Practical assignment
1. Arrange the word-groups according to the degree of their motivation, starting with
the highest.
a. gay bird, beautiful bird, blackbird;
b. cold wind, cold feet, cold war, cold hands;
c. light hand, light burden, light supper, light artillery;
d. blue funk (страх) , blue skirtб blue stocking, blue fox;
e. big cheese, delicious cheese, white cheese, swiss cheese;
f. wicked tongue, smoked tongue, coated tongue;
g. big boy, big house, big money, big talk;
h. angry tone, high tone, mental tone.
2. Find the phonetically motivated words in the following sentences. Identify the source
of the sound and point out the meaning of the phonetically motivated word in each
case;
1. For a moment Penelope felt a strong desire to giggle (L.Kennedy). 2. A university
tramcar rumbled past (I.Levin). 3. There was a crash of falling glass (A. Christie). 4.
Crickets chirping all night and crows all day – how was a person supposed to get any
sleep? (J. Smith). 5. The bacon sizzled in the frying pan (Lingvo). 6. And still the
computer clicked busily and its lights flashed. (I. Asimov). 7. I could hear the shouts
of children at play and the clip-clop of a trotting horse (A. Marchall).
3. What are the following sound clusters associated with?
1. Gr- at the beginning of words (groan, growl, grumble) may suggest:
a) something pleasant and soft;
b) something unpleasant and miserable.
2. Gl- at the beginning of words (gleam, glimmer, glossy, glow) may suggest:
a) an association with light and brightness;
b) an association with darkness.
4. Comment on the so-called folk etymology. Analyze the structure and origin of the
following words:
Sand-blind, shamefaced, sparrow-grass, slow-worm, prim-rose, rosemary, walnut, crayfish,
pantry, buttery, reindeer, periwig, Mayday.