Лекции Л. И. Городнего по лексикологии английского языка
Semasiology
Learning objectives: Afteryou have studied the lecture you shouldable to:
1)definethe term semasiology;
2)speak about the problem of defining the term
3)explain the essence of
a) the referential approach to the problem of defining themeaning
b) the functional approach;
4)expressyour own appreciation of the problem under analysis.
5)give (draw) a basic triangle (E.g.: The shop houses 15-ton crane; Anaked conductor ran along the car).
The brunch of lexicology, that is devoted to the study of meaning isknown as Semasiology.
Semasiology (from Gr . semasia - "signification") deals notwith every kind of linguistic meaning only. This does not mean thatwe need not pay attention to the grammatical meaning. On thecontrary, grammatical meaning must be taken into consideration in sofar as it bears a specific influence upon lexical meaning.
The main objects of semasiological study are as follows: semanticdevelopment of words,
its causes andclassification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexicalmeaning, polysemyand semantic structure of word, semantic groupings and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, etc.
Meaning is one of the mostcontroversial terms in the theory of language. An exact definition oflexical meaning becomes especially difficult due to complexity of theprocess, by which language and human consequence serve to reflectoutward reality. Since there is no universally accepted definitionmeaning we shall give a brief survey of the problem as it is viewedin modern linguistics. There are 2approachesto the problem: 1) the referentialapproach,which formulates the essence of meaning as the interdependencebetween words and things or concepts they denote; 2) the functionalapproach, which studies the functions of a word in speech. Thisapproach is (sometimes described as contextual) based on the analysisof various contexts.
The essential feature of thefirst approach is that in distinguishes between the three components,connected with meaning:
1) the sound form of the linguistic sign (sign or symbol);
2) the concept underlyingthis sound form (meaning;thought or reference).
3 ) the actual referent, i.e. the part or the aspect of reality towhich the linguistic sign refers (thing meant).
The best known referentialmodel of meaning is so-called"basic triangle", whichmay be represent in a simplified form:
Concept(meaning, thought, referent)
Sound formreferent (thing meant)
(sign, symbol)
As we can see from thediagram, the sound form of the linguistic sign, for instance [kot] isconnected with our concept of a small which it denotes, and though itwith the referent,i.e. the actual thing. The common feature of the referentialapproach is the implacation that meaning in some form or otherconnected with referent.
Let us examine the interrelation between:
1-Meaning and sound form
The sound-form of the word is not identical with, its meaningnamely [kot] is the sound form, used to denote a bed for a childThere are inherent connections between this sound form, used todenote a bed for a child. There are inherent connections between thissound form and the meaning of the word "cot", but they areconventional and arbitrary. We may prove it by comparing thesound-forms of different languages, conveying one and the samemeaning, cf. English [kot] and Russian [krovatka]. On the contrary,the sound-cluster [kot] in the English language is almost identicalto the sound form in Russian language possessing the meaning"male-cat".
2-Meaning and concept
When we examine a word, wesee that its meaning, though connected with the underlying concept isnot identical with it. To begin with, concept is a category of humancognition. Concept is the thought of the object that singles out itsessential features. Our concepts abstracts and reflect the mostcommon and typicalfeatures of the different objects and phenomena of the world. Beingthe result of abstraction the concepts are thus almost the same forthe whole of humanity. The meanings of worlds, however, are differentin different languages. In other words, words expressing identicalconcepts may have different semantic structures in differentlanguages. The concept of "a building for human habitation”is expressed in English by the word house, in Russian by the wordдом,but the meaning of the English word is not identical with that of theRussian as house does not possess the meaning of "fixedresidence of family or household", which that of the Russian ashouse does not possess the meaning of the Russia word дом;it is expressed by another English word, namely home.
The difference between meaning and concept can also be observed bycomparing synonymous words and word-groups expressing the sameconcepts, but possessing linguistic meaning, which is felt asdifferent in each of the units under considerations:
Big - large;
To die - to pass away - kick the bucket - join the majority;
Child - baby-babe-infant;
Daddy - father - governor - etc.
3-Meaning and referent
To distinguish meaning fromthe referent, i.e. from thething denotedby the linguistic sign is of the utmost importance. To beginwith, meaning is a linguistic phenomenon whereas the denoted objector the referent isbeyond the scope of language. We can denote one and the same object by more than one word of a different meaning. Forexample, an apple can be denoted by the words apple, fruit, smth,this, etc. So far as all these words have the same referent.
Thus meaning is not to be identified with either of the three points of the triangle. It is closely connected, but not identicalwith sound-form, concept or referent. Yet even the linguists,who accepted this view disagree as to the nature of meaning.Some of them regard meaning as the interrelation of the threepoints the triangle within the framework of the given language, but not as an objectively exitingpart ofthe linguistic sign. Others and among them the outstanding Russianscholar Smirnitsky A. I. understandthe linguistic sign as a two-facet unit. They viewmeaning as "acertain reflection in our mind of objects, phenomena or relationsthat makes part of the linguistic sign - its so called inner facet,whereas the sound-form functions as its outer facet" The outerfacet of the linguistic sign is indispensable to meaning andintercommunication. Meaning is to be found in all linguistic unitsand together withtheir sound-form constitutes bylinguistic science. The linguistic signs studied by linguisticscience.
The great stumbling block inreferential theories of meaning has always been that they operatewith subjective and intangiblemental processes. The results of the semantic investigation thereforedepend to a certain extent on "the feeling of language"and cannot be verified by another investigator analyzing the samelinguistic data. So, semasiology has to rely too much on linguisticintuitionand unlikeother fields of linguistics (phonetics, history of language) does notposses objective methods of investigation.
Functional approach to Meaning
In recent years a new andentirely different approach to meaning has appeared in structurallinguistics. This approach maintains that a linguistic study ofmeaning is the investigation of the relation of sign to sign only. Inother words, they hold the view that the meaning of a linguistic unitmay be studied only through its relation to other linguistic unitsand not through its relation to either concept or referent. Thus, themeaning of the 2 words moveand movementis different because they function in speech differently. Really,they occupy different positions in relation to other words. (To) movecan be followed by a noun (move the chair), preceded by a pronoun (wemove), etc. The position occupied by the word movement is different:it may be followed by a preposition (movement of smth) preceded by anadjective (slow movement) and so on. As the distribution ("theposition of a linguistic sign in relation to other linguistic signs)of the 2 words is different they cone to the conclusion that not onlythey belong to different classes of words, but that that not onlymeanings are different too.
It follows that in the functional approach meaning may be viewed asthe function of distribution: 1) semantic investigation is confinedto the analysis of the different or sameness meaning; 2)meaning isunderstood essentially as the function or the use of linguisticsigns.
Relation between the 2 approaches
When comparing the two approaches in terms of methods of linguistic analysis, we may see that thefunctional approach should not be considered an alternative, butrather a valuable complement to the referential theory. It is onlynatural that linguistic investigation must start by collecting anadequate number of samples of context. Once this phase had beencompleted, it seems but logical, to pass on to the referential phaseand try to formulatethe meaning thus identified. There is absolutely no need to set thetwo approaches against each other; each handles - its is side of theproblem and neither is complete without the other.
The meaning of theword, its components
Theword is one of the fundamental units of language. It is a dialectalunity of form and content. Its content or meaning is not identical tonotion, but it may reflect human notion, but it may reflect humannotion and is considered as the form of their existence. So thedefinition of a word is one of the most difficult in linguistics,because the simplest word has many different aspects: a sound form,its morphological structure, it may occur in different word-forms andhave various meanings.
It is universally recognized that word meaning is not homogeneous,but it is made up of various components, which are described as typesof meaning. There are 2 types of meaning to be found in words andword forms:
thegrammatical meaning;
thelexical meaning.
Suchword forms as “girls”, “writers”, “tables”,etc., though denoting different objects of reality have smth incommon, namely the grammatical meaning of plurality, which can befound in all of them. Thus, the grammatical meaning is the componentof meaning in the word forms of verbs (asked, thought, walked, etc.)or the case meaning in the word forms of various nouns (girls, boys,nights).
Word forms “speaks”, “reads”, “writers”have one and the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found inidentical distributation, only after pronouns “she”,“he”, “they” and before such adverbs andadverbal phrases as “yesterday”, “last years”,“two hours ago”, etc.
The grammatical aspect of the part of speech meaning is conveyed as arule by individual sets of word forms expressing the grammaticalmeaning of singularity (e.g. table) plurality (tables) and so on.
A verb is understood to possess sets of forms expressing, forinstance, tense meaning (works-worked), mood meaning (work – Iwork).
The part of speech meaning of the words that possess but one form,e.g. prepositions, some adverbs, etc., is observed only in theirdisrtibutations (c.f. to come in (here, there) and in (on, under) thetable).
Lexical meaning
Besidesthe grammatical meaning, there is another component of meaning.Unlike the grammatical meaning this component is identical in all theforms of the word. Thus the word-forms “go”, “goes”,“went”, “going” possess different grammaticalmeanings of tense, person and so on, but in each of these forms wefind one and the same semantic component denoting the process ofmovement. This is the lexical meaning of the word, which may bedescribed as the component of meaning proper to the word as alinguistic unit.
Thus, by lexical meaning we designate1the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms anddisrtibutations, while by grammatical meaning we designate themeaning proper to sets of word forms common to all words of a certainclass.
Both lexical and the grammatical meanings make up the word meaning asneither can exist without the other.
The interrelation of the lexical and thegrammatical meaning and the role, played by each varies in differentword classes and evening different groups of words within one and thesame class. In some parts of speech the prevailing component is thegrammatical type of meaning. The lexical meaning of prepositions is,as a rule, relatively vague2(cf. to think/speak of smb., independent of smb., one of the friends,the room of the house). The lexical meaning of some preposition,however, may be comparatively distinct (cf. in/on/under the table).In verbs the lexical meaning usually comesto the fore3,although in some of them, the verb “to be”, e.g. thegrammatical meaning of a linking element prevails (cf. “heworks as a teacher”).
Denotational meaning
Proceedingwith the semantic analysis we observe that lexical meaning may beanalyzed as including denotational and connotational components. Oneof the functions of words is to denote things, concepts and so on.Users of a language cannot have only knowledge or thought of theobject or phenomena of the real world around them, unless thisknowledge is ultimately embodied in words, which have essentially thesame meaning for all speakers of the language. This is thedenotational meaning, i.e. that component of which the lexicalmeaning makes the communication possible.
Connotationalmeaning
Theconnotational meaning4is the second component of lexical meaning. This component or theconnotation includes the emotive charge and the stylistic value ofthe word.
Emotivecharge is a part of the connotational meaning of a word; e.g. ahovel5denotes “a small house or cottage” and besides implies6that it is a miserable dwelling place, duty in bad repair and, ingeneral, unpleasant place to live in.
Whenexaming such groups of words as “large”, “big”,“tremendous” and “like”, “love”,“worship” and “girl”, “girlie” weobserve the difference in the emotive charge of the words“tremendous”, “worship” and “girlie”is heavier than those of words “large”, “like”and “girl”.
Theemotive charge does not depend on the “feeling” of theindividual speaker, but is true for all speakers of English. Theemotive charge is one of the objective semantic features of word aslinguistic units and forms part of the connotational component ofmeaning.
Butit should be confused with emotive implication that the words mayacquire in speech. The emotive implication of the word is to a greatextent selective as it greatly depends on the personal experience ofthe speaker, the mental imagery7the word envokes in him.
Learningobjection of the lecture ”The meaning of the word, itscomponents”
Afteryou have studied the lecture, you should be able:
-
To explain theessence of the notions:
The meaning of theword, its main types;
The grammaticalmeaning;
The lexicalmeaning;
Interrelationbetween them.
-
To give the semanticanalyze of the lexical meaning of a word:
The denotationalcomponent,
The connotativecomponent.
To speak aboutstylistic reference of words.
1обозначать
2неясный, смутный
3выходить,выдвигатьсявперед
4Сопутствующеезначение, то,что подразумевается
5Лачуга, хибара
6Подразумевать
7Образ(ы), образность
04 Polysemy. Semantic Structure of the Word
The modern approach to semasiology is based onthe assumption that the inner form (or facet) of the word (i.e.its meaning) presents a structure, which is called the semanticstructure of the word.
We know that most words convey several conceptsand thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. A word havingseveral meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability ofwords to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy
The word "polysemy" (from Greece"polus"-many and "sema"-meaning) means aplurality of meanings.
The system of meanings ofanypolysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the, centuries.These complicated processes of polysemy development involve both theappearance of the new meanings and the loss of old ones. Yet, thegeneral tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage ofits history is to increase the total number of its meanings and toprovide for a quantitieve and qualitative growth of the expressiveresources of the language.
Thus, word counts show thatthe total number of meanings separately registered in the New EnglishDictionary (NED) for the 1st thousand of the most frequent Englishwords is almost 25 000,i.e. the average number of meanings for eachof these words is 25.
For example: the word "power" has 15meanings:
Capacity of producing some effect (the powerof heart burn)
Control over some people (the power ofGovernment)
Delegated authority (the president exuded hispower)
Physical Strength (all the power of hismuscles)
Moral or intellectual force, energy
A person of influence (he is a power in thetown)
11) An effective quality of style in writing (awriter of great power)
12) Personal influence (a man's power means thereadiness of other; men to obey him)
The elements of the semantic structure.
There arуno universally acsepfed criteria for differentiating these variantswithin one polysemantic word.The following terms may be found withdifferent authors:
the meaning is direct ornominative when it nominates the object without the help ofcontext,in insolation, i.e., in one,word sentences for example the "Rain" etc.
The meaning is figurativewhen the object is named and at the same time characterized. throughits similarity, with - another object, while naming the object theword simultaneouslydescribes it.
Other oppositions are:
Main or primary – secondary
Central - periphery
Narrow - extended
General – particular
Concrete - Abstract, etc.
Take, for example, the noun"screen". We find it in its direct meaning when it names amovable piece of furniture" used to hide smth. or protect smb,as in case of "fire screen" placed in front of a fireplace.The meaning is figurative when the word is applied to anything whichprotects by hiding, I as in "smoke screen". We define thismeaning as figurative comparing it to the first that we calleddirect. Again,- when by a "screen" a speaker means "asilver-coloured sheet on which pictures are shown, this meaning incomparison with the first will be secondary. When the same word isused attributitively in such combinations as "screen actor","screen star", "screen version", etc., it comesto mean "pertaining to the cinema" and is abstract tocomparison with the first meaning which is called concrete. The mainmeaning is that which possesses the highest frequency, at the presentstage of development all these terms reflect, relationship existingbetween different meanings of aword atthe same period, so the classification may be called synchronicand. paradigmatic, although the terms are borrowed from historicallexicology and stylistics.
Homonymy inEnglish
Thelearning objectives: after you have studied the lecture you should beable to speak on the following:
Homonyms,its etymology, definition.
Classificationof homonyms.
Sourcesof homonyms.
Relationshipamong polysemy, homonymy and synonymy.
Seminaron Homonymy and Polysemy:
Consideryour answer to the following:
AntrushinaG.B. and others “English lexicology”, M., 1999. Pp.166-182.
Doexercises 1, 2, (8 sent), 4, 5, 7, (6 sent), 8 p. 182
Kasheeva“Practical Lexicology”, pp. 39-40
Homonyms(from Gr. “homos” means “the same”, “omona”means “name”) are the words, different in meaning andeither identical both in sound and spelling or identical only inspelling or sound. The most widely accepted classification of them isfollowing:
Homonyms proper(or perfect homonyms)
Homophones
Homographs
Homonyms properare words identical in pronunciation and spelling:
“Ball”as a round object used in game, “ball” as a gathering ofpeople for dancing;
“Bark” vto utter sharp explosive cries; “bark” n is anoise made by dog or a sailing ship, etc.
“Bay”v is to bark; “bay” n is a part of thesea or the lake filling wide mouth opening of the land, or theEuropean laurel1,or гнедаялошадь.
Youshould remember, that homonyms are distinct words – notdifferent meanings within one word.
Homophones arewords of the same sound, but of different meaning, for example:
“Air” –“heir”, “arms” – “alms”,“bye” – “buy” – “by”,“him” – “hymn”, “knight” –“night”, “rain” – “reign”,“not” – “knot”, “or” –“ore” – “oar”, “piece” –“peace”, “scent” – “cent”,“steal” – “steel” – “still”,“write” – “right”, “sea” –“see”, “son” – “sun”.
Inthe sentence: “The play-write on my right thinks it that someconventional rite2should symbolize the right of every man to write as he pleases”the sound complex [rait] is noun, adjective, adverb and verb, has 4different spellings and 6 different meanings.
Thedifference may be confined to the use of a capital letter as in“bill” and “Bill”: “How much is my milkbill?” – “Excuse me, madam, but my name is John”.On the other hand, whole sentences may be homophonic: “The sonsraise meat” - “The sun’s rays meet”. Tounderstand this one needs a wide context.
Homographsare words different in sound and in meaning but accidentallyidentical in spelling:
Bow[bou]– лук /[bau] – поклонили нос корабля
Lead [li:d] –вести /[led] – свинец
Row[rou] – грестиили ряд /[rau] – шум,скандал
Sever[sov ] – шея /[sjuv ] –сточная труба
Tear[tεe]– рвать/ [ti ] –слеза
Wind[wind]– ветер /[waind] – заводить(часы)
Classificationof homonyms in full and partial see in: Kasheeva – pp 39-40,Antrushina – pp 128-129.
Sources of homonyms
On ofsource of homonyms is a phonetic change, which a wordundergoes3in the course of it historical development. As a result of suchchanges, less or more words, which were formerly pronounceddifferently, may develop identical sound forms and thus becomehomonyms.
“Night”and “knight”, for instance, were not homonyms in OldEnglish (O.E.) as the initial “k” in the second word waspronounced. The verb “to write” in O.E. had the form “towritan” and the adjective “right” had the form“reht” or “riht”.
Anothersource of homonyms is borrowing. A borrowed word may, in thefinal stage of the phonetic adaptation conclude the form either witha native word or another borrowing. So in the group of homonyms “riten – to write – right adj.” The secondand third words are of native origin, whereas “rite” isLatin borrowing (Latin “ritus”); “bank “ n(“a shore”) is a native word, and bank n (afinancial institution) is an Italian borrowing.
Wordbuilding also contributes significantly to the growth ofhomonymy, the most important type of it being conversion. Suchpairs of words as “comb” n – “comb”v; “pale” adj. – “pale”v; “make” v – “make” n,etc. are numerous in vocabulary. Homonyms of this type refer todifferent categories of parts of speech and called lexico-grammaticalhomonyms.
Shorteningis a further type of word-building, which increases the number ofhomonyms. For example “fan” (an enthusiastic admirer of some sportsmen, actor, singer, etc.) is a shortening produced from“fanatic” [f nжtik]. Its homonym is a Latinborrowing “fan” – an element for waving and producesome cool wind.4
Thenoun, for instance, “rep”, a kind of fabric, has 4homonyms:
rep = repertory;
rep =representative;
rep = reputation;
rep = repetition(in school slang smth, need to know by hard)
Afurther course of homonyms is called split5polysemy: 2 or more homonyms can originate different meanings ofthe same word, when for some reason the semantic structure of theword breaks into several parts. We may illustrate this by the 3following homonyms of the word “spring”, means:
The act ofspringing, leap;
A place, where asteam of water comes up out to the sky;
A season of theyear.
Historicallyall three originate from the same verb with meaning to jump, to leap.This is the Old English word “springun”6.So that the meaning of the first homonym is the oldest or the mostetymological one. The meanings of the 2nd and the 3rdexamples were originally made in metaphor. As the head of the strim,the water something lips out of the earth, so that metaphoricallysuch a place could be described as a “leap”. On the otherhand, the season of the year, following winter, could be poeticallydefined as a “leap” from the darkness and cold intosunlight and life.
Polysemy,synonymy and homonymy
Oneof the most complicated problems in semasiology is to define theplace of homonyms among other relationships of words. In a simplecode each sign has only one meaning and it’s meaning isassociated with only one sign. But this ideal is not realized innatural language. When several related meanings are associated withthe same form, the word is called polysemantic. When 2 or moreunrelated meanings are associated with the same form, these words arehomonyms. When 2 or more forms are associated with the same or nearlythe same meaning, they are called the synonyms.
1лавр
2обряд
3претерпевают
4веер
5расщепление
6прыгать
Morphologicalstructure of the word
Leaning objectives:After you've studied the material you should be able to:
I. 1) define the terms "morpheme",its free and bound forms; 2) define rootsand affixes,give their classification;
II. 3) speak on the ways of enriching, the vocabulary
a) Semantic extension
b) Word-formation (productive types and minor ways):Affixation, Compounding, Conversion, Shortening.
Literature for the seminar:
1. Practical Lexicology by Kashcheyeva pp. 91-128,Ex.l,2cl/2
2. English lexicology by Antrushina G.B.
pp. 78-103 (Ex. I, III, V, VI), pp. 104-120 (Ex. I, II)
Morphological structure of the word
Morphemes, free and bound forms. We describe a. word As an autonomousunit of language in which a particular meaningis associated with a particular sound complex and which is capable ofa particular grammatical employment and able to form a sentence byitself, we have the possibility to distinguish it from the otherfundamental unit, namely the morpheme.
A morphemeis also an association of a givenmeaning with a given sound pattern. But unlike a word it is notautonomous. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts ofwords, not independently, although a word may consist of a singlemorpheme. Morphemes are not divisible into smaller meaningful units.That is why morphemes: may be defined asthe smallest meaningful units of form.
The term morpheme isderived from Gr. Morphe- "form" + erne. The Greek suffix - emehas been adopted by linguists to denote the smallest unit or theminimum distinctive feature(phoneme, sememe). The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit ofform, (a form in these cases is recurring discrete unit of speech)(повторяющаясяотдельнаясамостоятельнаяединицаречи).
A form is said to befree if it may stand alone withoutchanging its meaning; if not, it is a boundform, because it always bound tosomething else: for example, ifwe compare the words sportive andelegant andtheir parts, we see that sport,sportive, elegant may occur alone asutterances, whereas eleg- -ive, -ant are boundforms because they never occur alone. Aword is,by Bloomfield's definition, a minimumfree form a morpheme is said to beeither bound or free. This statement should be taken with caution. Itmeans that some morphemes are capable of forming words without addingother morphemes: that is, thy are homonymous to free forms.
According to therole they play in constructing words morphemes are subdivided into:ROOTS and AFFIXES. The latter are further subdivided, according totheir position, into prefixes, suffixesand infixes,according to their function and meaning, intoderivationalandfunctionalaffixes, thelatter are also called endingor outer formatives(словообразующий).
Whena derivational or functional affix is stripped from the word, whatremains is a stembase. Thestem expresses the lexical and the part-of-speech meaning. For theword heartyand forthe paradigm heart-hearts(pl.) thestem may be represented heart. This stem is a single morpheme, itcontains nothing but the root, so it a simplestem. Itis also afree stem becauseit is homonymous to the word heart.
A stem mayalso be defined as the part of the word that remains unchangedthroughout its paradigm. The stem of the paradigm hearty- heartier - (the) heartiest is hearty. Itis a free stem, but as it consists of a root morpheme and an affix,it is not simple but derived.Thus, astem containing one or more affixes is a derivedstem. Ifafter deriving the affix the remaining stem is not homonymous to aseparate word of the same root, we call it a bound stem. Thus, in theword cordial(proceeding as if from the heart); the adjective-forming suffix canbe separated on the analogy with such words as bronchial[bronkial] radial, social. Theremaining stem, however cannot form a separate word by itself: itis bound.In cordial-lyandcordial-ity,on the onehand, the stemsare free.
Bound stems are especiallycharacteristic of loan words. The point may be illustrated by thefollowing French borrowings: arrogance,charity, courage , coward, distort, involve; notion; legible andtolerable,to give but a few. After the suffixes of these words are taken awaythe remaining elements are: arrog-; char-; cour-, cow-, tort-,volve-, nat-, leg-, toler-, which don't ??????? with any semanticallyrelated independent words (p. 31 Arnold).
Rootsare main morphemic vehicles of a given idea in a given language at agiven stage of its development. A root may be also regarded as theultimate constituent element which remains after removal of allfunctional and derivational affixes and don't admit any furtheranalysis. It i the common element of words within a word - family.Thus heart-is thecommon root of the following series of words; heart, hearten,dishearten, heartily, heartless, hearty, heartiness, sweetheart,heart-broken, kind-hearted, wholeheartedly, etc. In some ofthis, as, for example, in hearten,there isonly one root; in others the word the root -heart- is combined withsome other root, thus forming a compound like sweetheart.
The rootin English is very often homonymous with the word, which is oneof the most specific featuresof the English language arising from its general grammaticalsystem onthe one hand, and from its phoneticsystem on the other. The influence of the analytical structure of thelanguage is obvious. The second point, however, calls for someexplanation. Actually the usual phonetic shape is one single stressedsyllable: bear,find, jump, land, man, sing, etc.This doesn't give much space for a second morpheme to add classifyinglexico-grammatical meaning to the lexical meaning already present inroot stem, so the lexico-grammatical meaning must be signalled bуdistribution.
In the phrasesa morning's drive, a morning 's ride, a morning 's walk thewords drive,ride, walk receivethe lexico-grammatical meaning of a noun not due to the structure oftheir stem, but because they are preceded by a noun in the Possessivecase.
An English word does not necessarily contain formulates indicating towhat part of speech it belongs. This holds true even with respect toinflectable parts of speech, i.e. nouns, verbs, adjective.
Not all roots are freeforms, but productiveroots (rootscapable of the producing new words) usually are.
The semantic realization of an English, word is therefore veryspecific. Its dependence on distribution is further enhanced by thewidespread occurrence of homonymy both among root morphemes adaffixes. Note how many words in this sentence might be ambiguous iftaken in isolation: "A change of work is as good as a rest".
Unlike roots, affixes arealways boundforms. Thedifference between affixes and prefixes is not confined to theirrespective position, suffixes being "fixed after" and
prefixes "fixed before"the stem. It also concerns their function and meaning. A suffixis aderivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new derivative[ ]
(производноеслово)in a different part of speech or different word-class, if-en, -y,-less in hearten,hearty, heartless. Whenboth the initial underlying and the resultant forms belong to thesame part of speech, the suffix serve to differentiate betweenlexico-grammatical classes by rendering some very generallexico-grammatical meaning. For instance, both -ify and -er are verbsuffixes, but the first characterizes causativeverbs,such as horrify,purify, whereasthe second is mostly typical of frequentative verbs: flicker,shimmer, turttle and the like.
A prefix isa derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifyingmeaning: if to hearten - to dishearten. It is only the verbs andstatives that a prefix may serve to distinguish one part of speechfrom another, like in earthn - unearth v, sleep n -asleep (Stative).Preceding a verb stem, some prefixes express the difference between atransitive and an intransitive verbs: stayv. andoutstay(smb.) v. witha few exceptions prefixes modify the stem fortime (pre-,post-) for example, pre-war,post-war, orexpress negation (un-, dis-) i.e. undress,disarm, etc.and remain rather independent of the stem.
An infix isan affix placed within the world, like -n- stand. The type isn'tproductive. An affix should not be confused with a combining formwhich can be distinguish from the affix historically; it is alwaysborrowed from Latin or Greek in which it existed as a free form i.e.a separate word, or also as a combining form. Thus, cyclo-or itsvariant cyd-arederived from Greek word kuklos"circle"giving the English word cyclic.
Synonymyin English
Learningobjectives: after you have studied the material you should be ableto:
1. Define the notion of "synonymy", give the definition ofthe term "synonyms" by Russian and foreign linguists.
2. Speak on the criteria of synonymy, the sources of synonymy and themain synonymic patterns.
3. Give the classification of synonyms (ideographic, stylistic,absolute).
4. Analyze the entry (article) from a dictionary of synonyms.
Literatureto be studied:
•"English Word" by Arnold p. 177-197.
•"A course in Modern English Lexicology" byGinsburg.
•"English Lexicology" by Antrushina.
•"Practical Lexicology" by Kasheeva pp.70-73,ex. 1, 2; pp.76-77.
•"English Synonyms" by Potapova LA.
•"Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms".Springfield. Mass. USA. 1942.
• ПотаповаИ.А.Краткийсловарьсинонимованглийскогоязыка.Пособиедляучителя.Л,1957.
A characteristic feature of a vocabulary of any language is theexistence of synonyms, which is closely connected with the problem ofmeaning of the word.
The most complicatedproblem is the definition of the term "synonyms". There area great many definitions of the term, but there is no universallyaccepted one. Traditionally the synonyms are defined as wordsdifferent in sound-form, but identical or similar in meaning. Butthis definition has been severely criticized on many points.
The problem of synonymy istreated differently by Russian and foreign scientists. Among numerousdefinitions of the term in our linguistics the most comprehensive andfull one is suggested by I.V. Arnold: "Synonyms - are two ormore words of the same meaning, belonging to the same part of speech,possessing one or more identical meaning, interchangeable at least insome contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational1meaning, but differing in morphemic composition, phonemic shape2,shades of meaning, connotation, affective value, style, emotionalcoloring and valence3peculiar to one of the elements in a synonymic group."
This definition describes the notion "synonymy", gives somecriteria of synonymy (identity of meaning, interchangeability), showssome difference in connotation, emotive coloring, style, etc. Butthis descriptive definition as well as many others has the maindrawbacks - there are no objective criteria of "identity"or "similarity" or sameness of meaning. They all are basedon the linguistic intuitions of the scholars.
From the definition follows,that the members of the synonymic group in a dictionary should havetheir common denotational meaning and consequently4it should be explained in the same words; they may have somedifferences in implication connotation, shades of meaning, idiomaticusage, etc.
Hope, expectation,anticipation areconsidered to be synonymous because they all mean "having smthin mind which is likely to happen..." But expectationmay beeither of good or of evil. Anticipationis as arule an expectation of smth good. Hopeis notonly a belief but a desire that some event would happen. Thestylistic difference is also quite marked. The Romance wordsanticipationandexpectationare formalliterary words used only by educated speakers, whereas the nativemonosyllabic hopeisstylistically neutral. Moreover, they differ in idiomatic usage. Onlyhope ispossible in such set expressions as tohope against hope, to lose hope, to pin one'shopes on smth. Neitherexpectation nor anticipation could be substituted into the followingquotation from T.Eliot: "You don't know what hope is until youhave lost it".
Criteria of Synonymy
Not a single definition ofthe term synonymprovidesfor any objective criterion of similarity or sameness of meaning asfar as it is based on the linguistic intuition of the scholars.
Many scholars definedsynonyms aswords conveying the same notion but differing either in shades ofmeaning or in stylistic characteristics. In "Webster'sDictionary of Synonyms" its authors used the semantic criterionalong with the criterion of interchangeability5,which we may see from the definition.
A synonym is one of two ormore words which have the same or nearly the same essential6(denotational) meaning. It is not a matter of mere likeness inmeaning, but a likeness in denotation which may be expressed in itsdefinition. The definition must indicate7the part of speech and the relations of the ideas involved in aterm's meaning.
Synonyms, therefore, areonly such words as may be defined wholly8or almost wholly in the same terms. Usually, they are distinguishedfrom one another by an added implication or connotation, or maydiffer in their idiomatic use or in their implication9.
They usually are interchangeable within limits, butinterchangeability is not the final test, since idiomatic usage isoften a preventive of that. The only satisfactory test of synonyms istheir agreement in connotation.
Classification of Synonyms
The outstanding Russian philologist A.I. Smirnitsky suggested theclassification of synonyms
into 3 types:
1. Ideographic synonyms - words conveying the same notion butdiffering in shades of
meaning: to understand - to realize
to expect - to anticipate
to look - glance - stare - peep - gaze healthy - wholesome - sound -sane
2. Stylistic - words differing only in stylistic characteristics:
to begin - to commence - to high
to think - to deem
enemy - opponent - foe - adversary
to help - to aid - to assist
courage - valour - dauntlessness - grit - guts
3. Absolute (perfect, complete) - words coinciding in all theirshades of meaning and in
all their stylisticcharacteristics. Absolute synonyms are rare in a language. InRussian,f.e.:лётчик - пилот– авиатор;языкознание– языковедение;стерня – пожня.
In English: pilot - airman — flyer – flyingman;screenwriter - scriptwriter - scripter - сценаристsemasiology – semantics.
Synonymic Patterns
The English word-stock isextremely richin synonyms, which can be largely accounted10for by abundant borrowing. The synonymic resources of a language tendto form certain characteristic and fairly consistent patterns.Synonyms in English are organized according to 2 basic principles.One of them involves double, the other a triple scale. In Englishthere are countless pairs of synonyms where a native term is opposedto one borrowed from French, Latin, and Greek. In most cases thenative word is more spontaneous, more informal and unpretentiouswhereas the foreign one often has a learned, abstract air. They mayalso have emotive differences: the Saxon word is apt to be wanner andhomelier than its foreign counterpart. The native words are usuallycolloquial. We quote a few examples of synonymic patterns doublescale.
Adjectives: bodily - corporal, brotherly - fraternal, heavenly -celestial, inner - internal, learned - erudite, sharp - acute.
Nouns: fiddle - violin, friendship - amity, help - aid, wire -telegram, world - universe.
Verbs: answer - reply, read - peruse, buy - purchase.
Side-by-side with this mainpattern there exists in English a pattern based on a triple scale ofsynonyms:
NATIVE FROM FRENCH FROM LATIN
toask11 to question12 to interrogate13belly stomach abdomen
toend finish complete
togather to assemble collect
torise to mount to ascent
teaching guidance instruction
The infiltration of British English by Americanisms also results inthe formation of synonyms pairs, one being a traditional Briticismand the other - a new American loan: Leader - editorial; autumn -fall; government - administration; luggage - baggage; wireless-radio; lorry - truck; tin - can; long distance (telephone) call -trunk call; stone - rock; team -squad.
As a rule the Americanisms have a lower frequency index than theBritish counterparts. Thus, tin is more common than can, team - thansquad. But luggage - baggage, lorry - truck, leader -editorial areused sometimes interchangeably.
In a few cases the American synonym has a higher frequency than itsBritish counterpart as in the pair: commuter - a season ticket holder(Br.). Very often 2 synonyms differ stylistically. Br. Synonym isstylistically neutral while the Americanism is stylistically marked(usually as colloquial or slang): intellectual - egghead excuse -alibi angry - mad averse - allergic.
English also used many pairs of synonymous derivatives, the oneHellenic and the other Romance: hypotheses - supposition periphery -circumference sympathy - compassion synthesis - composition.
Another source of synonymy is the so-called euphemism, when a harshword indelicate or unpleasant or least inoffensive connotation. Thusthe denotational meaning of drunk and merry may be the same. Theeuphemistic expression merry coincides in denotation with the word itsubstituted but the connotation of the latter faded out and so theutterance on the whole is milder and less offensive.
Very often a learned wordwhich sounds less familiar and less offensive or derogative: forexample “drunkenness” – “intoxication”,“sweat” – “perspiration” (cf. Russianterms “экспроприация”,“раскулачивание”).The effect is achieved because the periphrastic expression is not soharsh, sometimes jocular: poor - underprivileged; pregnant - in thefamily way; lodger - paying guest.
Set expressions consisting of a verb with a postpositive are widelyused in present day English: to choose - pick out, abandon - give up,postpone - put off, return - come back, quarrel - fall out.
Even more frequent are, for instance, such set expressions whichdiffer from simple verbs in aspect or emphasis: to laugh - to give alaugh, to sign - to give a sign, to smoke - to have a smoke, to love- to fall in love.
Smell, scent, odor, aromaall denotea property of a thing that makes it perceptible to the olfactorysense. Smellnot onlyis the most general of these terms but tends to be the mostcolorless. It is the appropriate word when merely a sensation isindicated and no hint or its source, quality or character isnecessary.
Scent tendsto call attention to the physical basis of the sense of smell and isparticularly appropriate when the emphasis is on emanations orexplanations from an external object which reach the olfactoryreceptors rather than impression produced in the olfactory center ofthe brain. Odorisoftentimes indistinguishable from scent for it too can be thought ofas smth. diffused and as smth. by means of which external objects areidentified by the sense of smell. But the words are not alwaysinterchangeable, for odorusuallyimplies abundance of effluvia and therefore does not suggest, asscent often does, the need of a delicate or highly sensitive sense ofsmell.
Aroma usuallyadds to odortheimplication of a penetrating, pervasive or sometimes a pungentquality; it need not imply delicacy or fragrance, but it seldomconnotes unpleasantness, and it often suggests smth. to be savored.
Understand, comprehend,appreciate aresynonyms when they mean to have a clear and true idea or conception,or full and exact knowledge, of smth. They (especially the first two)are often used interchangeably and seemingly without loss;nevertheless, they are distinguishable by fine sharp differences inmeaning in precise use. In general, it may be said that understandrefers tothe result of a mental process, comprehendto themental process of arriving at such a result; thus , one may come tounderstand a person although one has had difficulty in comprehendinghis motives and his peculiarities; one may be unable to comprehend apoem, no matter how clearly one understands every sentence in it."You begin to comprehendme, doyou" cried he, turning towards her. "Oh! Yes - I understandyouperfectly." Sometimes the difference is more subtle; comprehendimpliesthe mental act of grasping or seizing clearly and fully; understand,the powerto receive and register a clear and true impression. "That ye,being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehendwith allsaints what is the breadth, length, depth, height; and to know thelove of Christ, which passeth knowledge". "Some men canthink of thousands of dollars, others have to think of hundreds. It'sall their minds are big enough to comprehend.""Andthe piece of God, which passeth all understanding,shall keepyour hearts and minds through Christ Jesus". "Charters isso crowded that one must be content to fell what one can, and let therest go. Understand,wecannot." Appreciate,as hereconsidered, implies a just judgment or the estimation of a thing'strue or exact value; therefore, the word is used in reference topersons or things which may be undervaluing or overvaluing. "Youare of an age now to appreciatehischaracter." "We do not reproach him for preffering,apparently, Euripides to Aeschylus. But he should at least appreciateEuripides"."The public opinion which thus magnifies patriotism into areligion is a force of which it is difficult to appreciatethestrength." "To appreciatethe gulfbetween the ideal and the fact, we have only to contrast such ascheme as that set forth in the "Republic" of Plato withthe following description of the state of Greece during thePeloponnesian War".
Differences Between Synonyms
Very often words arecompletely synonyms in the sense of being interchangeable in anycontent without the slightestalteration in objective meaning, feeling-tone or evocative meaning.But majority of them may have some distinctive features, which arelisted below. These differences are the following:
1. Between general and specific;
2. Between shades of meaning;
1формальноезначение
2форма
3сочетаемость
4следовательно
5взаимозаменяемость
6существенный
7указывает
8полностью
9подтекст
10объясняется
11задавать вопросы
12расспрашивать
13допрашивать