Synonymy.Euphemism

Lexical units may be classified by the criterion of semantic similarity and semantic contrasts. The term generally used to denote these two types of semantic relatedness are synonyms and antonyms.

Synonyms are words different in their sound form, but identical or similar in their denotational meaning or meanings and interchangeable at least in some contexts.

There are some absolute synonyms in the language, which have exactly the same meaning and belong to the same style, e.g. to moan, to groan.In cases of desynonymization one of the absolute synonyms can specialize in its meaning and we get semantic synonyms, e.g. «city» /borrowed/, «town» /native/. Sometimes one of the absolute synonyms is specialized in its usage and we get stylistic synonyms, e.g. «to begin»/ native/, «to commence» /borrowing/. Stylistic synonyms can also appear by means of abbreviation. In most cases the abbreviated form belongs to the colloquial style, and the full form to the neutral style, e.g. «examination’, «exam».

Among stylistic synonyms we can point out a special group of words, which are called euphemisms. These are words used to substitute some unpleasant or offensive words, e.g «the late» instead of «dead». There are also phraseological synonyms, these words are identical in their meanings and styles but different in their combining with other words in the sentence, e.g. «to be late for a lecture» but «to miss the train». In each group of synonyms there is a word with the most general meaning, which can substitute any word in the group, e.g. «piece» is the synonymic dominant in the group «slice», «lump», «morsel». When speaking about the sources of synonyms, besides desynonymization and abbreviation, we can also mention the formation of phrasal verbs, e.g. «to give up» - «to abandon».
23 .Antonymy. Antonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style, expressing contrary or contradictory notions.

V.N. Comissarov in his dictionary of antonyms classified them into two groups: absolute or root antonyms /»late» - «early»/ and derivational antonyms / «to please’ - «to displease»/. Absolute antonyms have different roots and derivational antonyms have the same roots but different affixes. In most cases negative prefixes form antonyms / un-, dis-, non-/. The number of antonyms with the suffixes ful- and -less is not very large. The same is true about antonyms with negative prefixes, e.g. «to man» is not an antonym of the word «to unman», «to disappoint» is not an antonym of the word «to appoint». The difference between derivational and root antonyms is not only in their structure, but in semantics as well. Derivational antonyms express contradictory notions, one of them excludes the other, e.g. «active»- «inactive». Absolute antonyms express contrary notions. If some notions can be arranged in a group of more than two members, the most distant members of the group will be absolute antonyms, e.g. «ugly», «plain», «good-looking». Leonard Lipka in the book «Outline of English Lexicology» describes different types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into three types:

a) complementary, e.g. male -female, married -single,

b) antonyms, e.g. good -bad, based on different logical relationships

c) converseness., e.g. to buy - to sell. Converseness is mirror-image relations or functions.

24.Homonymy. Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical in sound or spelling, or both in sound and spelling.

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

2 but also as the result of levelling of grammar inflexions(‘care’ from “caru”). 3 3 They can be also formed by means of conversion, e.g. «to slim» from «slim».4They can be formed with the help of the same suffix from the same stem, e.g. «reader»/ a person who reads and a book for reading/.5 Homonyms can also appear in the language accidentally, when two words coincide in their development(: «to bear» from «beran»/to carry/ and «bear» from «bera»/an animal/.6 Homonyms can develop through shortening of different words, e.g. «cab» from «cabriolet», «cabbage»). Classifications of homonyms. Walter Skeat classified homonyms

1 according to their spelling and sound forms and he pointed out three groups:

perfect homonyms that is words identical in sound and spelling, such as: «school» - «косяк рыбы» and «школа»;

homographs, that is words with the same spelling but pronounced differently, e.g. «bow» -/bau/ - «поклон» and /bou/ - «лук»;

homophones that is words pronounced identically but spelled differently, e.g. «night» - «ночь» and «knight» - «рыцарь».

Smirnitsky added to Skeat’s classification one more criterion: grammatical meaning. subdivided the group of perfect homonyms in Skeat’s classification into two types of homonyms:

perfect which are identical in their spelling, pronunciation and their grammar form and homoforms which coincide in their spelling and pronunciation but have different grammatical meaning. Arnold classified only perfect homonyms and suggested four criteria of their classification: lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, basic forms and paradigms.
25Phraseology.Classification. Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot be made in the process of speech, they exist in the language as ready-made units. A.V. Koonin classified phraseological units according to the way they are formed. He pointed out primary and secondary ways of forming phraseological units.

Primary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a unit is formed on the basis of a free word-group «to link up» - «cтыковаться, стыковать космические корабли» in its tranformed meaning it means «granny farm» - «пансионат для престарелых»,». Secondary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a phraseological unit is formed on the basis of another phraseological unit; they are:«to vote with one’s feet» was converted into «vote with one’s f eet». SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS was suggested by acad. V.V. Vinogradov for Russian phraseological units. He pointed out three types of phraseological units:

a) fusions where the degree of motivation is very low, we cannot guess the meaning of the whole from the meanings of its components(at sixes and sevens - (in a mess)). unities where the meaning of the whole can be guessed from the meanings of its components(old salt (experienced sailor)). c) collocations where words are combined in their original meaning but their combinations are different in different languages(. cash and carry - (self-service shop). SYNTACTICAL CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS was suggested by I.V. Arnold: a) noun phraseologisms denoting an object, a person, a living being, e.g. bullet train; b) verb phraseologisms denoting an action, a state, a feeling, e.g. to break the log-jam; c) adjective phraseologisms denoting a quality, e.g. loose as a goose; d) adverb phraseological units, such as: with a bump; e) preposition phraseological units, e.g. in the course of; f) interjection phraseological units, e.g. «Catch me!».

29.Lexicography. The theory and practice of compiling dictionaries is called lexicography. All dictionaries are divided into linguistic and encyclopaedic dictionaries.

Encyclopaedic dictionaries describe different objects, phenomena, people and give some data about them. Linguistic dictionaries describe vocabulary units, their semantic structure, their origin, their usage. Words are usually given in the alphabetical order.

Linguistic dictionaries are divided into general and specialized. To general dictionries two most widely used dictionaries belong: explanatory and translation dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include dictionaries of synonyms, antonyms, collocations, word-frequency, neologisms, slang, pronouncing, etymological, phraseological and others.

All types of dictionaries can be unilingual (excepting translation ones) if the explanation is given in the same language, bilingual if the explanation is given in another language and also they can be polilingual.2. SOME BASIC PROBLEMS OF DICTOIANARY COMPILING The work on dictionary consists of the following main stages: the collection of material, the selection of entries and their arrangement, the setting of each entry.At different stages of his work the lexicographer is confronted with different problems. Some of these refer to any type of dictionary, others are specific of only some or even one type. The most important of the former are L

The selection of lexical units for inclusion;

Their arrangement;

The setting of entries,

The selection and arrangement(grouping) of word meanings,

The definition of meanings,

Illustrative material

7) Supplementary material
26.Functional styles.Neutral,common literary,common colloquial vocabulary.The English language as being divided into three main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer, the colloquial layer.The literary vocabulary consists of the groups of words:common literary, terms and learned words,poetic words, archaic words, barbarisms and foreign words, literary coinages including nonce-words.The colloquial vocab-ry falls into:common ‘colloquial words’, slang, jargonisms, professional words, dialectical words, vulgar words, colloquial words.Neutral words are used in both literary and colloquial words,Neutral words are the main source of synonymy and polysemy.It is the neutral stock of words that is so prolific in the production of new meanings.Common literary words are chiefly used in writing and in polished speech.One can tell a literary word from a colloquial word.Both literary and colloquial words have their upper and lower ranges.The lower range of literary words approaches the neutral layer and has a markedly obvious tendency to pass into the layer.The same may be said of the upper range of the colloquial layer:it can very easily pass into the neutral layer. The lines of demarcation between common colloquial layer:it can very easily pass into the neutral layer. The lines of demarcation between common colloquial and neutral, and common literary and neutral, on the other hand, are blurred.

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