Lexical Meaning

Comparing word-forms, we can observe that besides grammatical meaning there is a component of meaning that can be found in them. Unlike the grammatical meanings, this component is identical in all forms of the word. Thus, the word-forms “go - goes - went - gone – going” possess different meanings of tense, person, etc., but in each of these forms we find one and the same semantic component denoting the process of movement. This is the lexical meaning of the word, which may be described as the component of meaning proper, and it's recurrent in all the forms of the word.

Both the lexical and the grammatical meanings make up the word meaning, neither can exist without the other. That can be also observed in the semantic analysis of correlated words in different languages. For example, the Russian word “сведения” is not identical with the English equivalent “information,” because the English word doesn't possess the grammatical meaning of plurality, which is part of the semantic structure of the Russian word.

лексического значения

Сравнение словоформ, то можно заметить, что кроме грамматического значения есть компонент значения, которые можно найти в них. В отличие от грамматических значений, этот компонент является идентичным во всех формах слова. Таким образом, словоформы "идти - идет - пошел - пошел - будет" обладают различными значениями времени, лица и т.д., но в каждой из этих форм мы находим одно и то же семантический компонент обозначающий процесс движения. Это лексическое значение слова, которое может быть описано как компонент смысла правильный, и это периодически во всех формах слова.

И лексических и грамматических значений составляющих слово, означающее, не может существовать без другого. Это может быть наблюдается и в семантическом анализе взаимосвязанных слов на разных языках. Например, русское слово "сведения" не совпадает с английского эквивалента "информация", поскольку английское слово не имеет грамматическое значение множественности, которая является частью семантической структуре русского слова.

12. Denotational and Connotational Components of Lexical Meaning (Детонационные и знаковые компоненты лексического значения).

We can observe that lexical meaning is not homogeneous either. It may be subdivided into denotational and connotational.

One of the functions of words is to denote things, concepts and so on. Users of the language can have knowledge or thought of the objects or phenomena of the real world, only if this knowledge it ultimately embodied in words. This is the denotational meaning. This component expresses the conceptual content of the word. It is this component that makes communication possible. To denote means to serve as a linguistic expression for a concept or as a name of individual object.

The second component of the lexical meaning is the connotational component. Connotation is the pragmatic communicative value the word receives, depending on where, when, how, by whom or what purpose and in what context it may be used. There are four main types of connotation: stylistic, emotional, evaluative and expressive (intensifying).

Stylistic connotation is what the word conveys about the spaker's attitude to the social circumstances and the appropriate functional style.

e. g. kill - neutral

to slay - bookish

daddy – colloquialism

father - neutral

parent - bookish

Evaluative connotation show his or her approval or disapproval of the subject spoken about.

e. g. group

clique

Emotional connotation conveys speaker's emotion. The emotive charge varies in different word classes. In some of them (interjection) the emotive element prevails, whereas the conjunctions and prepositions don't show any emotive charge.

Expressing (intensifying) connotation conveys the degree of intensity.

e. g. to like

to love

to adore

The interdependence of connotations with denotative meaning is different types of connotations. Thus, emotional connotation may be substituted by other types of connotation in the course in the course of time. The word “terrific” originally meant “frightening,” but now it is a colloquialism and it means “very good” or “great.” Fulfilling the significative and communicative functions of the word the denotative meaning is present in every word, and it may be regarded as the central factor in the functioning of a language. The expressive function of the language (speaker's feelings and attitude) and the pragmatic function (the effect of words upon listeners) are rendered in connotations. Unlike the denotational meaning, connotations are optional.

13. Types of Semantic Changes (Типы семантических изменений).

The meaning of a word can change in the course of time. Transfer of the

meaning is called lexico-semantic word-building. In such cases the outer aspect of

a word does not change.

The causes of semantic changes can be extra-linguistic and linguistic: the

change of the lexical meaning of the noun pen was due to extra-longuistic causes.

Primarily pen comes back to the latin word penna (a feather of a bird). As people

wrote with goose pens the name was transferred to steel pens which were later on

used for writing. Still later any instrument for writing was called a pen.

On the other hand, causes may be linguistic, e.g. the conflict of synonyms

when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some other language

one of them may specialize in its meaning. The noun tide in Old English was

polysemantic and denoted time, season, hour. When the French words time,

season, hour were borrowed into English they ousted the word tide in these

meanings. It was specialized and now means regular rise and fall of the sea caused

by attraction of the moon. The meaning of a word can also change due to ellipsis:

the word-group a train of carriages had the meaning of a row of carriages, later

on of carriages was dropped and the noun train changed its meaning, it is used

now in the function and with the meaning of the whole word-group.

Semantic changes have been classified by different scientists. The most

complete classification was suggested by a German scientist Herman Paul. It is

based on the logical principle. He distinguishes two main ways where the semantic

change is gradual (specialization and generalization), two momentary conscious semantic changes (metaphor and metonymy) and secondary ways: gradual

(elevation and degradation), momentary (hyperbole and litotes).

14. Extralinguistic Causes of Semantic Change (Экстралингвистические причины семантических изменений).

The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language: they are observed in changes of meaning resulting from the development of the notion expressed and the thing named and by the appearance of new notions and things. In other words, extralinguistic causes of semantic change are connected with the development of the human mind as it moulds reality to conform with its needs. The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language: they are observed in changes of meaning resulting from the development of the notion expressed and the thing named and by the appearance of new notions and things. In other words, extralinguistic causes of semantic change are connected with the development of the human mind as it moulds reality to conform with its needs. Languages are powerfully affected by social, political, economic, cultural and technical change. The influence of those factors upon linguistic phenomena is studied by sociolinguistics. It shows that social factors can influence even structural features of linguistic units: terms of science, for instance, have a number of specific features as compared to words used in other spheres of human activity. The word being a linguistic realisation of notion, it changes with the progress of human consciousness. This process is reflected in the development of lexical meaning. As the human mind achieves an ever more exact understanding of the world of reality and the objective relationships that characterise it, the notions become more and more exact reflections of real things. The history of the social, economic and political life of the people, the progress of culture and science bring about changes in notions and things influencing the semantic aspect of language.

15.. Polysemy. The Semantic Structure of Polysemantic Words (Полисемия. Семантической структуры многозначных слов).

Polysemy is characteristic of most words in many languages. All the lexical and lexico-grammatical variants of a word taken together form its semantic structure or semantic para­digm. The word “polysemy" means “plurality of meanings” it exists only in the language, not in speech.

Different meanings of a polysemantic word may come together due to the proximity of notions which they express. E. g. the word “blanket” has the following meanings: a woolen covering used on beds, a covering for keeping a horse warm, a covering of any kind /a blanket of snow/, covering all or most cases /used attributively/, e. g. we can say “a blanket insurance policy”.

There are some words in the language which are monosemantic, such as most terms, /synonym, molecule, bronchitis/, some pronouns /this, my, both/, numerals.

There are two processes of the semantic development of a word: radiation and concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning. E. g. in the word “face" the primary meaning denotes “the front part of the human head” Connected with the front position the meanings: the front part of a watch, the front part of a building, the front part of a playing card were formed. Connected with the word “face" itself the meanings: expression of the face, outward appearance are formed.

In cases of concatenation secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some meanings to the primary one. E. g. in the word “crust” the primary meaning “hard outer part of bread" developed a secondary meaning “hard part of anything /a pie, a cake/”, then the meaning ”harder layer over soft snow” was developed, then “a sullen gloomy person”, then “impudence” were developed. Here the last meanings have nothing to do with the primary ones. In such cases homonyms appear in the language. It is called the split of polysemy.

In most cases in the semantic development of a word both ways of semantic development are combined.

It is generally known that 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.

Polysemy is certainly not an anomaly. 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. Sometimes people who are not very well informed in linguistic matters claim that a language is lacking in words if the need arises for the same word to be applied to several different phenomena. In actual fact, it is exactly the opposite: if each word is found to be capable of conveying at least two concepts instead of one, the expressive potential of the whole vocabulary increases twofold. Hence, a well-developed polysemy is a great advantage in a language.

On the other hand, it should be pointed out that 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 is limited as well, and polysemy becomes increasingly important for enriching the vocabulary. From this, it should be clear that the process of enriching the vocabulary does not consist merely in adding new words to it, but, also, in the constant development of polysemy.

The system of meanings of any polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries, as more and more new meanings are added to old ones, or oust some of them. So the complicated processes of polysemy development involve both the appearance of new meanings and the loss of old ones. Yet, the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is to increase the total number of its meanings and in this way to provide for a quantitative and qualitative growth of the language's expressive resources.

When analysing the semantic structure of a polysemantic word, it is necessary to distinguish between two levels of analysis. On the first level, the semantic structure of a word is treated as a system of meanings. For example, the semantic structure of the noun “fire" could be roughly presented by this scheme (only the most frequent meanings are given):

The above scheme suggests that meaning (I) holds a kind of dominance over the other meanings conveying the concept in the most general way whereas meanings (II) - (V) are associated with special circumstances, aspects and instances of the same phenomenon.

Meaning (I) (generally referred to as the main meaning) presents the centre of the semantic structure of the word holding it together. It is mainly through meaning (I) that meanings (II) - (V) (they are called secondary meanings) can be associated with one another, some of them exclusively through meaning (I) - the main meaning, as, for instance, meanings (IV) and (V).

It would hardly be possible to establish any logical associations between some of the meanings of the noun “bar” except through the main meaning:

Bar, n

Meaning's (II) and (III) have no logical links with one another whereas each separately is easily associated with meaning (I): meaning (II) through the traditional barrier dividing a court-room into two parts; meaning (III) through the counter serving as a kind of barrier between the customers of a pub and the barman.

Yet, it is not in every polysemantic word that such a centre can be found. Some semantic structures are arranged on a different principle. In the following list of meanings of the adjective “dull" one can hardly hope to find a generalized meaning covering and holding together the rest of the semantic structure.

Dull, adj.

A dull book, a dull film - uninteresting, monotonous, boring.

A dull student - slow in understanding, stupid.

Dull weather, a dull day, a dull colour - not clear or bright.

There is something that all these seemingly miscellaneous meanings have in common, and that is the implication of deficiency, be it of colour (m. III), wits (m. II), interest (m. I), sharpness (m. V), etc. The implication of insufficient quality, of something lacking, can be clearly distinguished in each separate meaning.

Dull, adj.

Uninteresting - deficient in interest or excitement.

. Stupid - deficient in intellect.

Not bright - deficient in light or colour.

The transformed scheme of the semantic structure of “dull" clearly shows that the centre holding together the complex semantic structure of this word is not one of the meanings but a certain component that can be easily singled out within each separate meaning.

On the second level of analysis of the semantic structure of a word: each separate meaning is a subject to structural analysis in which it may be represented as sets of semantic components.

The scheme of the semantic structure of “dull" shows that the semantic structure of a word is not a mere system of meanings, for each separate meaning is subject to further subdivision and possesses an inner structure of its own.

Therefore, the semantic structure of a word should be investigated at both these levels:

1) of different meanings,

2) of semantic components within each separate meaning. For a monosemantic word (i. e. a word with one meaning) the first level is naturally excluded.

16. Polysemy and Context (Многозначность и контекст).

From the discussion of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations it follows that afull understanding of the semantic structure of any lexical item can be gained onlyfrom the study of a variety of contexts in which the word is used, i.e. from the studyof the intralinguistic relations of words in the flow of speech. This is of greatestimportance in connection with the problem of the synchronic approach to polysemy.It will be recalled that in analysing the semantic structure of the polysemantic word table we observed that some meanings are representative of the word in isolation, i.e.they invariably occur to us when we hear the word or see it written on paper. Othermeanings come to the fore only when the word is used in certain contexts. This is trueof all polysemantic words. The adjective

yellow, e.g., when used in isolation, is understood to denote a certain colour, whereas other meanings of this word, e.g.'envious', 'suspicious' or 'sensational', 'corrupt ', are perceived only in certain contexts,e.g. 'a yellow look ', '

the yellow press', etc.

As can be seen from the examples discussed above we understand by the term context

the minimal stretch of speech determining each individual meaning of the word. This is not to imply that polysemantic words have meanings only in the context. The semantic structure of the word has an objective existence as a dialectic alentity which embodies dialectical permanency and variability. The context individualises the meanings, brings them out. It is in this sense that we say that meaning is determined by context.The meaning or meanings representative of the semantic structure of the word and least dependent on context are usually described as

free or denominative meanings. Thus we assume that the meaning 'a piece of furniture' is the denominative meaning of the word table, the meaning 'construct, produce' is the free or denominative meaning of the verb

make. The meaning or meanings of polysemantic words observed only in certain contexts may be viewed as determined either by linguistic (or verbal) contexts or extra-

linguistic (non-verbal) contexts.

The two more or less universally recognized main types of linguistic contextswhich serve to determine individual meanings of words are the

lexical context

andthe

grammatical context

. These types are differentiated depending on whether thelexical or the grammatical aspect is predominant in determining the meaning.

17. Radiation and Concatenation (Радиация и конкатенация).

There are two processes of the semantic development of a word: radiation and concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning. E.g. in the word «face» the primary meaning denotes «the front part of the human head» Connected with the front position the meanings: the front part of a watch, the front part of a building, the front part of a playing card was formed. Connected with the word «face» itself the meanings: exdivssion of the face, outward appearance is formed.

In cases of concatenation secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some meanings to the primary one. E.g. in the word «crust» the primary meaning «hard outer part of bread» developed a secondary meaning «hard part of anything /a pie, a cake/», then the meaning»harder layer over soft snow» was developed, then «a sullen gloomy person», then «impudence» were developed. Here the last meanings have nothing to do with the primary ones. In such cases homonyms appear in the language. It is called the split of polysemy.

In most cases in the semantic development of a word both ways of semantic development are combined.

Nowadays methods of distinction of homonymy and polysemy were worked out. This helps us to differ the meaning of the same word and homonymy which formed in a result of the complete gap of polysemy. Below let us study the methods of studying of synonymy and homonymy.

1. The lexical method of distinction of homonymy and polysemy. This method is concluded in revealing the synonymic connection of polysemy and homonymy. If consonant units are get in one synonymic row when different meanings of words remain still the semantic intimacy and, there fore, it is early to say that polysemy is transferred in to homonymy. If the consonant words are not get in one synonymic row that words are homonymy.

18. Homonymy. The Origin of Homonyms (Омонимия.Происхождение Омонимы).

Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical in sound or

spelling, or both in sound and spelling.

Homonyms can appear in the language not only as a result of split of

polysemy, but also as a result of levelling of grammar inflexions, when different

parts of speech become identical in their outer aspect: care from caru and care

from carian.

They can also be formed by means of conversion: slim – to slim.

They can be formed with the help of the same suffix from the same stem:

reader – a person who reads and a book for reading.

They can be the result of forming splinters, completives and lexical

abbreviations: bio – a splinter with the meaning biology, biological as in the word

biometrics; bio – a combining form with the meaning life as in the word biology; bio – a lexical shortening of the word biography with the meaning a short

biography.

Homonyms can also appear in the language accidentally when two words

coincide in their development, e.g. two native words can coincide in their outer

aspects: to bear from beran (to carry) and bear from bera (an animal). A native

word and a borrowing can coincide in their outer aspects, e.g. fair from Latin feria

and fair from native fager (blond). Two borrowings can coincide, e.g. base from

the French base (Latin basis) and base (low) from the Latin bas (Italian basso).

Homonyms can develop through shortening of different words: COD from

Concise Oxford Dictionary and cash on delivery.

Walter Skeat classified homonyms according to their spelling and sound

forms and he pointed out three groups: perfect homonyms, words identical in

sound and spelling: school – косяк рыбы and школа; homographs, words with the

same spelling but pronounced differently: bow – поклон and bow – лук;

homophones, words pronounced identically but spelled differently: night - ночь

and knight - рыцарь.

Another classification was suggested by A.I. Smirnitsky. He added to

Skeat’s classification one more criterion: grammatical meaning. he subdivided the

group of perfect homonyms into two types:

a) perfect homonyms which are identical in their spelling, pronunciation

and their grammar form: spring in the meanings the season of the year, a

leap, a source;

b) homoforms which coincide in their spelling and pronunciation but have

different grammatical meaning: reading – Present Participle, Gerund,

Verbal noun; to lobby-lobby.

I.V. Arnold pointed out the following groups of homonyms: a) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings, basic forms and

paradigms and different in their lexical meanings: board – a council and

board – a piece of wood sawn thin;

b) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings and basic forms, but

different in their lexical meanings and paradigms: to lie – lied – lied, and

to lie – lay – lain;

c) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings,

paradigms, but coinciding in their basic forms: light (lights) - light

(lighter, lightest);

d) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, in

their basic forms and paradigms, but coinciding in one of the forms of

their paradigms: a bit and bit (from to bite);

e) patterned homonyms differ from other homonyms, having a common

component in their lexical meanings. They are formed either by means of

conversion, or by levelling of grammar inflexions. These homonyms are

different in their grammatical meanings, in their paradigms, but identical

in their basic forms: warm – to warm.

19. Types of Homonyms (Виды Омонимы).

Basically there are two main types of homonyms: homophones and homographs. Here's a quick overview.

Homophones sound the same but may be spelled differently.

For example, the homophones cent, scent and sent differ in spelling:

When my grandmother emigrated to Canada, she didn't have a cent to her name.

Joe and Bridget's favourite movie is The Scent of Green Papaya.

The parcel was sent by courier.

However, carp (to complain needlessly) and carp (the fish) do not:

Rashad would tune out when his boss began to carp at him.

Johanne's passion is fishing for trophy carp.

Homographs have the same spelling, but different meanings. Yet that doesn't always mean they sound the same.

For example, bank (a financial establishment) and bank (the slope bordering a river) are homographs that are spelled and sound the same:

Go to the bank and deposit your paycheque.

Jim and Janet went down to the river bank to admire the swans.

But sewer (a conduit for waste) and sewer (a person who sews) sound quite different:

The sewer drains were backed up.

Novice sewers often buy their fabric on sale.

And some words—such as carp and bank, as we have just seen—are both homophones and homographs: they are pronounced and spelled the same. However, most people don't worry about the subtle differences and call them all homonyms.

Homonyms are tricky: there are no hard-and-fast rules—you must learn them by heart. Only the context will tell you which word to use. Remember, practice (or is it practise?) makes perfect.

20. Morphological Structure of English Words (Морфологическая структура английских слов).

Every word has its own morphological structure, that is a certain arrangement of morphemes that constitute the word by itslef. The morpheme may be defined as the smallest meaningful unit, which has a sound form and meaning and which occurs in speech as a part of a word.

Sometimes morphemes consist of different allomorphs, that is their variants. Il-, ir-, im-, in- are allomorphs of the prefix in-.

e. g. important

illiterate

irresponsible

inconstant

Morphemes are divided into two large groups: lexical and grammatical (functional).

Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free and bound.

Free lexical morphemes are roots of words, which express the lexical meaning of the word. They coincide with the stem of simple words. Free grammatical morphemes are functional words: prepositions, articles, conjunctions. Biund grammatical morphemes are inflexions (endings) (-'s, -ed, -er). Some of the morphemes are named semi-free, or semi-bound, as they can function both as an affix and as a free morpheme.

e. g. half-broken

ill-hearted

When speaking about the structure of words, a tem also should be mentioned. A stem may be defined as the part of the word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm.

Sometimes, after deducing the affixes, the remaining stem is not homonymous to a separate word of the root. Then it is called a bound stem. Bound stems are especially characteristic of loan word.

If we take off the affixes of these words, the remaining elements do not not coincide with any semantically related words.

Roots may be regarded as the ultimate constituent elements which remain after the removal of all affixes, and they do not admit any further analysis. It is the common element within a word family. For example, the word "heart" is the root of the following series of words: to hearten, to dishearten, heartless, heartiness, sweetheart, heartbroken, kindharted. In these examples we can find not only the one root heart, which is combined with different affixes, but also a word sweetheart, which is compound and consists of two roots.

Semantically morphemes are subdivided into root-morphemes and affixational morphemes. The root-morphemes are the lexical centers of the word. Affixational morphemes include inflexions and derivational affixes.

Inflexion is a morpheme which carries only grammatical meaning. It serves to form word-forms. Derivational morpheme is an element which modifies the lexical meaning of the root and forms a new word. In many cases it adds the part-of-speech meaning.

Derived words are those which consist of one root morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes.

Compound words are those which contain at least two root morphemes.

e. g. cameraman, walkie-talkie

21. Morphemes: Free, Bound and Semi-free or Semi-bound Forms (Морфемы: Свободные, связанные и полу-свобоные или полу-связанные формы).

Morphemes are the smallest indivisible two-facet units composite words are

made of, e.g. teach-er, kill-joy. A morpheme can occur in speach only as a

constituent part of the word. It may have different phonetic variants (allomorphs):

decision – attention; inactive – illegal. Its meaning varies too: childish – reddish;

encircle – enrich.

Morphemes form an autonomous subsystem of language units. Each

morpheme has its norm of combinability with certain other morphemes, cf.: breakage, develop-ment – break-ment, develop-age. Morphemes may be homonymous

(motherly - quickly), synonymous (inactive - unhappy), antonymous (useful -

useless).

Affixal morphemes carry lexical and grammatical meaning. Functional

affixes belong to grammar, they build word-forms: ask-ed, long-er. Lexicology is

mainly interested in derivational affixes, as they build words: boy-hood, boy-ish,

boy-like. lexical morphology deals with two different problems: word-structure (segmentation of words into morphemes) and word-formation (making new words

with the help of morphemes).

Lexical meaning of morphemes may be analysed into denotational and

connotational components. The denotational meaning in affixes is more

generalized than in root-morphemes, e.g. –er carries the meaning the doer of the

action: reader, teacher, singer. All endearing and diminutive suffixes bear a heavy

emotive charge: -ie (girlie, dearie); -ette (kitchenette). Many stylistically marked

affixes are bookish or scientific: a- (amoral); -oid (rhomboid).

All suffixes and some prefixes possess grammatical (part-of-speech)

meaning: -ness (emptiness) carries the nominal meaning of thigness. Rootmorphemes do not possess any grammatical meaning: in the root-morpheme man-

(manly) there is no grammatical meaning of case and number observed in the word

man.

Grammatical and lexical meaning in suffixes are blended: -er (teacher)

carries the meaning thingness (noun) and the doer of the action.

In all polymorphemic words their constituent morphemes possess two more

types of meaning: differential and distributional. Differential meaning

distinguishes a word from all others containig identical morphemes: in the word

teacher the root teach- differentiates it from other words beginning in teach

(teaching). Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement of

the constituent morphemes: ring-finger, singer. A different arrangement of the

same morphemes will change the meaning of the word or make the word

meaningless: finger-ring, er-singer.

22. Productivity. Productive and Non-productive Ways of Word-building (

Производительность. Производственные и непроизводственные Пути Словостроения).

Some affixes are used with great freedom. They are said to be productive. The suffix -ness can be added to a very large number of adjectives to form a noun: obvious, obviousness; friendly, friendliness; fruitful, fruitfulness; cheap, cheapness; and so on. In fact the speaker of English is fairly free to make up new nouns on this model, although he is likely to feel somewhat reluctant to do so if there is an already existing noun with the meaning he desires. For instance, gratefulness and legalness are likely to be thought rather odd words since they are trying to compete with gratitude and legality. Nevertheless, the tendency to coin new words on the model ‘adjective+ -ness’ can be observed when people say things like sincereness, if they are not aware of the existence of the word sincerity or are unable to think of it on the occasion in question. The case is different with suffixes like the -th in warmth. There is only a handful of nouns formed on this pattern, and even some of these have stems that have become less recognizable in the course of history: width is based upon wide, length upon long, health upon a now obsolete forerunner of the word whole, in the sense ‘healthy’. In fact, the suffix -th is fossilized and almost totally unproductive. In between the two extremes of -ness and -th there are many gradations of productiveness (or is it productivity?). The suffix-ation is obviously less widely used than-ness, but more productive than -th. Think of words like hospitalization; most words that end in -ize seem to accept the further ending fairly readily. In general, derivation is a historical process that has resulted in the addition of words to the lexical stock of the language over the centuries. It is not indulged in with perfect freedom by the users of English. There are always greater restrictions on the production of new words than on the production of new sentences. Patterns of composition are also highly constrained. Breakfast, based upon break and fast is an unproductive model. We could not call a garage mechanic a mend-tyre. On the other hand, there are highly productive patterns for combining nouns with nouns to form new nouns: key ring, key chain, key case, key wallet, doorknob, door handle, door hook, notepaper Since the structure of these expressions is compound, and the process of composition merely entails putting two stems together without modification, it is often not at all clear whether we should count such formations as one word or two. The reader might like to ask himself whether the following expressions are part of his own lexical stock, or whether the model on which they are constructed is so productive that he could interpret them and coin them at need: chair seat, conference programme, speech therapy, application form, job opportunity, camera shop, floor board, invitation date I assume that occasionally there will be some hesitation in answering the question. It appears that the contents of one’s lexical stock are in some respect indeterminate. It could very well be that the lexical stock and the formation rules for coining new expressions overlap. At all events, the indeterminacy does not affect the ‘output’ of the language user; he is equally intelligible whether he has ‘made it up’ or repeated it from memory, and we cannot tell which he has done. The interesting thing is that a compound expression of the kind camera shop, etc. can be incorporated into further layers of composition with results like the following: key ring wallet, door handle screws, car park attendant, insurance building car park, etc. This is so fruitful a way of coining new expressions that it is much used in technical vocabularies (e.g. litho-drawing ink, watercolour wash) and newspaper headlines (e.g. job loss

total, cabinet discussion leak).

Поиск по сайту: