TYPES OF WF

Sound imitation – words are made by imitating different links of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds… bark – лаять, mew – мяукать… some names of animals, birds & insects are made by SI coo-coo – кукушка, crow – ворона.

To glide, to slip are supposed to convey the very sound of the smooth easy movement over a slippery surface.

Back formation a verb is produced from a noun by subtraction (вычитание) bagger – to bag, babysitter – to babysit

Blending -Is blending part of two words to form one word (merging into one word), combining letters/sounds they have in common as a connecting element. Smoke + fog = smog, Breakfast + lunch = brunch, Smoke + haze = smaze (дымка)

- addictive type: they are transformable into a phrase consisting of two words combined by a conjunction “and” smog → smoke & fog

- blending of restrictive type: transformable into an attributive phrase, where the first element serves as modifier of a second. Positron – positive electron, Medicare – medical care

Borrowings. Contemporary English is a unique mixture of Germanic & Romanic elements. This mixing has resulted in the international character of the vocabulary. In the comparison with other languages English possesses great richness of vocabulary.

All languages are mixtures to a greater or lesser extent, but the present day English vocabulary is unique in this respect.

A brief look on various historical strata of the English vocabulary:

1) through cultural contacts with Romans partly already on the continent and all through the influence of Christianity a very early stratum of Latin-Greek words entered the language.

Their origin is no longer felt by the normal speaker today in such word: pound, mint, mustard, school, dish, chin, cleric, cheese, devil, pepper, street, gospel, bishop.

The same can be said about some Scandinavian words (from about the 10^th century) that today belong to the central core of the vocabulary.

It means that their frequency is very high. They, their, them, sky, skin, skill, skirt, ill, dies, take... They partly supersede the number of OE words OE heofon – heaven (sky) Niman – take Steorfan – die

A more radical change & profound influence on the English vocabulary occurred on 1066 (Norman Conquest). Until the 15^th cent., a great number of French words were adopted. They belong to the areas of court, church, law, state.

Virtue, religion, parliament, justice, noble, beauty, preach, honour...

The influx of the words was the strongest up to the 15^th cent., but continued up to the 17^th cent.

Many French borrowings retained their original pronunciation & stress

Champagne, ballet, machine, garage...

Separate, attitude, constitute, introduce...

Adjectives in English – arrogant, important, patient

Sometimes with their derivatives:

Demonstrative – demonstration

Separate – separation

17-18 cc. due to the establishing of cultural, trade relations many words were borrowed from Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French.

Italian: libretto, violin, opera

Spanish: hurricane, tomato, tobacco

Dutch: yacht, dog, landscape

French: bouquet, buffet

From the point of view of their etymology formal words are normally of classical Romanic origin, informal – Anglo-Saxon.

Nowadays many Americanisms become familiar due to the increase of transatlantic travel & the influence of broadcast media.

Even in London (Heathrow airport) “baggage” instead of “luggage”

The present day English vocabulary is from being homogeneous.

6. Neologisms new word expressions are created for new things irrespective of their scale of importance. They may be all important and concern some social relationships (new form/ state) People’s republic. Or smth threatening the very existence of humanity nuclear war or the thing may be short lived. N is a newly coined word, phrase/ a new meaning for an existing word / a word borrowed from another language.

The development of science and industry technology: black hole, internet, supermarket.

The adaptive lexical system isn’t only adding new units but readjust the ways & means of word formation radio detection and ranging – RADAR

The lex. System may adopt itself by combining several word-building processes face-out (noun) – the radioactive dust descending through the air after an anatomic explosion. This word was coined by composition/ compounding & conversion.

Teach –in (n) –a student conference/ series of seminars on some burning issue of the day, meaning some demonstration on protest. This pattern is very frequent lis–in, due-in means protest demonstration when fluking traffic. Bionies – the combination of bio & electron.

Back formation: air-condion – air-conditioner – air-conditioning

Semi-affixes (могут быть как самостоятельные слова) chairman used to be not numerous and might be treated as exceptions now, evolving into separate set.

Some N abscessed with smth and containing the elements mad & happy: powermad, moneymad, auto-happy.

Conversion, composition, semantic change are in constant use when coining N

The change of meaning rather an introduction of a new additional meaning may be illustrated by the word NETWORK – stations for simultaneous broadcast of the same program.

Once accepted N may become a basis for further word formation. ZIP – to zip – zipper – zippy.

The lex. System is unadaptive system, developing for many centuries and reflecting the changing needs, servicing only in special context. Archaism & historisms.

Archaism – once common but are now replaced by synonyms. Mostly they are poetic: morn – arch, morning – new word, hapless – arch, unlucky – modern.

Historism – when the causes of the word’s disappearance are extralinguistic, eg. The thing named is no longer used. They are very numerous as names for social relations, institutions, objects of material culture of the past, eg. many types of sailing craft belong to the past: caravels, galleons.A great many of H denotes various types of weapons in historical novels: blunderbuss - мушкетер, breastplate. Many of them are in Voc in some figurative meaning: shiel – щит, sword. – меч.

7. Homonymy. Different in meaning, but identical in sound or spelling form

Sources:

1. The result of split of polysemy capital – столица, заглавная буква

Homonymy differs from polysemy because there is no semantic bond (связь) between homonyms; it has been lost & doesn’t exist.

2. as the result of leveling of grammar in flections, when different parts of speech become identical in their forms. Care (in OE) - caru(n), care (OE) – carian (v)

3. By conversion slim – to slim, water – to water

4. With the help of the same suffix fro the same stem. Reader – the person who reads/a book for reading.

5. Accidentally. Native words can coincide in their form beran – to bear, bera (animal) – to bear

6. Shortening of different words. Cab (cabriolet, cabbage, cabin)

Homonyms can be of 3 kinds:

1. Homonyms proper (the sound & the spelling are identical) bat – bat - flying animal (летучая мышь) - cricket bat (бита, back - part of body, away from the front, go to back

2. Homophones (the same sound form but different spelling) flower – flour, sole – soul, rain – reign, bye-by-buy

3. Homographs (the same spelling) tear [iə] – tear [εə, lead [i:] – lead [e]

Homonyms in English are very numerous. Oxford English Dictionary registers 2540 homonyms, of which 89% are monosyllabic words and 9,1% are two-syllable words.

So, most homonyms are monosyllabic words. The trend towards monosyllabism, greatly increased by the loss of inflections and shortening, must have contributed much toward increasing the number of homonyms in English.

Among the other ways of creating homonyms the following processes must be mentioned:

From the viewpoint of their origin homonyms are sometimes divided into historical and etymological. Historical homonyms are those which result from the breaking up of polysemy; then one polysemantic word will split up into two or more separate words. Etymo1ogiсal homonyms are words of different origin which come to be alike in sound or in spelling (and may be both written and pronounced alike).

Borrowed and native words can coincide in form, thus producing homonyms (as in the above given examples). In other cases homonyms are a result of borrowing when several different words become identical in sound or spelling. E.g. the Latin vitim - "wrong", "an immoral habit" has given the English vice - вада "evil conduct"; the Latin vitis -"spiral" has given the English ''vice" - тиски "apparatus with strong jaws in which things can be hold tightly"; the Latin vice - "instead of", "in place of" will be found in vice - president.

8. Synonymy.

A synonym – a word of similar or identical meaning to one or more words in the same language. All languages contain synonyms but in English they exist in superabundance. There no two absolutely identical words because connotations, ways of usage, frequency of an occurrence are different. Senses of synonyms are identical in respect of central semantic trades (denotational meaning) but differ in respect of minor semantic trades (connotational). In each group of S there’s a word with the most general meaning, with can substitute any word of the group. TO LOOK AT - to glance – to stare

Classification:

Weather the different in denotational/ connotational component

1. Ideographic synonyms. They bear the same idea but not identical in their referential content, different shades of meaning or degree. BEAUTIFUL – fine, handsome – pretty, to ascent – to mount – to climb.

2. Stylistic synonyms. Different in emotive and stylistic sphere.

Eat - Devour ( degradation), Face - muzzle (морда)

Synonymic condensation is typical of the English language.

It refers to situations when writers or speakers bring together several words with one & the same meaning to add more conviction, to description more vivid. Ex .: Lord & master, First & foremost, Safe & secure, Stress & strain, by force & violence

Among synonyms there’s a special group of words – euphemism used to substitute some unpleasant or offensive words. Drunk – marry

According to interchangability context S are classified

3. Total synonyms An extremely rare occurrence. Ulman: “a luxury that language can hardly afford.” M. Breal spoke about a law of distribution in the language (words should be synonyms, were synonyms in the past usually acquire different meanings and are no longer interchangeable). Ex.: fatherland - motherland

4. Contextual synonyms. Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades & suppress other semantic trades; words with different meaning can become synonyms in a certain context. Ex.: tasteless – dull, Active – curious, Curious – responsive

Synonyms can reflect social conventions.

Ex.:

5. Dialectical synonyms. Ex .: lift – elevator, Queue – line, autumn – fall

6. Relative some authors classify group like: like – love – adore, famous- celebrated – eminentthey denote different degree of the same notion or different shades of meanings and can be substituted only in some context.

Antonymy. Words belonging to the same part of speech identical in speech expressing contrary or contradictory notion.

Комиссаров В.Н. classify them into absolute/ root (late/early) they have different roots, derivational (toplease-to displease) the same root but different affixes. In most cases “-“ prefixes from antonyms an, dis, non. Sometimes they are formed by suffixes full & less. But they do not always substitute each other selfless – selfish, successful – unsuccessful. the same with “-“ prefixes to appoint – to disappoint.

The difference is not only in structure but in semantic. The DA express contradictory notions, one of then excludes the other active – inactive. The AA express contrary notion: ugly – plain – good-looking – pretty – beautiful

Antonimy is distinguished from complementarily by being based on different logical relationshipd for pairs of antonyms like good – bad, big – small. He is good (not bad). He is not good (doesn’t imply he is bad). The negation (отрицание) of one term doesn’t implies the assertion of the other.

John Lines suggests proper hot-warm – tapped – cold & complementary antonyms only 2 words negative and assertion not male - female.

There’s also one type of semantic opposition conversives words denote one reference as viewed from different points of view that of the subject & that of the object. Bye – sell, give - receive

Conversness is minor image relations of functions husband – wife, pupil – teacher, above – below, before - after

9. Phraseology. Phrasiological units/ idioms – motivated word group. They are reproduced as readymade units. Express a singe notion, used in sentence as one part of it.

Idiomaticy - PU when the meaning of the wholeis not deducible from the sum of the meanings of the parts. Stability of PU implies that it exist as a readymade linguistic unit, which doesn’t allow of any variability of its lexical component of gr. Structure.

In ling. literature the term Phraseology is used for the expressions where the meaning of one element is depended on the other. Vinogradov: “irrespective of structure and properties of the units”. Smernitsky: “it denotes only such set expressions which do not possess expressiveness or emotional coloring”. Arnold: “it says that only denotes such set expressions that are imaginative, expressive and emotional”. Ammosova call them fixed context units – we can’t substitute an element without changing the meaning of the whole. Ahmanova insists on the semantic intearity of such phrases: “prevailing over the structural separates of their element”. Kuning lays stress on the structural separatness of the elements in the PU on the change of meaning in the whole as compared with its elements taken separately with its elements and on a certain minimum stability.

Phraseology (Webster’s dictionary) mode of expression peculiarities of diction. That is choice and arrangement of words and phrases characteristic of some author.there are difficult terms. Idioms word equivalents & these difficult units or terminology reflects certain differences in the main criteria used to distinguish.

The features: 1. lack of semantic motivation 2. Lexical & grammatical stability

Semantic classification: 2 criteria: 1). The degree of semantic isolation 2). The degree of disinformation

1. Opaque in meaning (трудный для понимания) the meaning of the individual words can’t be summed together to produce the meaning of the whole. to kick the bucket = to die It contains no clue to the idiomatic meaning of this expression.The degree of semantic isolation is the highest.

The 3 typesof PU:

1.Phraseological fusions. The degree of motivation is very low. one component preserves its direct meaning Ex .: to pass the buck = to pass responsibility – свалить ответственность,

2. Phraseological unities. Clearly motivated. Transparent both components in their direct meaning but the combination acquires figurative sense to see the light = to understand, old salt - морской волк

3. Phraseological combinations. There is a component used in its direct meaning. There are lots of idioms (proverbs, saying). To be good at smth.: Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back Idioms institutionalized formulas of politeness: How do you do?Good-bye (God be with you) How about a drink?

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