probably the most interesting subdivision of learned words is represented by the words
found in descriptive passages of fiction.
These words, which may be called ‘literary’, also have a particular flavour of their own, usually described as
‘refined’. They are mostly polysyllabic words drawn from the Romance language and, though fully adapted
to the English phonetic system, some of them continue to sound singularly foreign. Here are some
examples: solitude=loneless, lonely place (уединение, одиночество), sentiment=feeling (чувство),
fascination=strong attraction (очарование, обаяние), delusion (заблуждение), meditation (размышление),
cordial=friendly (сердечный, радушный).
3.
There is one further subdivision of learned words: modes of poetic diction.
These stand close to the previous group many words from which, in fact, belong to both these categories.
Yet, poetic words have a further characteristic – a lofty, sometimes archaic, colouring: “Alas! (увы) they had
been friends in youth;
But wispering tongues can poison truth
And constancy (постоянство) lives in realms (царства) above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain…
Though learned words are mainly associated with the printed page, this is not exclusively so. Any educated
English-speaking individual is sure to use many learned words not only in his formal letters and professional
communication but also in his everyday speech. Educated people in both modern fiction and real life use
learned words quite naturally and their speech is richer for it.
On the other hand, excessive use of learned words in conversational speech presents grave hazards.
Utterances overloaded with such words have pretensions of ‘refinement’ and ‘elegance’ but achieve the exact
opposite verging on the absurd and ridiculous.
Writers use this phenomenon for stylistic purposes. When a character in a book or in a play uses too many
learned words, the obvious inappropriateness of his speech in an informal situation produces a comic effect.
However any suggestion that learned words are suitable only for comic purposes, would be quite wrong. It
is in this vocabulary stratum that writers and poets find their most vivid paints and colours, and not only their
humorous effects. Without knowing some learned words, it is even impossible to read fiction (not to mention
scientific articles) or to listen to lectures in the foreign language.
It is also true that some of these words should be carefully selected and “activized” to become part of the
students’ functional vocabulary.
Archaic and obsolete words
Archaic – are old and no longer used words; obsolete – no longer used because something new was
invented. Obsolete words have completely gone out of use (вышел из употребления сам предмет, например
«брошки»).
Archaic and obsolete words stand close to the “learned” words, particularly to the modes of poetic diction.
Learned words and archaisms are both associated with the printed page. Yet, many learned words may also
be used in conversational situations. This cannot happen with archaisms, which are restricted to the printed
page. These words are moribund, already partly or fully out of circulation. Their last refuge is in historical
novels and in poetry which is rather conservative in its choice of words.
Thou [θаu] – (ты) and thy [ðai] – (твой), aye [ai] – (‘yes’) and nay [nei] – (‘no’) are certainly archaic and long since
rejected by common usage, yet poets use them even today.
Numerous archaisms can be found in Shakespeare, but it should be taken in consideration that what appear
to us today as archaisms in the works of Shakespeare, are in fact examples of everyday language of
Shakespeare`s time.
Further
examples
of
are: morn (for morning), eve (for evening), errant (for wandering, e.g. errant knights), etc.
archaisms
Sometimes an archaic word may undergo a sudden revival. So, the formerly archaic kin (for relatives; one`s
family) is now current in American usage.
Professional terminology
Hundreds of thousands of words belong to special scientific, professional or trade terminological systems
and are not used or even understood by people outside the particular speciality. Every field of modern activity
has its specialized vocabulary, and similarly special terminologies for psychology, music, management,
finance, economics, jurisprudence, linguistics and many others.
Term, as traditionally understood, is a word or a word-group which is specifically employed by a particular
branch of science, technology, trade or the arts to convey a concept peculiar to his particular activity.
So, share, bank, balance sheet are finance terms; court, lawyer, civil law are legal terms; and top manager,
creative team, motivation are used in management.
There are several controversial problems in the field of terminology. The first is the question whether a term
loses its terminological status when it comes into common usage. Today this is a frequent occurrence, as
various elements of the media of communication (TV, radio, magazines, etc.) ply people with scraps of
knowledge from different scientific fields, technology and the arts. It is quite natural that under circumstances
numerous terms pass into general usage without losing connection with their specific fields.
There are linguists in whose opinion terms are only those words which have retained their exclusiveness and
are not known or recognized outside their specific sphere. From this point of view, words associated with the
medical sphere, such as unit (доза лекарственного препарата), theatre (операционная), contact
(носитель инфекции) are no longer medical terms as they are in more or less common usage.
There is yet another point of view, acording to which any terminological system is supposed to include all
the words and word-groups conveying concept peculiar to a particular branch of knowledge, regardless of
their exclusiveness. Modern research of various terminological systems has shown that there is no
impenetrable wall between terminology and the general language system. To the contrary, terminologies seem
to obey the same rules as other vocabulary strata. Therefore, exchange between terminological systems and
the “common” vocabulary is quite normal, and it would be wrong to regard a term as something “special” and
standing apart.
Two other controversial problems deal with polysemy and synonymy. According to some linguists, an
“ideal” term should be monosemantic (i.e. it should have only one meaning). Polysemantic terms may lead
to misunderstanding, and that is a serious shortcoming in professional communication. This requirement
seems quite reasonable, yet facts of the language do not meet it. There are numerous polysemantic terms. In
the terminology of painting, the term colour may denote hue (цвет) and, at the same time, stuff used for
colouring (краска).
The same is true about synonymy in terminological systems. There are scholars who insist that terms should
not have synonyms because, consequently, scientists and other specialists would name the same objects and
phenomena in their field by different terms and would not be able to come to any agreement. This may be
true. But, in fact, terms do possess synonyms.
Basic vocabulary
These words are stylistically neutral, and, in this respect, opposed to formal and informal words. Their
stylistic neutrality makes it possible to use them in all kinds of situations, both formal and informal, in verbal
and written communication. Certain of the stylistically marked vocabulary strata are exclusive: professional
terminology is used mostly by representatives of the professions; dialects are regional; slang is favoured
mostly by the young and the uneducated. Not so basic vocabulary. These words are used every day,
everywhere and by everybody, regardless of profession, occupation, educational level, age group or
geographical location. These are words without which no human communication would be possible as they
denote objects and phenomena of everyday importance (e.g. house, bread, summer, child, mother, difficult, to
go, etc.).
The basic vocabulary is the central group of the vocabulary, its historical foundation and living core. That
is why words of this stratum show a considerably greater stability in comparison with words of the other strata,
especially informal.
Basic vocabulary words can be recognized not only by their stylistic neutrality but, also, by lack of other
connotations (i.e. attendant meanings). Their meanings are broad, general and directly convey the concept,
without supplying any additional information.
For instance, the verb to walk means merely ‘to move from place to place on foot’ whereas in the meanings
of its synonyms to stride (шагать), to stroll (прогуливаться), to trot (семенить, бежать вприпрыжку),
to stagger – to sway while walking (идти шатаясь) and others, some additional information is encoded as
they each describe a different manner of walking, a different gait, tempo, purpose or lack of purpose. Thus, to
walk, with its direct broad meaning, is a typical basic vocabulary word, and its synonyms, with their additional
information encoded in their meanings, belong to the periphery of the vocabulary.
The basic vocabulary and the stylistically marked strata of the vocabulary do not exist independently but are
closely interrelated. Most stylistically marked words have their neutral counterparts in the basic vocabulary.
The table gives some examples of such synonyms belonging to different stylistic strata.
The basic vocabulary words comprise the first and essential part of the students’ functional and recognition
vocabulary. They constitute the beginner’s vocabulary. Yet, to restrict to the basic vocabulary would mean to
deprive the speech of colour, expressive force and emotive shades, for, if basic words are absolutely necessary,
they also decidedly lack something: they are not at all the kind of words to tempt a writer or a poet. Actually,
if the language had none other but basic vocabulary words, fiction would be hardly readable, and poetry simply
non-existent.
The basic vocabulary and the stylistically marked (formal and informal) vocabulary are interrelated: many
basic words have formal and informal counterparts. For example, the neutral words child, baby correspond to
the informal words kid, brat and to the formal words infant, babe; the verb kill has a poetic synonym slay and
numerous equivalents in slang: waste, get, fix.
The following table sums up the description of the stylistic strata of the English vocabulary:
Stylistic reference and emotive charge of words are closely connected and to a certain degree
interdependent.1 As a rule stylistically coloured words, i.e. words belonging to all stylistic layers except the
neutral style are observed to possess a considerable emotive charge. That can be proved by comparing
stylistically labelled words with their neutral synonyms. The colloquial words daddy, mammy are more
emotional than the neutral father, mother; the slang words mum, bob are undoubtedly more expressive than
their neutral counterparts silent, shilling, the poetic yon and steed carry a noticeably heavier emotive charge
than their neutral synonyms there and horse. Words of neutral style, however, may also differ in the degree
of emotive charge. We see, e.g., that the words large, big, tremendous, though equally neutral as to their
stylistic reference are not identical as far as their emotive charge is concerned.
Phraseology
Phraseology as an expressive resource of vocabulary
Phraseological units represent what can probably be described as the most picturesque,
colourful and expressive part of the language’s vocabulary. The term “idiom” widely used by
western scholars has comparatively recently found its way into Russian phraseology.
There are some other terms denoting more or less the same linguistic phenomenon: setexpressions, set-phrases, collocations.
Word-groups known as phraseological units or idioms are characterized by a double sense: the
current meanings of constituent words build up a certain picture, but the actual meaning of the
whole unit has little or nothing to do with that picture, in itself creating an entirely new image.
So, a dark horse is actually not a horse but a person about whom no one knows anything
definite, and so one is not sure what can be expected from him. The imagery of a bull in a china
shop lies very much on the surface: the idiom describes a clumsy person (Russian
– слон в посудной лавке). A white elephant (обуза), however, is not even a person but a valuable
object which involves great expense or trouble for its owner and which is difficult to dispose
of. To let the cat out of the bag has actually nothing to do with cats, but means simply “to let some
secret become known” (проболтаться)
The ambiguousness of these interesting word-groups may lead to an amusing misunderstanding.
Puns are frequently based on the ambiguousness of idioms.
So, together with synonymy and antonymy, phraseology represents expressive resources of
vocabulary.
Phraseology is a branch of lexicology studying phraseological units (set expressions,
praseologisms, or idioms (in foreign linguistics). Phraseological units differ from free wordgroups semantically and structurally:
1) they convey a single concept and their meaning is idiomatic, i.e. it is not a mere total of the
meanings of their components
2) they are characterized by structural invariability (no word can be substituted for any component
of a phraseological unit without destroying its sense (to have a bee in one’s
bonnet (not cap or hat).
3) they are not created in speech but used as ready-made units.
Unlike a word, a phraseological unit can be divided into separately structured elements and
transformed syntactically (On the instant he was thinking how natural and unaffected her manner
was now that the ice between them had been broken. (Th. Dreiser, ‘An American Tragedy’). I...
found this man in a kind of seizure, and went for help. This broke the ice between us, and we grew
quite chatty, without either of us knowing the other's name. (H. Pollitt, ‘Serving My Time’).
Phraseological units are classified in accordance with several criteria.
In the classification proposed by acad. Vinogradov phraseological units are classified according
to the semantic principle, and namely to the degree of motivation of meaning, i.e. the relationship
between the meaning of the whole unit and the meaning of its components. Three groups are
distinguished: phraseological fusions (сращения), phraseological unities (единства),
phraseological combinations (сочетания).
1. Phraseological fusions are non-motivated. The meaning of the whole is not deduced from the
meanings of the components: to kiss the hare’s foot (опаздывать), to kick the bucket (сыграть в
ящик), the king’s picture (фальшивая монета)
2. Phraseological unities are motivated through the image expressed in the whole construction,
the metaphores on which they are based are transparent: to turn over a new leaf, to dance on a
tight rope.
3. Phraseological combinations are motivated; one of their components is used in its direct
meaning while the other can be used figuratively: bosom friend, to get in touch with.
Prof. Smirnitsky classifies phraseological units according to the functional principle. Two
groups are distinguished: phraseological units and idioms.
Phraseological units are neutral, non-metaphorical when compared to idioms: get up, fall asleep,
to take to drinking. Idioms are metaphoric, stylistically coloured: to take the bull by the horns, to
beat about the bush, to bark up the wrong tree.
Structurally prof. Smirnitsky distinguishes one-summit (one-member) and many-summit (twomember, three-member, etc.) phraseological units, depending on the number of notional
words: against the grain (не по душе), to carry the day (выйти победителем), to have all one’s
eggs in one basket.
Prof. Koonin’s classification is based on the function of the phraseological unit in
communication. Phraseological units are classified into: nominative, nominative-communicative,
interjectional, communicative.
1. Nominative phraseological units are units denoting objects, phenomena, actions, states,
qualities. They can be:
a) substantive – a snake in the grass (змея подколодная), a bitter pill to swallow;
b) adjectival – long in the tooth (старый);
c) adverbial – out of a blue sky, as quick as a flash;
d) prepositional – with an eye to (с намерением), at the head of.
2. Nominative-communicative units contain a verb: to dance on a volcano, to set the Thames on
fire (сделать что-то необычное), to know which side one's bread is buttered, to make (someone)
turn (over) in his grave, to put the hat on smb’s misery (в довершение всех его бед).
3. Interjectional phraseological units express the speaker’s emotions and attitude to things: A
pretty kettle of fish! (хорошенькое дельце), Good God! God damn it! Like hell!
4. Communicative phraseological units are represented by provebs (An hour in the morning is
worth two in the evening; Never say “never”) and sayings. Sayings, unlike provebs, are not
evaluative and didactic: That’s another pair of shoes! It’s a small world.
Some linguists (N.N. Amosova, J. Casares) don’t include proverbs and sayings into their
classifications. Others (I.V. Arnold, A.V. Koonin, V.V. Vinogradov) do, on the grounds that 1)
like in phraseological units their components are never changed 2) phraseological units are often
formed on the basis of proverbs and sayings (A drowning man will clutch at a straw → to clutch
at a straw).
In dictionaries of idioms the traditional and oldest principle for classifying phraseological units –
the thematic principle – is used.
The etymological classification of phraseological units
According to their origin phraseological units are divided into native and borrowed.
Native phraseological units are connected with British realia, traditions, history:
By bell book and candle (jocular) – бесповоротно. This unit originates from the text of the form
of excommunication (отлучение от церкви) which ends with the following words: Doe to the
book, quench the candle, ring the book!
To carry coal to Newcastle (parallells: Ехать в Тулу со своим самоваром, везти сов в Афины,
везти пряности в Иран)
According to Cocker – по всем правилам, точно. E. Cocker is the author of a well-known book
on arithmetics.
To native phraseological units also belong familiar quotations came from works of English
literature. A lot of them were borrowed from works by Shakespeare: a fool’s paradise (“Romeo
and Juliet”), the green-eyed monster (“Othello”), murder will out – шила в мешке не утаишь
(“Macbeth”), etc.
A great number of native phraseological units originate from professional terminologies or
jargons: one’s last card, the game is up/over lay one's cards on the table hold all the aces (terms
of gambling).
Borrowed phraseological units come from several sources.
A number of units were borrowed from the Bible and were fully assimilated: to cast pearl before
swine, the root of all evil, a woolf in sheep’s clothing, to beat swords into plough-shares.
A great amount of units were taken from ancient mythology and literature: the apple of discord,
the golden age, the thread of Ariadne, at the greek calends ( до греческих календ, никогда), etc,
They are international in their character.
A lot of phraseologisms were borrowed from different languages – let’s return to our
muttons (revenons à nos moutons), blood and iron (принцип политики Бисмарка – Blut und
Eisen), blue blood, to lose face (кит. tiu lien) and from the other variants of the English language
(AmE) – a green light, bark up the wrong tree, to look like a million dollars, time is money (B.
Franklin “Advice to a Young Tradesman”).
Proverbs
Proverbs are different from those phraseological units which have been discussed above. The
first distinctive feature that strikes one is the structural dissimilarity. Phraseological units are a
kind of ready-made blocks which fit into the structure of a sentence performing a certain
syntactical function, more or less as words do.
Proverbs, if viewed in their structural aspect, are sentences, and so cannot be used in the way in
which phraseological units are used.
If one compares proverbs and phraseological units in the semantic aspect, the difference seems
to become more obvious. Proverbs could be best compared with minute fables for, like the latter,
they sum up the collective experience of the community. They moralize (Hell is paved with good
intentions – Благими намерениями вымощен ад), give advice (Don’t judge a tree by its bark
– Не по словам судят, а по делам), admonish (Liars
– Лжецам нужна хорошая память).
should
have
good
memories
No phraseological unit ever does any of these things. They do not stand for whole statements as
proverbs do but for a single concept. Their function in speech is purely nominative (i.e. they
denote an object, an act, etc.). The function of proverbs in speech is communicative (i.e. they
impart certain information).
The question of whether or not proverbs should be regarded as a subtype of phraseological units
and studied together with the phraseology of a language is a controversial one.
A.V. Koonin includes proverbs in his classification of phraseological units and labels
them communicative phraseological units. From his point of view, one of the main criteria of a
phraseological unit is its stability.
It may be added, as one more argument in support of this concept, that there does not exist any
rigid or permanent border-line between proverbs and phraseological units as the latter rather
frequently originate from the former.
So,
the
phraseological
unit birds
of
a
feather
(птицы одного полёта, два сапога пара) originated from the proverb Birds of a feather flock
together (Рыбак рыбака видит издалека). What is more, some of the proverbs are easily
transformed into phraseological units, e.g. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
(Не складывай все яйца в одну корзину) > to put all one’s eggs in one basket
(рисковать, поставить всё на карту); don’t cast pearls before swine > to cast pearls before
swine (метать бисер перед свиньями).