Criteria of distinguishing between compounds and free-word combinations

Compounds are inseparable lexical units that are presented in dictionaries in special entries and sub-entries. Compounds are reproduced and used in speech as lexical units, they are not formed in speech like free-word combinations. They are only pronounced as lexical units (a red rose, a ‘redskin).

Inseparability of compounds has

graphical (one word or a hyphen) Graphically most compounds have 2 spellings. They are spelled either solidly or with “-“hyphen. Both types of spelling serve as an indication of inseparability of compound words in contradiction to phrases.

phonetic (stress) The compound word receives a non-stress pattern different from the stress in the motivating words. Compounds have three stress patterns: 1) high or unity stress on the first component. E.g. honeymoon. 2) double-stress with primarily stress on the first component and secondary stress on the second camp. E.g. washing machine. 3) Level stress: arm-chair.

morphological (only 2 base shows grammatical category) blackbird – a black bird blackbird s – the black est birds I’ve ever seen; a black night bird

semantic (grammatical forms differ from the forms of the motivating words (richer – more oil-richer) criteria.

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Shortening is a means of word formation which consists in significance attraction in which part of the original word or word group is taken away. As a result a new form receives some linguistic value on its own. The part retained does not change phonetically but changes in spelling. Dub – double, mike – microphone, trank – tranquilizer.

Shortening may take any part of a word, usually a single syllable or throw away the rest. It is sometimes called clipping. The process often applies not just an existing word but to a whole phrase, e.g. zoo is a shortening of zoological garden.

The change is not only quantitative, but a shortened word is always in some way different from its prototype in meaning and usage. It can be regarded as a type of root creation, because the resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combined with bound forms. They can take functional suffixes bike and bikes. Lots of shortenings by conversion produce other words. E.g. to phone, to vet.

They also serve as a basis for the further word formation by derivation of compounding: e.g fancy n. (from fantasy) fancy v. fanciful adj, fancy-dress n.

The correlation of a shortened word with its prototype is a great interest. Two possible developments should be pointed out:

1) the shortened form may be regarded as a variant or a synonym differing from the full form quantitatively, stylistically and sometimes emotionally. The prototype is usually stylistically and emotionally neutral: doc – doctor; Becky – Rebecca; Japs – the Japanese.

The missing part can at all times be supplied by the listener, so that the connection between the prototype and the short form is not lost.

2) In the opposite case the connection can be established установлена only etymologically. The denotative or lexico-grammatical meaning or both may have changed so much that the clipping becomes a separate word. A part of etymological doublets comes into being. E.g. fan – fanatic, fancy –fantasy, Miss – mistress.

Word belonging to the first group can be replaced by their prototypes and show in this way a certain degree of interchangeability. The doublets are never equivalent lexically as there are no context where their prototype can replace the shorten word without a change of meaning. Shortened words of the first group render one of the possible meanings of the prototype creating a colloquial or slang shade and other emotional coloring as well. These words are also often homonymous, e.g. gym for gymnastics and gymnasium, vet for veteran and veterinary.

Unlike conversion, shortening produces a new word in the same part of speech. The balk of shorten words is constituted by nouns, verbs are rarely shortened in present-day English. Such verbs as to phone, to vet, to veg (овощ; быть как овощ) are in fact converted from nouns.

The generally accepted classification of shortened words is based on the position of a clipped part. According to whether it is the final initial or middle part of the word that is cut off, we distinguish:

1. Final clippin g or shortening

2. Initial clipping

3. Medial clipping.

1. Final clipping in which the beginning of the prototype is retained сохранено is practically the rule and forms the bulk of the class. Ad – advert – advertisement, coke – coca-cola, fab – fabulous, lab – laboratory.

2. initial-clipped words retaining (сохраняющий) the final part of the prototype are less numerous but much more firmly established as separate lexical units with a meaning very different from that of the prototype and stylistically neutral doublets. Story – history, tend – attend.

3. shortened words with a middle part of the word left out are very few. They may be subdivided into 2 groups:

a) words with a final-clipped stem retaining the functional morpheme: maths – mathematics, specs – spectacles;

b) contractions: fancy – fantasy, ma’am – madam.

Shortened words may rise in various types of colloquial speech as long as the connection with prototype is alive, they remain synonyms. When the connection with the prototype is lost, the shortened words may become stylistically neutral. Shortened words are especially numerous in various branches of slang, nursery words are also often clipped. Stylistic peculiarity often goes with the emotional coloring. That’s why words sometimes reveal ironical attitude to the theme’s name. Much less commonly we find what are called back formations, like “edit’ from ‘editor” where the final -or is wrongly analyzed as a suffix, like the suffix –er in words worker, builder etc. and therefore treated as removable.

Next type of word formation is Blending. Стяжение

Creations by blending are also called portmanteau [pɔːt'mæntəu] words (слово-гибрид). In blending parts of two familiar words are yoked [jəukt] together объединены usually the first part of one word and the second part of the other to produce a word which combines a meaning and sound of the old ones. The process of formation is also called telescoping, because the words seem to slide into one another like section on telescope. E.g. smog from smoke and fog, motel from motor and hotel, heliport from helicopter and airport. Sometimes we lose the track of the component of a new blend. The origin of the word is no longer transparent.

Acronyms (acr-o “tip, point” + onym “name”) acronyms are a special type of blending. A typical acronym takes the first sound from each of central words and makes a new word from those initial sounds. If the resulting word is pronounced like any other word, it is a true acronym. E.g NASA (national aeronautics and space administration). WAC (women’s army corps), NATO (north Atlantic treaty organization). Laser stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

Sometimes acronyms are based on even larger chunks of the words they abbreviate. E.g. the FORTRAN (formular translation). So such words are half-way between blends and acronyms. If the letters which make acronyms are individually pronounced, such acronyms are called initialisms. OK is an early example, dating from the middle of the 19 century.

A lot of initialisms originated from American English. It was during the first administration of Franklin Roosevelt, starting in 1943 and then during the World War II the fashion for acronyms and initialisms really got moving. The name for American soldiers was GI – general issue, and the vehicle ['vɪəkl] they drove the jeep – GP (general purpose vehicle).

UFO (unidentified flying object) is from early 50s.

Roosevelt created many new government agencies, nearly all of which were referred to by initialisms. E.g. FTC (federal trade commission), IRS (internal revenue service), DMV (division of motor vehicles), NBC (national broadcasting company).

In more recent times Proliferation [prəˌlɪf(ə)'reɪʃ(ə)n] of initialisms and acronyms has been much aggravated by the ubiquity [juː'bɪkwətɪ]of computer terms. DRAN – dynamic render access memory. CPU – central process unit.

An interesting phenomenon in recent years has been the rise of reverse [rɪ'vɜːs] acronyms. The creators start with the word they want as they name and then work for those letters to find the words which represent something like the idea they want to be associated with. E.g. CORE (congress of racial ['reɪʃ(ə)l] equality), MADD (mothers against drunk drivers). AIM (American Indian movement).

Organizations with such names have instant appeal and easy to remember. Another wide-spread recent phenomenon is acronyms based on some popular phrase. People produce acronyms or initialisms from any common phrase and from just about any stream of words, e.g. TGIF (thanks god it’s Friday), FYI – for your information, DEWMS (du:mz) (dead European white males).

Acronyms (acr-o “tip, point” + onym “name”) acronyms are a special type of blending. A typical acronym takes the first sound from each of central words and makes a new word from those initial sounds. If the resulting word is pronounced like any other word, it is a true acronym. E.g NASA (national aeronautics and space administration). WAC (women’s army corps), NATO (north Atlantic treaty organization). Laser stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

Sometimes acronyms are based on even larger chunks of the words they abbreviate. E.g. the FORTRAN (formular translation). So such words are half-way between blends and acronyms. If the letters which make acronyms are individually pronounced, such acronyms are called initialisms. OK is an early example, dating from the middle of the 19 century.

A lot of initialisms originated from American English. It was during the first administration of Franklin Roosevelt, starting in 1943 and then during the World War II the fashion for acronyms and initialisms really got moving. The name for American soldiers was GI – general issue, and the vehicle ['vɪəkl] they drove the jeep – GP (general purpose vehicle).

UFO (unidentified flying object) is from early 50s.

Roosevelt created many new government agencies, nearly all of which were referred to by initialisms. E.g. FTC (federal trade commission), IRS (internal revenue service), DMV (division of motor vehicles), NBC (national broadcasting company).

An interesting phenomenon in recent years has been the rise of reverse [rɪ'vɜːs] acronyms. The creators start with the word they want as they name and then work for those letters to find the words which represent something like the idea they want to be associated with. E.g. CORE (congress of racial ['reɪʃ(ə)l] equality), MADD (mothers against drunk drivers). AIM (American Indian movement).

Organizations with such names have instant appeal and easy to remember. Another wide-spread recent phenomenon is acronyms based on some popular phrase. People produce acronyms or initialisms from any common phrase and from just about any stream of words, e.g. TGIF (thanks god it’s Friday), FYI – for your information, DEWMS (du:mz) (dead European white males).

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Eponyms are new words bases on names. All eponyms necessarily involve some degree of change in the meaning. The number of new words of this type in fields like biology, physics and medicine is very large, since new discoveries are very often named after their discoverers.

There are 4 types of eponyms.

1. Eponyms based on personal names: Cardigan – earl of cardigan who lived in 19 century and favored the style of waistcoat. Nicotine – Jacques Nicot who introduced tobacco in 1560.

2. Eponyms based on geographical names: port – shortened form of Oporto, exporting port in Portugal.

3. Eponyms based on names from literature, folklore and mythology. E.g. chimera [kaɪ'mɪərə] – mythological Greek monster purely a creature of imagination.

4. Eponyms based on commercial brand names. E.g Xerox ['zɪərɔks] – copy by any dry process.

27

Shortening is a means of word formation which consists in significance attraction in which part of the original word or word group is taken away. As a result a new form receives some linguistic value on its own. The part retained does not change phonetically but changes in spelling. Dub – double, mike – microphone, trank – tranquilizer.

Shortening may take any part of a word, usually a single syllable or throw away the rest. It is sometimes called clipping. The process often applies not just an existing word but to a whole phrase, e.g. zoo is a shortening of zoological garden.

The change is not only quantitative, but a shortened word is always in some way different from its prototype in meaning and usage. It can be regarded as a type of root creation, because the resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combined with bound forms. They can take functional suffixes bike and bikes. Lots of shortenings by conversion produce other words. E.g. to phone, to vet.

They also serve as a basis for the further word formation by derivation of compounding: e.g fancy n. (from fantasy) fancy v. fanciful adj, fancy-dress n.

Next type of word formation is Blending. Стяжение

Creations by blending are also called portmanteau [pɔːt'mæntəu] words (слово-гибрид). In blending parts of two familiar words are yoked [jəukt] together объединены usually the first part of one word and the second part of the other to produce a word which combines a meaning and sound of the old ones. The process of formation is also called telescoping, because the words seem to slide into one another like section on telescope. E.g. smog from smoke and fog, motel from motor and hotel, heliport from helicopter and airport. Sometimes we lose the track of the component of a new blend. The origin of the word is no longer transparent.

Acronyms (acr-o “tip, point” + onym “name”) acronyms are a special type of blending. A typical acronym takes the first sound from each of central words and makes a new word from those initial sounds. If the resulting word is pronounced like any other word, it is a true acronym. E.g NASA (national aeronautics and space administration). WAC (women’s army corps), NATO (north Atlantic treaty organization). Laser stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

Eponyms are new words bases on names. All eponyms necessarily involve some degree of change in the meaning. The number of new words of this type in fields like biology, physics and medicine is very large, since new discoveries are very often named after their discoverers.

There are 4 types of eponyms.

1. Eponyms based on personal names: Cardigan – earl of cardigan who lived in 19 century and favored the style of waistcoat. Nicotine – Jacques Nicot who introduced tobacco in 1560.

2. Eponyms based on geographical names: port – shortened form of Oporto, exporting port in Portugal.

3. Eponyms based on names from literature, folklore and mythology. E.g. chimera [kaɪ'mɪərə] – mythological Greek monster purely a creature of imagination.

4. Eponyms based on commercial brand names. E.g Xerox ['zɪərɔks] – copy by any dry process.

The problem of distinguishing set expressions from compound words has not been solved yet. There are several criteria to make the difference seem obvious, though they are not applicable in all cases.

1) Graphic. Unlike set expressions, compound words are usually written either as a single word (waterproof) or with a hyphen (air-line). However, there are a lot of examples when a compound may have several graphic variants. E.g. loudspeaker, loud speaker, loud-speaker.

2) phonetic criterion. Unlike set phrases, most compounds are characterized by unity stress on the first word. E.g blackboard, but there are some expressions with 2 stresses (arm-chair)

3) And another distinguishing criterion may be found in the morphological integrity [ɪn'tegrətɪ] of the compounds. All compound nouns form the plural with a suffix –s. forget-me-nots незабудка, good-for-nothings бездельник.

To sum up, all set above the problem, we should point out that none of the criteria is absolute and the issue remains disputable. Set expressions have their own specific features which enhance [ɪn'tegrətɪ] (увеличивать) their stability and cohesion [kəu'hiːʒ(ə)n]. These are their euphonic [juː'fɔnɪk], imaginative and connotative qualities.

Many set exp. are distinctly rhythmical, contain contrast, imagery, rhyme. These qualities ensure the strongest possible contact between the elements. E.g. by hook or by crook (by any method). This capacity of developing and undivided transferred meaning is a feature that makes set expressions similar to words.

Set expressions fall into 2 major groups: set expressions proper and phraseological units.

Set expressions proper lack in figurativeness and emotional expressiveness. They do not reflect the speaker’s attitude to the object of their utterance. Among a number of disputable types of set expressions proper, there are 2 which one accepted by all scholars and studied most of all. They are:

-nominal phrases, e.g. point of view, registered letter, the milky way, the house of commons

-verbal phrases, e.g. to have a look, to take advantage of, to take place

Nominal set expressions cannot be usually replaced by a single word with a different stem. They often stand for terms.

Verbal set expressions are inclined to have such equivalents; single verbs that often have the same stem as one in the noun of the corresponding verbal set expression. E.g. have a look – to look.

There is some stylistic difference between verbal set expressions and their equivalents. The last ones tend to be bookish. E.g. to take part – to participate.

Phraseological units characterized by figurativeness, emotional and stylistic expressiveness. They not only represent an object or phenomenon, but convey the speaker’s attitude to them. A lot of scholars have shown a great interest in the theoretical aspects of classifying phraseological units. The most significant theory was developed by V.V Vinogradov. His classification is based upon a motivation of the unit, i.e. the relationship existing between the meaning of the whole and the meaning of its componing parts. The degree of motivation is correlated with indivisibility and semantic unity of the expression with possibility of changing the form or the order of the components and of substituting the whole by single word. According to the type of motivation, Vinogradov suggests three types of phraseological units.

1) Phraseological fusions сращения represent the highest stage of blending together. The meaning of components is completely absorbed by the meaning of the whole, by its expressiveness and emotional qualities. E.g. cut off with a shilling – лишить наследства. To talk through one’s hat – говорить вздор, a fishy story – выдумка.

2) Phraseological unities (единства) are more numerous and clearly motivated. The emotional quality is based upon the image created by the whole. E.g. to stick/stand to one’s guns “to refuse to change one’s statements or opinions in the pace opposition” implies courage and integrity. Some of the phraseological unities are easily translated and even international. E.g. to know the way the wind’s blowing, as busy as a bee.

3) Phraseological combinations are not only motivated, but contain one component used in its direct meaning while the other used figuratively. E.g. to meet a demand, requirement, necessity, to break a promise, an agreement, a rule. The mobility of this type is much greater and the substitutions are not necessarily synonymous.

Set expressions have their own specific features which enhance [ɪn'tegrətɪ] (увеличивать) their stability and cohesion [kəu'hiːʒ(ə)n]. These are their euphonic [juː'fɔnɪk], imaginative and connotative qualities.

Many set exp. are distinctly rhythmical, contain contrast, imagery, rhyme. These qualities ensure the strongest possible contact between the elements. E.g. by hook or by crook (by any method). This capacity of developing and undivided transferred meaning is a feature that makes set expressions similar to words.

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English has borrowed a few words from west-African languages mostly Portuguese and Spanish. Banana – African and Spanish origin, likewise voodoo and hoodoo came from American English, but they are of African origin as well. More recent borrowings include gorilla, chimpanzee [ˌʧɪmpæn'ziː], gnu [nu:], safari, and zebra.

Most of the other borrowings have been made more in time. Polka came via France from Czech (19th century). Russian words are Bolshevik, glasnost, perestroika, tundra, vodka. Turkish words include: fez, shish kebab. There are some Hungarian words: goulash, paprika. And coach came via French from Hungarian kosci. Native American languages: moccasin, toboggan, tomahawk, skunk. English still borrows however borrowing in recent times is characterized by two main factors: the frequency of borrowing is considerably reduced and English tends to borrow from less and less known languages.

The etymological study of 1997 shows that about 25% of English borrowings are from French, 8% - from Japanese and Spanish, 7% from Italian and Latin, 6% from African languages, German and Greek, 4% each from Russian and Yiddish, 3% from Chinese, and progressively smaller percentages from Arabic, Portuguese, Hindi, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Afrikaans, Malayo-Polynesian, Vietnamese, etc.

French is still the largest supplier of words to English which may be explained by the geographical proximity of France and Britain. The increase in the importance of Japanese as a source of loans is a consequence of increased commercial importance of Japan in the world generally. The decline of Latin as a source of loan words may have a dual explanation: on the one hand, English has already borrowed so much of Latin vocabulary, that there is little left to be borrowed. On the other hand, rather than borrowing directly from Latin, English now often makes new Latinate words from English morphemes which originally from Latin.

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the old English period. The native words are subdivided into those of the European stock and common Germanic origin. A loan word or borrowed word or borrowing is a word taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the English language. The part played by borrowings in the vocabulary of a language depends upon the history of this given language being conditioned by direct linguistic contexts, economic and cultural relationships between nations. The fact that up to 80 percent of English vocabulary consists of loan words is due to specific conditions of the English language development. The term source of borrowing should be distinguished from the term original borrowing. The first if applied to the language from which the word was taken into English, the second refers to the language to which the word may be traced. There are certain structural features which enable us to identify some words as borrowings even to determine the source of language.

Latin affixes: N: -ion, tion; V: -ate, -ute, -ct, -d (e), dis-. Adj; -able, -ate, -ant, -ent, -or, -er.

French affixes: N: -ance, -ence, -ment, -age, -ess. V: -en. Adj: -ous.

We also distinguish loan translations and semantic loans. Loan translations are words and expressions formed from the material already existing in the English language but according to patterns taken from another language by way of literal morpheme for morpheme or word for word translation. Loan translation is facilitated by the existence of formally related words even though in other context and with a different meaning.

The term semantic loan is used to denote the development in an English word of a new meaning due to the influence of a related word in another language. Many loan words in spite of the changes they have undergone after penetrating into English retain some peculiarities in pronunciation, spelling and morphology. The phonomorphological structure of borrowings is characterized by a high percentage of polysyllabic words. Bloomfield points out that English possesses a great mass of words with a separate pattern of derivation. Their chief characteristic is the use of certain accented suffixes and combination of suffixes. Another feature according to Bloomfield is the presence of certain phonetic alterations.

The term synonymy comes from a Greek word meaning “the same name”. It is used to refer to relationship of sameness of meaning that may hold between two or more words.Synonymy is a wide-spread relation in the vocabulary of English, for which good evidence is provided by synonym dictionaries and thesauruses. [θɪ'sɔːrəs]

Here’s the list of examples: beseech – implore, glitter – sparkle, lazy – indolent, weak – close, plentiful – abundant.

Syn. Dictionaries attempt to explain sometimes very subtle difference in the meaning between words that are closely related in meaning. Beseech – implore.

All the words (beg, entreat умолять, beseech заклинать, implore умолять заклинать, supplicate молить and importune надоедать) signify making of an appeal which is likely to be refused or demurred at возражать. A person begs for what they cannot claim as the right. Beg suggests insistence and sometimes self-abasement. By entreating someone, one hopes to persuade somebody by earnest pleading and reasoning. Beseech and implore convey eager anxiety which seeks to inspire, sympathy or pity. Implore may be stronger than beseech, with the suggestion of tearfulness or evident anguish. Supplicate adds to entreat a humble prayerful attitude. Importune denotes persistence with one’s requests to the point of annoyance or even harassment ['hærəsmənt]. Such an attempt to analyze synonyms implies that even between identifiable synonyms there is some difference in meaning. If we take such a position, there’s arguably ['ɑːgjuəblɪ] no such thing as true synonymy.

Many linguists take this position and make a distinction between strict or absolute synonymy and loose synonymy. In the strict sense two words that are synonyms would have to be interchangeable in all the possible contexts of use. A free choice would exist for a speaker of either one or the other word in any given context. The choice would have no effect on the meaning, style or connotation of what was said or written. Linguists argue that such strict synonymy does not exist, or if it does, it exists only as semantic change is taking place.

Strict synonymy is not economical, it creates unnecessary redundancy избыточность in a language. To have a completely free choice between 2 words for a particular context is a luxury that we can well do without. Indeed, it would appear that where historically two words have been in danger of becoming strict synonyms, one of them has either change its meaning or fall out of use. For example, when the word sky was borrowed from old-north into English, it came into competition with a native English word heaven. The 2 words denoted both the physical firmament (небесный свод) and the spiritual realm of god and angels. In due course, sky came to denote just the physical, and heaven just the spiritual. Similarly, when spirit was borrowed from French, it was in competition with a native word ghost. Spirit has taken over as the term with the more general meaning and ghost is more a less restricted to disembodied spirit meanings.

Consider the following absolute words, which have been replaced by the items in brackets.

Culver (pigeon), dorp (village), erst (formerly), fain (willing), Levin (lightning), trig (neat), wight (human being)

When we speak of synonymy, we mean different degrees of loose synonymy, where we identify not only a significant overlap between 2 words but also some context, where the synonyms cannot substitute for each other. Take the synonyms find and discover. They are substitutable in the context. Lidia found/discovered the ball behind the garden shed. Marie curie discovered radium in 1898. Franz found it easy to compose sonatas.

Thus we may conclude that synonyms may be substitutable where the meaning overlaps частично совпадает. But where the meaning falls outside of the shade area, one cannot be used instead of the other.

Classification of synonyms.

The first type. Some synonym pairs differ in way they belong to different dialects in English. The dialects may be one of the national standards, e.g. British, American Australian English or there may be regional dialect within a country or area, e.g. south-west dialects of British English.

Bonnet (car) – hood, caravan – trailer, drawing pin –thumbtack, farm – ranch, lawyer – attorney, lift – elevator, pavement – sidewalk, rubbish – garbage, tap – faucet, windscreen – windshield.

Some more examples of British and Northern-British English.

Anyway – anyroad, armpit – oxter, brew (tea) – mash, child – bairn, frightening – fleysome, money – brass, nothing – nowt, sandwich – butty.

The second general way in which we distinguish synonyms relates to the style or formality of the context, in which word may be used. One or more may be used in a more formal context than the other or one of the pair may belong to the slang or colloquial English.

Style or formality of the context:

Argument – disputation, beauty – pulchritude, cross – traverse, die – decease, give up – renounce, letter – missive, praise – eulogy, warning – caveat, western – occidental.

Standard English and English slang pairs.

Astonished – godsmacked, crash – prang, destroy – zap, drunk – sloshed, heart – ticker, insane – barmy, money – rhino, etc, prison – chink, steal – nick.

For some ordinary language words such as money or drunk slang synonyms proliferate увеличиваются.

The third way in which synonyms may be distinguished is where connotation [ˌkɔnə'teɪʃ(ə)n] differs. Two words may largely share denotation when referring to a particular entity суть, but they may have different associative or emotive meanings.

E.g. ambiguous – equivocal, famous – notorious, hate – loathe (with repugnance or disgust), misuse –abuse, new – novel, obtain – procure (with effort), persuade (inveigle (with ingenuity or deceit), proud – haughty (with disdain), recollection – reminiscence (with pleasure), simulate – feign (with craftiness).

And there may be collocation [ˌkɔlə'keɪʃ(ə)n] difference in pairs:

rancid and rotten are synonyms, but the former is used only of butter or bacon; kingly, royal and regal synonyms, but mail has to be royal in the UK.

English is a language particularly rich in pairs of synonyms. The primary reason for this has to do with the history of the language and especially with the wholesale ['həulseɪl] borrowing from other languages, especially French and Latin.

The words from old English are generally shorter than their French or Latin synonyms. They also tend to belong to the ordinary colloquial language, whereas their Latinate synonyms belong to more formal context.

Words borrowed directly from Latin may sometimes be more formal or technical than a synonym that entered English as a consequence of the Norman French invasion [ɪn'veɪʒ(ə)n]. Here are some examples of this case, with the French – derived word on the left and the Latin – derived word on the right: commencement, inception, devise – excogitate [eks'kɔʤɪteɪt], generous – munificen [mjuː'nɪfɪs(ə)nt]t, imprison – incarcerate, mount [maunt] – ascend [ə'send], pardon – amnesty ['æmnəstɪ], urgency – exigency ['eksɪʤən(t)sɪ].

It is not always the case that the Latin – derived word will be more formal and less familiar. In the course of history, some words derived directly from Latin have found their place in the common language, but the clear tendency is for words derived from Latin, especially where these were borrowed into Latin from Greek, to belong to formal and often technical styles.

Oppositeness is perhaps not such a pervasive meaning relation in the vocabulary of English as synonymy, but it has an important role in structuring the vocabulary of English. This is especially so in the adjective word class, where a good many words occur in antonymous pairs, e .g. long –short, wide – narrow, new –old, rough – smooth, light - dark, straight –crooked, deep – shallow, fast – slow. While antonymy is typically found among adjectives it is not restricted to this word class: bring – take (verbs), death – life (nouns), noisily – quietly (adverbs), above – below (prepositions), after – before (conjunctions or prepositions).

Besides having morphologically unrelated antonyms, as in the examples above, English can also derive antonyms by means of prefixes and suffixes. Negative prefixes such as dis-, un-, or in- may derive an antonym from the positive root, e.g. dishonest, unsympathetic, infertile.

Compare also: encourage – discourage but entangle –disentangle, increase – decrease, include – exclude.

Similarly, the suffixes –ful, -less may derive pairs of antonyms, e.g. useful – useless, thoughtful – thoughtless, but this is by no means always the case, e.g. grateful has no counterpart ['kauntəpɑːt] graceless, selfless has no counterpart selfful.

It is often the case that antonyms occur together, either ['aɪðə] within the same sentence. One reason is that certain expressions are structured in this way, e.g. “a matter of life and death”, “from start to finish”, “the long and the short of it”, “neither friend nor foe”, “wanted dead or alive”. A second reason is that antonyms may be used redundantly to emphasize a point, e.g. “It was a remark made in private, not in public”, or to make a rhetorical [rɪ'tɔrɪk(ə)l] question, e.g. “Is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?” Another context in which antonyms are typically employed is where reference is to change of state, e.g. “The museum opens at nine and closes at four”.

We generally think of antonymy as a relation holding between words belonging to the same word class, but since antonymy is a semantic relation, it may hold between words that belong to different word classes. For example, in “Lighten our darkness, we pray”, a verb and a noun form an antonym pair. In “She remembered to shut the door but left the window open”, a verb and an adjective are in a relation of antonymy. Clearly, oppositeness influences our thinking and communicating to a significant extent, as the widespread use of antonymy demonstrates.

Unlike synonymy, antonymy covers a number of different types of oppositeness of meaning. Three types are commonly identified: gradable antonyms, contradictory противоречивые or complementary antonyms, and converses. Antonym pairs of these types express oppositeness in rather different ways, though it is not clear that we as speakers are necessarily aware of these differences or that they play a part in how we store antonyms in our mental lexicon.

Gradable antonyms include pairs like the following: beautiful – ugly, expensive – cheap, fast – slow, hot – cold, increase – decrease, long – short, love – hate, rich – poor, sweet – sour, wide – narrow.

These pairs are called gradable antonyms because they do not represent an either/ or relation but rather a more/less relation. The more/less relation is evident in a number of ways: the terms allow comparison, e.g. “My arm is longer/shorter than yours”, “I love a good book more than a good meal”; the adjectives can be modified by “intensifying” adverbs, e.g. very long, extremely hot, extraordinary beautiful. The terms do not represent absolute values; for the adjectives the value depends on the noun being described; the length of arms is on a different scale from the length of, say, roads. In such pairs of adjectives, one is usually a marked term, the other unmarked. This manifests itself, for example, in questions such as “How long is the street?” To ask “How short is the street?” already assumes that the street has been identified as short. The use of long does not make an assumption either way. Also, in giving dimensions, you would use the “larger” term, e.g. “The street is 400 metres long” (not short).

The following are examples of contradictory or complementary antonyms: asleep – awake, dead – alive, on – off, permit – forbid, remember – forget, shut – open, true – false, win – lose.

These pairs of antonyms are in an either/or relation of oppositeness. An animate being can be described as either dead or alive, but not as some grade of these or as being more one than the other. The assertion утверждение of one implies the denial of the other member of the pair: if you permit some behavior, then it is not forbidden; if you lose a contest, then you have not won it; if a switch is on, then it is not off.

The following are examples of converse antonyms: above – below, before – after, behind – in front of, buy – sell, give – receive, husband – wife, parent – child, speak – listen.

For each pair of antonyms, one expresses the converse противоположное meaning of the other. In the case of sentences with buy and sell, for example, the same transaction is expressed from different (converse) perspectives: Lydia bought the car from Kristen. Kristen sold the car to Lydia. Similarly with nouns such as husband and wife, a sentence may express the relationship in one of two converse ways: Margaret is Malcolm’s wife. Malcolm is Margaret’s husband. And the same is also true for prepositions like above and below: The spaghetti is on the shelf above the rice. The rice is on the shelf below spaghetti.

43

Polysemy means diversity of meanings, the existence within one word of several connected meanings as a result of the development and changes of its original meaning. The reality of the word is infinite, while the resources of even the richest language are limited. This language keeps stretching out its lexical units to cover new phenomena of objective reality. The speaker observes certain similarities between objects and enquires the habit of using words metaphorically. When the method becomes habitual, it’s included its lexico-semantical variant in the word semantic structure. A word that has several meanings is called polysemantic. Words having only one meaning are called monosemantic words. Monosemantic words are few in number. These are mainly scientific terms. The bulk of English words are polysemantic.

The great contribution into the development of the problem of the polysemy was made by V.V. Vinogradov. He admitted the importance of differentiating the meaning from the usage or a contextual variant. Meanings are fixed and common to all people who know the language system. The usage is only a possible application of one of the meanings of a polysemantic word, sometimes very individual, sometimes more-less familiar. Meaning is not identical with usage. Polysemy exists only in language and not in speech. The meaning of the word in speech is contextual. Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language, because in every particular case the situation or context cancels all the unnecessary meanings and makes speech unambiguous.

A further development of Vinogradov’s theory was Alexander Ivanovich Smirnitsky’s work in the linguistic field under consideration. According to this school, all the meanings of the word form identity, supported by the form of the word. Smirnitsky introduced the term lexico-semantical variant. A lexico-semantical variant is a two-facet unit (двусторонняя единица), the formal facet of which is the sound form of the word, while the content facet is one of the meanings of the given word, the designation (обозначение) of a certain class of objects. All lexico-semantical variants of a word form a homogenous semantic structure insuring the semantic unity of a given word. All lexico-semantical variants are united together by a certain meaning, the semantic pivot of the word called the semantic center of the word. Thus, the semantic center of the word is the part of meaning which remains constant in all the lexico-semantical variants of the word.

If polysemy is viewed diachronically it is understood as a change in the semantic structure of the word. Polysemy in the diachronic terms implies that a word may retain its previous meaning(s) and at the same time acquire one or the several new ones. Thus, according to the diachronic approach in the semantic structure of a word two types of meaning can be singled out, the primary meaning and the secondary meaning. The polysemantic word table for example has at least nine meanings in modern English. In the course of diachronic semantic analysis, it is found that of all the meanings this word has (in modern English) the primary meaning is “a flat slab of stone of wood”, which is proper to the word in the old English period. All other meanings are secondary as they a derived from the primary meaning. Semantic changes result in new meanings which are addict to the old ones, already existing in the semantic structure of the word. Some of the old meanings may become absolute, or even disappear, but the bulk of English words tend to an increase in the number of meanings. Synchronically polysemy is understood is the coexistence of various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English language. In the course in the synchronic analysis of the word table the question rises: do all the 9 meanings of this word equally represent the semantic structure of the word? The meaning that first occurs to us whenever we see or hear the word “table” is an article of furniture. This emerges as the central or the basic meaning of the word and all the others are marginal or minor meanings. The central meaning occurs in various and widely different contexts. Marginal meanings are observed only in certain context. There’s a tendency in modern linguistics to interpret the concept of the central meaning in terms of the frequency of occurrence of this meaning as far as the word table is concerned, the meaning “piece of furniture” possesses the highest frequency of value and makes up 25 percent of all the uses of this word.

As the semantic structure is never static, the primary meaning of the word may become synchronically one of its marginal meanings and diachronically a secondary meaning may become the central meaning of the word. The relationship between the diachronic and synchronic evaluation of an individual meaning may be different in different periods of the historical development of the language. This can be illustrated by the semantic analysis of the word “evidence”. Originally, when this word first appeared in Middle English in the 13^th century it denoted “significant appearance, token”. This meaning in the Middle English was both diachronically primary and synchronically central. Later on, the word acquired other meanings and among them “information tending to establish fact”. In modern English, however, while we still can diachronically describe the meaning “significant appearance, token” as primary, it is no longer synchronically central, as the arrangement of meanings in the semantic structure of the word evidence has changed.

Two or more words identical in some form spelling, but different in meaning distribution and origin are called homonyms. The term is derived from Greek (“homos” - similar and “onoma” - name). Thus, expresses the sameness of name combined with difference in meaning. Although they have the same shape, homonyms are considered distinct lexemes, mainly because they have unrelated meanings and different etymologies. Modern English is rich in homonymous words and word forms. It is sometimes that the abundance of homonyms in modern English is to be accounted by monosyllabic structure of the commonly used English words. There is however some difficulty in the establishment of sameness of shape owing to the fact that we don’t make the same distinctions in both speech and writing. The dog’s lead [li:d] and lead [led] (metal) are spelled the same, but pronounced differently, while right (correct), rite (ceremony) and write (to put down) are spelled differently, but pronounced the same.

In addition to the difference in meaning, homonyms may also be kept apart.by syntactic differences. For example, when homonyms belong to different word classes as in the case of tender which has different lexis as an adjective, verb and noun, each homonym has not only a distinct meaning, but also a different grammatical function. The same observation applies to the pairs of words such as bear [bɛə] (noun) and bear [bɛə] (verb), grave (adjective) and grave (noun), hail (noun) and hail (verb), hoarse (adj.) and horse (noun).

Homonymy was known long years ago. First dictionaries of homonyms appeared in china in the third-forth centuries. Homonymy is the result of various processes which take place in a language. In English quite a number of homonyms have been created through the break of polysemy. The creation of homonyms was due to a great number of loan words, which were adaptive to the English standards in the pronunciation and spelling. Homonyms can be created by shortening of words, for example flu short for influenza is homonymous to flew, past tense of the verb to fly. Homonyms can be formed through the changes of the meaning of the words, different meanings of one and the same word may lose their semantic connection and may form different words which coincide in their phonetic form but have nothing in common in their meaning. Flower (plant) – flour (we use in baking), sea (water) – see (watch). Homonyms can also be formed by means of conversion. For example, water – to water.

Because of the sameness of shape, there is a danger of homonymous conflict or clashes столкновения in the sense that homonyms with totally different meanings may both make sense in the same utterance, (The route was very long. The root was very long. Helen didn’t see the bat (animal or wooden implement)). And the difference in overall context can reduce any possibility of confusion.

Many homonyms exist only in theory, since in practice there is no risk of confusion, because they belong to different word classes. Consider the pairs of homophones. Knows and nose, rights (n) and writes (v).

Apart from differences in meaning, it is difficult to imagine a context in which both members of a given pair might occur interchangeability. They are in complementary distribution in the sense that where one occurs, the other cannot occur. However is must be specified since the number of each pair differ in word class, the choice of one homonym instead of the other is determined mainly by the rules of syntax, not the rules of lexicology.

Similar types of restriction also apply to pairs of homonyms which are identical in spelling and pronunciation. Grave (adj.) and grave (n), stick (v) and stick (n). The analysis shows that difference in grammatical class contributes to a sustention reduction in the number of effective homonyms in English. However it must also be acknowledged that difference in class alone does not automatically rule out all possibilities of confusion. English has a non-phonetic writing system in the sense that there is no absolute one-to-one correspondence between the letters in writing and the sounds in the pronunciation of words. Consequently spelling will often help to differentiate the words which are identical in sound. This aspect also reduces the number of homonyms on the written page; it may also be useful in spoken language, because it provides a quick and easy way of removing confusion. For example if there is any doubt in the listeners mind if it is rite or right, route or root, it may be much simpler to spell the words out than to define their meanings. This distinction of the illumination of homonym clashes shows that in this respect English writing is more intelligible than speech and that homonymy in the language as a whole spoken as well as written is reduced by writing conventions. It also shows that even if we focus on individual words, grammatical and graphological considerations play an important role in the distinction of homonyms. It is hard to determine clearly where polysemy ends and homonymy begins. With polysemy a single word has several connotations, while with homonymy different words coinciding form. In case of homonymy, different meanings of words are mutually independent. When a word is a polysemantic, it may have a variety of synonyms, each corresponding to one of its meanings and will often have a set of antonyms.

The most widely accepted classification of homonyms by W. Skeat recognizes:

1) homonyms proper are words identical in their sound form and spelling, but different in meaning. Ball – a round object used in games and ball – a gathering of people for dancing.

2) Homophones are the words of the same sound form, but of different spelling and meaning. Piece – part separated from something, peace – a situation in which there is no war between countries or groups.

3) Homographs are words different in sound form and meaning, but identical in spelling. Bow (beu) – a weapon made from a long curved piece of wood, used for shooting arrows and bow (bau) - a forward movement of the top part of the body, especially to show respect.

Another classification was suggested by A.I. Smirnitsky who added to skits classification one more criteria – grammatical meaning. So, according to Smirnitsky, homonyms fall into free groups:

1) lexical (no link between their lexical meanings): fair – fare, bow – bow,

2) grammatical (belong to different parts of speech); milk –to milk, practice – to practice; and

3) lexico-grammatical (no link between their lexical meanings and they belong to different parts of speech) to tear (n) – tear (v), to bear - bear.

According to the third classification by Galina Nikolaevna Babich, we distinguish between full homonyms and partial homonyms.

Full homonyms are identical in sound in all their forms of paradigms (ear “ухо” и колос).

Partial homonyms are identical in sound in several forms (to lie [laɪ] pp лежать – lay [leɪ]).

48. The relation of hyponymy serves to structure large parts of vocabulary. It is perhaps an all – pervasive structuring relation. It is almost evident in the taxonomies of natural phenomena.

Plant

Fungus lichen shrub creeper tree

Mushroom toadstool ivy bindweed conifer deciduous

Pine spruce oak ash

The term at the top of the hierarchy (plant) has the most general meaning, and it can be used to refer to all the objects denoted by tern below it. It is a ‘superordinate’ term. Those immediately below it, the directly “subordinate” terms (fungus, lichen, shrub, etc.), are its “hyponyms”. So, tree is a hyponym of plant, but is in turn a superordinate to its hyponyms conifer, deciduous; conifer is in turn a superordinate to its hyponyms pine, spruce, etc. Reading up from the bottom of the hierarchy, pine is a “kind of” conifer, which is a kind of tree, which is a kind of plant.

Hyponymy relations are not restricted to the classification system of natural phenomena. They are found also, for example, in taxonomies of natural human artifacts, e.g.

Container

Pot barrel box tin bag

Cask keg case crate sack pouch purse

Suitcase briefcase

The hierarchy is neither complete nor entirely accurate. For one thing, the term barrel probably needs to occur as a hyponym of itself; in other words, barrel denotes a class of objects that includes casks, kegs and barrels. Barrel has both a more general and a more specific meaning. What this begins to illustrate is that hyponymy hierarchies are not necessarily either complete or neatly arranged. After all, our vocabulary presumably contains the words that we, as members of a particular culture or speech community, need in order to communicate with each other about environment and our experience. In many instances, we do not need words of varying degrees of generality, so that we can refer tyo classes and subclasses of entities; but that does not mean that they will always form a neat system of terms.

49. The “part of” relation can similarly be represented by a hierarchy of superordinate and subordinate (meronym) terms, e.g.

plant

leaf bud stem root flower shoot

stalk blade cap hair petal stamen

Reading from the bottom of the hierarchy, petal and stamen are parts (meronyms) of flower; flower, root, stem, etc. are parts (meronyms) of plant. The superordinate term is not merely a more general way of talking about its meronyms, as in the hyponymy relation, though there is a sense in which the use of a superordinate term includes reference to the meronyms. Flower refer to the entity in its totality, including its petals, stamen, stalk, and so on; but these are not more specific kinds of flower, but rather different parts of it that together make up the whole.

Such part / whole relations exist between many words in the vocabulary. Most humane artifacts are made up of parts, which we usually want to label with their own terms. A knife consists of a blade and a handle. Most obviously, the meronym relation applies to entities into their parts, e.g.

Day

Day night

Dawn morning afternoon twilight evening night

The terms day and night occur twice in this hierarchy because day refers both to the period of 24 hours and to the part ot that period which enjoys daylight; night is in contrast with this second meaning of day and also refers to the darkest part of it.

50. When you begin to apply the notions of hyponymy and meronymy to parts of the vocabulary of a language, you soon realize that, as ordinary language users, we do not neatly classify and analyse things in the systematic way that scholars and scientists attempt to do. Consider the parts of the human finger: the finger has three joints, but we have a common language term for only on of them, the knuckle. This suggests that there are “lexical gaps” for the other two potential meronyms, but we presumably so rarely need to refer to them that a periphrastic expression will usually suffocate, e.g. the middle joint or the joint nearest the nail. That was an example from meronymy.

Let’s use the hyponymy relation to illustrate the unsystematic nature of hierarchical organization in vocabulary. The superordinate term is vehicle, and so we will look at different kinds of vehicles.

Vehicle

Car / automobile van lorry / truck bus cycle train

Further hyponyms might include various kinds of carriage and cart.

But a more rational hierarchy might wish to insert an intermediate level of generality, which would distinguish engine – powered, pedal – powered, horse – drawn, hand – operated / pushed vehicles. However, these terms are not of quite the same kind as vehicle, car, van, etc.; they seem created for the purpose. Moreover, these distinctions would separate pedal cycles from motorcycles, etc.:

Cycle

pedal cycle motorcycles

bicycle tricycle moped scooter motorbike

It demonstrates that, while the hierarchical semantic relations of hyponymy and meronymy are undoubtedly important in the structuring of vocabulary, they do not operate in an altogether systematic and unambiguous way. There are many lexical gaps that are shown up when we begin to build words into hyponymy and meronymy trees, and co – hyponyms may not always be distinguished on the same basis (size, purpose, mode of power, etc.). When a new word is coined, or a new object created and named, consideration is hardly given to its place in the structure of vocabulary. A word is coined because it is needed in some mode of discourse.

Dictionaries are recent invention. Human language has existed for at least 50 thousand years, but writing systems of any kind are rather young originating in the nearest no more than a few 1000 years ago. Obviously, writing systems have existed before there is any need for dictionaries. The earliest writing system is that of Greek, developed less than a thousand years before the birth of Christ and from it all the other are descended either in the eastern version Cyrillic or in the western Roman. But the greek did not in the dictionaries. The monks copying books by hand in the middle ages, didn’t know Latin very well. Most of the texts were written in Latin and they …in memories. They wrote translations or glosses between the lines. Other monks later made lists of the glosses and these glosses were the earliest latin-to-english dictionaries. All this took place about 700 years before publishing such lists. The 1^st such publication appeared within a lifetime Elisabeth the 1^st, who died 1603. The first moderately complete English dictionary was 150 years later the work of St. Johnson published in 1755.

Dictionaries that gave information about equivalences between two languages are called bilingual dictionaries. Monolingual dictionaries give information about the language we already know and want to know better. Monolingual dictionaries can be of two distinct types depending on the audience they are addressed to.

-specialized dictionaries clarify the technical jargon or various professional and scholarly areas.

-generally purpose dictionaries aimed to help to understand the precise meanings, pronunciations, spellings, usages and histories of the words including some technical words.

Generally purpose dictionaries can be of two types – unabridged dictionaries and desk dictionaries which are shortened form of full dict. Desk dictionaries we consult all the time. The term unabridged means that the dictionary is not a shortened version of some other dictionary. It was compiled from scratch with all definitions and arrangements of meanings and examples determined by its own editors. The oxford English dictionary has the extremely high degree of originality. It was the 1^st dictionary ever to try to include every word that had appeared in English since the Norman conquest borrowing only technical tems that hadn’t become common parpas.. of the 291, 627 entries in OED half or more a… that no longer occur in modern usage. The fully updated second edition of 1999 is available in the free…

1 twenty large heavy-printed volumes

2 a two volume compact version which is to be read with magnifying glass

3 compact-disc

This great dictionary is very important to all work of the history of English language. It is to large extent the work of a single individual sir James A.H. Murray, its 1^st official editor. He collected and organized citations from the hundreds of individual readers who were solicited of all the English-speaking world mainly from England and Scotland. He sought a citation clips and arranged them in historical order by senses so that one can see for every word what the date of the earliest sense was and how step by step the meaning changed or the new meaning arose from the old one. All modern that dictionaries draw much of historical and the etymological information from OED.

Webster’s third new international dictionary of the English language has 450 000 entries. It differs from the oxford English dictionary and that he has excluded all the absolute words but it considerably exceeds OED’s coverage of technical words from all the major field of knowledge. The OED and Webster dictionaries arranged their senses according to the date when each sense first came into English. It can be terribly misleading unless you know that the 1^st definitions are ancient history and probably only the last one applies a current usage. This order called historical order. The idea of logical or frequency determined order is that the meanings which are most frequent or most central come before those that are less common or more peripheral.

Desktop dictionaries.

For British users

The chambers dictionary (1998)

The most conspicuous feature that all derived forms are listed within the entry single under head word. Thus, if you want to find the term descriptor, you have to look under describe. The dictionary also has an appendix that lists common phrases and ever quotations from the classical languages and modern foreign languages. And another appendix which gives the origins of many … names.

For American users.

The American heritage dictionary;

Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary;

Random house Webster’s college dictionary;

Webster’s new world dictionary of the American language

The American heritage dictionary was innovative in some ways. Rather than placing all the etymological information in the entry in case

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