Literary Stratum of Words. Colloquial Words

The word-stock of any given language can be roughly divided into three uneven groups, differing from each other by the sphere of its possible use. The biggest division is made up of neutral words, possessing no stylistic connotation and suitable for any communicative situation; two smaller ones are literary and colloquial strata respectively.

Literary words serve to satisfy communicative demands of official, scientific, poetic messages, while the colloquial ones are employed in non-official everyday communication. Though there is no immediate correlation between the written and the oral forms of speech on one hand, and the literary and colloquial words, on the other, yet, for the most part, the first ones are mainly observed in the written form, as most literary messages appear in writing. And vice versa: though there are many examples of colloquialisms in writing (informal letters, diaries, certain passages of memoirs, etc.), their usage is associated with the oral form of communication.

Consequently, taking for analysis printed materials we shall find literary words in authorial speech, descriptions, considerations, while colloquialisms will be observed in the types of discourse, simulating (copying) everyday oral communication - i.e., in the dialogue (or interior monologue) pf a prose work.

When we classify some speech (text) fragment as literary or colloquial it does not mean that all the words constituting it have a corresponding stylistic meaning. More than that: words with a pronounced stylistic connotation are few in any type of discourse, the overwhelming majority of its lexis being neutral. As our famous philologist L.V. Shcherba once said - a stylistically coloured word is like a, drop of paint added to a glass of pure water and colouring the whole of it.

Neither of the two named groups of words, possessing a stylistic meaning, is homogeneous as to the quality of the meaning, frequency of use, sphere of application, or the number and character of potential users. This is why each one is further divided into the general, i.e. known to and used by most native speakers in generalized literary (formal) or colloquial (informal) communication, and special bulks. The latter ones, in their turn, are subdivided into subgroups, each one serving a rather narrow; specified communicative purpose.

So, among special literary words, as a rale, at least two major subgroups are mentioned. They are:

1. Terms, i.e. words denoting objects, processes, phenomena of science, humanities, technique.

2. Archaisms, i.e. words, a) denoting historical phenomena which are no more in use (such as "yeoman", "vassal", "falconet"). These are historical words.

b) used in poetry in the XVII-XIX cc. (such as "steed" for "horse"; "quoth" for "said"; "woe" for "sorrow"). These are poetic words.

c) in the course of language history ousted by newer synonymic words (such as "whereof = of which; "to deem" = to think; "repast" = meal; "nay" = no) or forms ("maketh" = makes; "thou wilt" = you will; "brethren" = brothers). These are called archaic words (archaic forms) proper.

Literary words, both general (also called learned, bookish, high-flown) and special, contribute to the message the tone of solemnity, sophistication, seriousness, gravity, learnedness. They are used in official papers and documents, in scientific communication, in high poetry, in authorial speech of creative prose.

Colloquial words, on the contrary, mark the message as informal, non-official, conversational. Apart from general colloquial words, widely used by all speakers of the language in their everyday communication (e.g. "dad", "kid", "crony", "fan", "to pop", "folks"), such special subgroups may be mentioned:

1. Slang forms the biggest one. Slang words, used by most speakers in very informal communication, are highly emotive and expressive and as such, lose their originality rather fast and are replaced by newer formations. This tendency to synonymic expansion results in long chains of synonyms of various degrees of expressiveness, denoting one and the same concept. So, the idea of a "pretty girl" is worded by more than one hundred ways in slang.

In only one novel by S. Lewis there are close to a dozen synonyms used by Babbitt, the central character, in reference to a girl: "cookie", "tomato", "Jane", "sugar", "bird", "cutie", etc.

The substandard status of slang words and phrases, through universal usage, can be raised to the standard colloquial: "pal", "chum," "crony" for "friend"; "heavies", "woolies" for "thick panties"; "booze" for "liquor"; "dough" for "money"; "how's tricks" for "how's life"; "beat it" for "go away" and many many more - are examples of such a transition.

2. Jargonisms stand close to slang, also being substandard, expressiveand emotive, but, unlike slang they are used by limited groups of people,united either professionally (in this case we deal with professionalJargonisms, or professionalisms), or socially (here we deal with jargonisms proper). In distinction from slang, Jargonisms of both typescover a narrow semantic field: in the first case it is that, connected withthe technical side of some profession. So, in oil industry, e.g., for theterminological "driller" (буровщик) there exist "borer", "digger","wrencher", "hogger", "brake weight"; for "pipeliner" (трубопроводчик)- "swabber", "bender", "cat", "old cat", "collar-pecker", "hammerman";for "geologist" - "smeller", "pebble pup", "rock hound", "witcher", etc.From all the examples at least two points are evident: professionalismsare formed according to the existing word-building patterns or presentexisting words in new meanings, and, covering the field of specialprofessional knowledge, which is semantically limited, they offer a vastvariety of synonymic choices for naming one and the same professionalitem.

Jargonisms proper are characterized by similar linguistic features, but differ in function and sphere of application. They originated from the thieves' jargon (l'argo, cant) and served to conceal the actual significance of the utterance from the uninitiated. Their major function thus was to be cryptic, secretive. This is why among them there are cases of conscious deformation of the existing words. The so-called back jargon (or back slang) can serve as an example: in their effort to conceal the machinations of dishonest card-playing, gamblers used numerals in their reversed form: "ano" for "one", "owt" for "two", "erth" for "three".

Anglo-American tradition, starting with E. Partridge, a famous English lexicographer, does not differentiate between slang and Jargonisms regarding these groups as one extensive stratum of words divided into general slang, used by all, or most, speakers and special slang, limited by the professional or social standing of the speaker. This debate appears to concentrate more on terminology than on essence. Indeed slang (general slang) and jargonisms (special slang) have much in common: are emotive, expressive, unstable, fluctuating, tending to expanded synonymity within certain lexico-semantic groups and limited to a highly informal, substandard communication. So it seems appropriate to use the indicated terms as synonyms.

3. Vulgarisms are coarse words with a strong emotive meaning, mostly derogatory, normally avoided in polite conversation. History of vulgarisms reflects the history of social ethics. So, in Shakespearian times people were much more linguistically frank and disphemistic in their communication than in the age of Enligtenment or the Victorian era, famous for its prudish and reserved manners. Nowadays words which were labelled vulgar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are considered such no more. In fact, at present we are faced with the reverse of the problem: there are practically no words banned from use by the modern permissive society. Such intensifiers as "bloody", "damned", "cursed", "hell of", formerly deleted from literature and not allowed in conversation, are not only welcomed in both written and oral speech, but, due to constant repetition, have lost much of their emotive impact and substandard quality. One of the best-known American editors and critics Maxwell Perkins, working with the serialized 1929 magazine edition of Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms found that the publishers deleted close to a dozen words which they considered vulgar for the publication. Preparing the hard-cover edition Perkins allowed half of them back ("son of a bitch", "whore", "whorehound," etc.). Starting from the late fifties no publishing house objected to any coarse or obscene expressions. Consequently, in contemporary West European and American prose all words, formerly considered vulgar for public use (including the four-letter words), are accepted by the existing moral and ethical standards of society and censorship.

4. Dialectal words are normative and devoid of any stylistic meaning in regional dialects, but used outside of them, carry a strong flavour of the locality where they belong. In Great Britain four major dialects are distinguished: Lowland Scotch, Northern, Midland (Central) and Southern. In the USA three major dialectal varieties are distinguished: New England, Southern and Midwestern (Central, Midland). These classifications do not include many minor local variations Dialects markedly differ on the phonemic level: one and the same phoneme is differently pronounced in each of them. They differ also on the lexical level, having their own names for locally existing phenomena and also supplying locally circulating synonyms for the words, accepted by the language in general. Some of them have entered the general vocabulary and lost their dialectal status ("lad", "pet", "squash", "plaid").

Each of the above-mentioned four groups justifies its label of special colloquial words as each one, due to varying reasons, has application limited to a certain group of people or to certain communicative situations.

PRODUCTIVE AND NON-PRODUCTIVE WAYS OF WORD-FORMATION

Productivity is the ability to form new words after existing patterns which are readily understood by the speakers of a language. The most important and the most productive ways of word-formation are affixation, conversion, word-composition and abbreviation (contraction). In the course of time the productivity of this or that way of word-formation may change.

AFFIXATION. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SUFFIXES

AND PREFIXES. CLASSIFICATION OF PREFIXES

The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme. Suffixation is more productive than prefixation. In Modern English suffixation is characteristic of noun and adjective formation, while prefixation is typical of verb formation (incoming, trainee, principal, promotion).

A suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or a different word class, cf. - en, -y, -less in hearten, hearty, heartless.

A prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning, cf. hearten - dishearten.

WORD - COMPOSITION. CLASSIFICATION OF COMPOUND WORDS

Word-composition is another type of word-building which is highly productive. That is when new words are produced by combining two or more stems. The bulk of compound words is motivated and the semantic relations between the two components are transparent. This type of word-building, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems, is one of the three most productive types in Modern English, the other two are conversion and affixation. Compounds, though certainly fewer in quantity than derived or root words, still represent one of the most typical and specific features of English word-structure. The classification according to the type of composition establishes the following groups: 1) The predominant type is a mere juxtaposition without connecting elements: heartache

2) Composition with a vowel or a consonant as a linking element. The examples are very few: electromotive adj, speedometer n, Afro-Asian adj, handicraft n, statesman n. 3) Compounds with linking elements represented by preposition or conjunction stems: down-and-out n, matter-of-fact adj, son-in-law n, pepper-and-salt adj, wall-to-wall adj, up-to-date adj, on the up-and-up adv (continually improving), up-and-coming, as in the following example: No doubt he'd had the pick of some up-and-coming jazzmen in Paris (Wain). There are also a few other lexicalised phrases like devil-may-care adj, forget-menot n, pick-me-up n, stick-in-the-mud n, what 's-her name n

CONVERSION

Conversion is a highly productive way of coining new words in Modem English. Conversion is sometimes referred to as an affixless way of word-building, a process of making a new word from some existing root word by changing the category of a part of speech without changing the morphemic shape of the original root-word. The new word has a meaning which differs from that of the original one though it can more or less be easily associated with it. It has also a new paradigm peculiar to its new category as a part of speech. Thus, conversion is an affixless derivation consistsing in making a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged: The telephone rang while I was eating my scrambled egg and toast. I answered it still chewing (Barstow) - телефон задзвонив...

He would send a cable or telephone as soon as he knew when he would be able to

return (Howard) - вщ надшле телеграму або зателефонуе...

I've been telephoning Major Knighton all day to try and get hold of you, but he couldn't say for sure when you were expected back (Christie) - я цшсшький день дзвоню майору Найтону...

SHORTENING. LEXICAL ABBREVIATIONS. ACRONYMS. CLIPPING

The shortening of words involves the shortening of both words and word-groups. Distinction should he made between shortening of a word in written speech (graphical abbreviation) and in the sphere of oral intercourse (lexical abbreviation). Lexical abbreviations may be used both in written and in oral speech. Lexical abbreviation is the process of forming a word out of the initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a word combination by simultaneous operation of shortening and compounding. This comparatively new way of word-building has achieved a high degree of productivity nowadays, especially in American English. Shortenings (or contracted/curtailed words/clipping) are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word from a syllable (rarer, two) of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone, fence from defence), its ending (as in hols from holidays, vac from vacation, props from properties, ad from advertisement) or both the beginning and ending (as in flu from influenza, fridge from refrigerator): It was remarkable that the prisoners were so brain-dulled by their conditions that the onset of flu symptoms caused no special reaction at first. (Clancy). The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group (UNO [*ju:neu] from the United Nations Organisation). This type is called initial shortenings. They are found not only among formal words, but also among colloquialisms and slang. So, g.f is a shortened word made from the compound girl-friend.

Here are some more examples of informal shortenings:

moving-picture —* movie

gentleman —*gent

spectacles —* specs

circumstances —*• circs

If the abbreviated written form lends itself to be read as though it were an ordinary

English word and sounds like an English word, it will be read like one. The words thus

formed are called acronyms (from Gr across - "end'+onym "name"). Ibis way of forming

new words is becoming more and more popular in almost all fields of human activity,

and especially in political and technical vocabulary:

English

UN — United Nations;

USA - United States of America;

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization;

UNICEF - United Nations International

Children's Emergency Fund;

UNESCO - United Nations Educational,

NON-PRODUCTIVE MEANS

OF WORD FORMATION

BLENDING

Blendings (blends, fusions or portmanteau words) may be defined as formation that

combine two words and include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting

element:

bio (logical) + (electro)nic —» bionic

wash + (caf)eteria —> washeteria

sk(ateboard) + (s)urfing —» skurflng

slim+gymnastics —> slimnastics;

miserable+flimsy —> mimsy;

gallop+triumph —> galumph;

new+utopia —• neutopia

UA. бантвський + автомат —* банкомат

ONOMATOPOEIA

Onomatopoeia (sound-imitation, echoism) is the naming of an action or thing by a

more or less exact reproduction of a natural sound associated with it (babble, crow, twitter).

Words coined by this interesting type of word-building are made by imitating different

kmds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and

inanimate objects.

Non –productive blending, back-formation, onomatopoeia, sound and stress interchange

Specifically English Types of Word-Formation

Among the productive word-forming types completely foreign to Ukrainian is to be pointed out first of all conversion. The latter is performed according to some models of "converting" nouns into verbs or verbs into nouns, adjectives into nouns or nouns into adjectives, which can be seen from the examples below:

1. N>V

a chairman > to chairman

a butcher > to

butcher a boss > to boss

an X-ray > to X-ray

2. V>N

to catch > the catch to look > a

look to ride > a ride to know

how > (the) know-how

Verbs in English can often be formed as a result of converting other parts of speech as well. Cf. down (adv.) > to down (a plane),- verb

encore (interj.) to encore - verb, pooh-pooh (interj.) > to pooh-pooh,

- verb, etc.

Note. Ukrainian verbs can also be often formed from other parts of speech - interjections, pronouns, and particles by adding the suffixes - ка-ти. Cf. бах (intey.) - бахкати (verb), гей - гейкати, не - чекати, но - нокати, ти/ви - тикати (не тикайте на мене)/викати, цить - цитькати, ух - ухкати, штокати (contemptuously), etc.

Likewise English adjectives can easily be converted into nouns, and vice versa, according to the following patterns:

3.A>N 4. N>A

Intellectual (a) > an intellectual (n) maiden (n) > maiden (a)

progressive (a) > a progressive (n) sidelong (n) >sidelong (a)

Ukrainian (a) > a Ukrainian (n) sluggard (n) > sluggard

(a)

young (a) > a/the young (n) Zionist (n) > Zionist (a)

Among other specifically English types of word-formation the following

should be first of all pointed out:

a) The sound interchange (i.e. short vs. long): bit - beat, cot -

court, kin - keen, live - life, prove - proof, rid - read, sit - seat, etc.

b) Lexicalisation of some plural forms of nouns like colour — co

lours (military banner), glass — glasses (eye-glasses, opera-glasses),

line - lines (poetic works), etc.

c) The phonomorphological word-formation which is closely con

nected with the abbreviation proper. Cf. Mr. for mister, Mrs. (mistress),

govt. (government), Sgt. (sergeant), memo (memorandum),

demo (dem onstration), D (Lady D) princess Diana, and many others.

SEMASIOLOGY AS THE BRANCH OF LINGUISTICS. REFERENTIAL AND FUNCTIONAL APPROACHES TO MEANING Semasiology is the branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words

POLYSEMY. THE SEMANTIC

STRUCTURE OF A POLYSEMANTIC WORD

Most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of

meanings. 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.

Most English words are polysemantic. It should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of a language largely depends on the degree to which polysemy has developed in the language. The number of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is limited. Therefore at a certain stage of language development the production of new words by morphological means becomes limited, and polysemy becomes increasingly important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary. The process of enriching the vocabulary does not consist merely in adding new words to it, but, also, in the constant development of polysemy.

Semantic GROUPS OF WORDS

Synonyms are two or more words belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable in some contexts. These words are distinguished by different shades of meaning, connotations and stylistic features.

The synonymic dominant is the most general term potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the other members of the group.

All (or, at least, most) synonymic groups have a "central" word of this kind whose

meaning is equal to the denotation common to all the synonymic group, cf.:

To surprise - to astonish - to amaze - to astound.

To shout - to yell - to bellow - to roar.

To shine - to flash - to blaze - to gleam - to glisten - to sparkle - to glitter - to shimmer - to glimmer.

To tremble - to shiver — to shudder - to shake.

To make - to produce - to create - to fabricate – to manufacture.

The only existing classification system for synonyms was established by Academician 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).

HOMONYMS

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,

and safeguarding money

ball, n. - a sphere; any spherical body ** ball, n. - a large dancing party

Both meanings of the form "liver" are, for instance, intentionally present in the following

play upon words: Is life worth living? - It depends upon the liver.

English vocabulary is rich in such pairs and even groups of words. Their identical

forms are mostly accidental: the majority of homonyms coincided due to phonetic changes

which they suffered during their development.

CLASSIFICATION OF HOMONYMS

The most widely accepted classification of homonyms is that recognizing homonyms

proper, homophones and homographs.

Homonyms proper (or perfect, absolute) are words identical in pronunciation and

spelling but different in meaning, cf.

back n. "part of the body" - back adv. "away from the front"- back v. "go back";

bear n. "animal" - bear v. "carry, tolerate".

Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning:

air n. - heir п.;

buy v. - by prep.;

him pr. - hymn п.;

Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical

in spelling:

bow [bau], v. - to incline the head or body in salutation;

bow [bou], n. - a flexible strip of wood for propelling arrows;

lead [li:d],v. - to conduct on the way, go before to show the way;

lead [led] n. - a heavy, rather soft metal;

tear [teq], v. - to pull apart or in pieces by force;

tear [tie], n. - a drop of the fluid secreted by the lacrinial glands of the eye;

UA деревина - одиничне дерево;

деревина - матер1ал для буд1вництва та виготовлення р1зних предмете;

сага - (жанр давньогерманського епосу);

сага - (р1чкова затока).

Homoforms are words identical in some of their grammatical forms:

to bound (jump, spring) ** bound (past participle of the verb bind);

found (establish) found (past participle of the verb find).

Homonyms may belong both to the same and to different categories of parts of speech.

Obviously, a classification of homonyms should reflect this distinctive feature. Also, the

paradigm of each word should be considered, because it has been observed that the paradigms

of some homonyms coincide completely, and of others only partially.

Accordingly, Professor A. I. Smirnitsky classified homonyms into two large classes:

full homonyms and partial homonyms.

Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category of parts of

speech and have the same paradigm.

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:

found, v. found, v. (Past Ind., Past Part, of to find);

lay, v. ** lay, v. (Past Ind. of to lie);

bound, v. bound, v. (Past Ind., Past Part, of to bind).

B. Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories

of parts of speech which have one identical form in their paradigms:

rose, n. ** rose, v. (Past Ind. of to rise);

maid, n. •+ made, v. (Past Ind., Past Part, of to make);

left, adj. <•» left, v. (Past Ind., Past Part, of to leave);

bean, n. ** been, v. (Past Part, of to be); ','

one, num. **won, v. (Past Ind., Past Part, of to win).

C. Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which

are identical only in their corresponding forms:

lie (lay, lain), v. lie (lied, lied), v.

hang (hung, hung), v. ** to hang (hanged, hanged), v.

Paronyms are words that are alike in form, but different in meaning and usage. They

are liable to be mixed and sometimes mistakenly interchanged. The term paronym comes

from the Greek para Reside" and onoma "name". Cf.:

precede ** proceed;

preposition <-*• proposition;

popular <-»• populous;

UA громадський - громадянсъкий;

економний - еконо.хйчний;

соц1альний - соц1ал1стичний;

компатя - кампашя;

статичний - статистичний;

абонент — абонемент.

Here are some so called Bushisms (words used by the George Bush, the president of

the United States of America) perfect samples for paronyms:

"I don't have to accept their tenants. I was trying to convince those college students

to accept my tenants. And I reject any labeling me because I happened to go to the university."

Today, Feb. 23, 2000 (tenant-* tenet); •. '

"Anyway, I'm so thankful, and so gracious - I'm gracious that my brother Jeb is concerned

about the hemisphere as well." Miami, Fla., June 4, 2001 (grateful ** gracious);

"I think there is some methodology in my travels." Washington, D.C., March 5, 2001

(method *+ methodical).

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.

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EUPHEMISMS

There are words in every language which people instinctively avoid because they are considered indecent, indelicate, rude, too direct or impolite. As the "offensive" referents, for which these words stand, must still be alluded to, they are often described in a roundabout 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, naturally, produced many euphemisms. Here are some of them: powder room, washroom, restroom, retiring room, (public) comfort station, ladies' (room), gentlemen's (room), water-closet, w.c., public conveniences and even Windsor castle (which is a comical phrase for "deciphering" w.c.). Pregnancy is another topic for "delicate" references. Here are some of the euphemisms used as substitutes for the adjective pregnant: in an interesting condition, in a delicate condition, in the family way, with a baby coming, (big) with child, expecting. The apparently innocent word trousers, not so long ago, had a great number of euphemistic equivalents, some of them quite funny: unmentionables, inexpressibles, indescribables, unwhisperables, you-mustn 't-men-tion 'ems, sit-upons. Nowadays, however, nobody seems to regard this word as "indecent" any more, and so its euphemistic substitutes are no longer in use.

ANTONYMS

We use the term antonyms to indicate words of the same category of parts of peech

which have contrasting meanings, such as hot - cold, light - dark, happiness - borrow, to

accept - to reject, up - down.

If synonyms form whole, often numerous, groups, antonyms are usually believed to appear

in pairs. Yet, this is not quite true in reality. For instance, the adjective cold may be said

to have warm for its second antonym, and sorrow may be very well contrasted with gaiety.

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, en-

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tertaining for its meaning of "deficient in interest", clever, bright, capable for its meaning

of "deficient in intellect", and active for the meaning of "deficient in activity", 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, strong - weak, old—young, friendly — hostile.

Verbs take second place, so far as antonymy is concerned. Yet, verbal pairs of antonyms

are fewer in number: to lose — to find, to live — to die, to open - to close, to weep - to laugh.

Nouns are not rich in antonyms, but even so some examples can be given: friend-enemy,

joy - grief, good — evil, heaven - earth, love - hatred.

Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups:

a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly - coldly, merrily — sadly, loudly - softly;

b) adverbs proper: now - then, here - there, ever - never, up - down, in - out.

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 as not cold, that is, contrast it

to its missing antonym. 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".

THEORETICAL GRAMMAR

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