1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Subject matter. Links with other branches. Problems.

Lexicology is a science about words. It studies the vocabulary of the language which consists of words and
word combinations. The subject matter of lexicology is separate words, their morphological and semantic
structure, and the vocabulary of the language, which includes words, word combinations, their origin,
developement and current use.

Lexicology has lots of connections with other branches which also have word as a central unit. If
lexicology studies the meaning of the word, Grammar studies grammatical problems. Both study roots,
morphemes, affixes. But, unlike grammar, lexicological function is to name objects.Word is the smallest
part of the sentence, and the sentence in its turn is the smallest communicative unit. Also it lexicology has
connections with Phoenetics. If we change the stress, we change the meaning of the word and even part of
the speech: rEcord – recOrd, cOment – comEnt; blackboard – black board, blackbird – black bird. Also it
has some links with Stylistics. One of the problems of lexicology is stylistic characteristics. Stylistics
studies different stylistic styles. The reflection of the style is in the text. E.g. bookish style we often can
find in classical fiction or textbooks; collocations – in speech. And the last connection is with Social
Lingusitics (Cultural Studies): language is a part of the culture, it’s a reflection of the mentality of
people. There are some specific word combinations and associations in every language. E.g. professions:
kindness is associated with social workers.

There are some special Problems in lexicoogy: word formation and word combination. Phraseology
(science about phrases) studies it. When we start studying a new language, we try to know all the words
and their meaning. And especially collocations that are unique in every language: wash hair – мыть
голову, wash head – “намылить шею“. Specific feature of English is the Polysemy and Homonymy.
Why? 1) It has a great number of mono-syllabic words; 2) Its analytical character. Word order is also
very important. Lexicology studies words. A word has a meaning and a form. The approaches to find the
meaning of the word are the following: 1) Syntagmatic – surrounding, neighbouring words help to deduce
the meaning; 2) Paradigmatic – with the help of synonyms and antonyms. Word formation: 1)
Compounding (Composition) – joining of several stems; 2) Convertion – one part of speech into another;
3) Affixation. One more problem – Stylistic characteristics.

2.General lexicology studies general rules of lexicology, irrespectively of other more specific problems.
Special lexicology studies one specific language, description of its vocabulary, vocabulary units, the main
units of the language. But every special lexiclology is based on principles of general lexicology, a general
theory of vocabulary.

Historical lexicology studies the development of the words (vocabulary) – Diachronic approach. Modern
lexicology (descriptive) studies the words and their development at the given stage – Synchronic
approach. Dia – through, syn – together, chronos – tome. Contrastive (comparative) lexicology compares
mother tongue with other languages.

3. Word as a language unit.

Language consists of units which are interrelated. These units are: phoneme, morpheme, word and
sentence. Each of them has some functions. Phoneme has a function of distinction one sound from
another, it’s a distinctive unit. Morpheme is the smallest significant unit of the language, cause it has the
meaning. Word has nominative function, it’s the smallest nominative unit. Sentence is the smallest
communicative unit of the language.

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Words are the main unit of language system. They are the biggest units of morphology and the smallest of
syntax. Word is two-faced unit, it consists of morphemes which have sound forms and written forms of
sound expression.

In the 17th century there was a great discovery in linguistics. Thomas Hobbs found out that a word
possesses indivisibility. He proposed to compare two words of different parts of speech: “alive” and “a
live”. He said that the word “a live” consists of two words and some other words can be added, word
“alive” is indivisible. In the 18th century John Lines, who was agree with Hobbs, added one more feature
of the word – its positional mobility. E.g. the boys walked slowly. He proposed to write it with dashes to
indicate morphemes: the-boy-s-walk-ed-slow-ly. He proved that a word possesses indivisibility and
positional mobility. But as a word, not as morphemes: we can’t put it like this: walk-ly-the-s-boy-slow-ed.
Other linguist Neilet took into account all the theories and stated that the word possesses semantic
integrity. In a word group each word has its own meaning. But one phraseological unit – one meaning: to
pull one’s legs – to deceive. He next his discover – word can function alone.

So, we can define word as the smallest nominative unit of the language which can be characterized by
morphological indevisibility, functioning alone, positional mobility and semantic integrity.

4. Meaning. Different approaches to the problem.

This notion is one of the most controvertial i the lingustics. More or less meaning can be desribed as a
component of word through which concept is communicated.

Approaches. a) Linguistic triangle was first proposed by the mathematician Gotlib Gill. Then this idea
was adopted, and now it’s called Richard and Ogden Triangle.

It’s a referential approach to the problem, cause the top is devoted to the
concept/notion (left angle – sound form/symbol; right angle – referent) Referent is a thing of reality: table
(drawn) – тэйбл – транскрипция. This theory has lots of rivals: they don’t understand the system, the
referent may be the same as notion. Each national language may have equal sound forms, but the meaning
of words is different: cot – звучит, как “кот”, но означает “колыбель”. b) Functional approach is
less concerned with what meaning is than with how it works. The word possesses meaning only in the
sentence: book (книга) – I booked two tickets. It has one lexical meaning. But we must take into accoint
both approaches, cause they are both right and correspond in dialectical meaning.

5. Types of Meaning. The semantic structure.

The words are not monosemantic, they are polysemantic. Each meaning is called lexical meaning.And
this number of meanings form semantic structure of the word. Generally we distinct grammatical and
lexical meanings: time flies – grammatical meaning, time fly – lexical meaning, “flies” possesses lexico-
grammatical meaning. Lexical meaning within itself possesses connotational and denotational meanings.
Denotational is the main meaning – word-denotative. Connotational is the shades of this meaning.
Denotational (referential) meaning can be: 1) Significative; 2) Stylistic; 3) Expressive; 4) Emotional; 5)

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Evaluative. Communicative: we express approval, disapproval – stylistic connotation. Expressive: try to
show not only attitude, but also to emphasize it.

6. Motivation. Types of Motivation.

Motivation is the reationship between morphemic structure and meaning. There are 4 types of Motivation:
1) Phoenetic Motivation – the similarity between the sound the word made of and the meaning of the
word: bees – buzz, sakes – hiss. In English initial “p” means disapproval: phy – фу. Sound symbolism –
some combinations of letters may mean smth other: sting – a quick movement; initial “fl” – also: flop;
“gl”: glare, glited – associated with fire. 2) Morphological motivation: there can be Fully motivated,
Partially motivated and Non-motivated words: blackbird – fully motivated, because all the morphemes
are clear; repeat is non-motivated: all one-syllable words are non-motivated; strawberry – partially
motivated, cause straw has no connections with berries, also: T-shirt, U-turn. 3) Semantic motivation:
there can be Direct and Figurative meaning. Figurative: a foot of the mountain, a mouth of the river.
Direct meaning: flowers and colours: pink – розовый, гвоздика. Humming bird – roduces this long
coninuous sound. 4) Graphical motivation – mathematicians. + or – more or less.

7. Notion and meaning.

Meaning (a component of a word through which a concept is communicated) belongs to linguistics, while
Notion (concept) belongs to the category of logic. Logic is international category, but the meaning is
national. Notions may be represented with different meanings: man, человек. Notion is neutral, but
meaning may express people attitude to what they are talking about. E.G. with the help of synonyms: look,
stare... There are also some words in English, which have meaning but no notion: Articles, Prepositions,
Interjections.

8. Semantic change. Causes of Semantic Change.

Semantic change is the development of the word and its semantic structure. The language is a system, its
body develops and all the units too. If we try to compare the meaning of the word of different languages or
of different times, they are different: I’m fond of reading: In O.E. fond meant foolish – no connection.

Linguists payed a great attention on Semantic change. At the end of the 19 th – beginning of the Af20th
century Brill and Poll investigated Semantic change and noticed that some words specialize their meaning
and some – generalize. Specialize means narrowing: case (event) – becomes case in medicine. Generalize
– when a word extends its meaning: to fly – to move with the help of wings – becomes to move quickly,
without any wings.

As any problem, Semantic change has its nature, reasons, problems and as a result – Causes. There are two
types of Semantic changes: 1) Linguistic; 2) Extra-linguistic (any change in the society which results the
change in naming objects: inventing a new word (on the basis of existing linguisitcs), borrowing, to name
with the help of existing word-association): a box (ложа) – association, cause it looks like a box; black box
– mysterious: in real it’s orange. 1) Linguistic cause may be: a) Syntagmatic; b) Paradigmatic. a)
Syntagmatic. There is a term – ellipsis, when instead of two components we use only one: to starve, to
propose; b) Paradigmatic level – discrimination of synonyms. It means that there existed two or more
synonymic words but in the course of time they changed their meaning: deer denoted any beast, then a
word animal appeared. First, the coincided, but then they became two different words: deer – special beast,
animal – general beast.

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9. Types of Semantic change. Result.

There are Direct and Figurative meanings of the word, so we try to figure out all the changes of meanings
and its pecularities. It’s closely connected to the stylistics, it states figurative meaning.

We destinguish 1) Similarity and 2) Contiguity of meanings. 1) Similarity of meanings – metaphor,

based on the shape, position, duration: head – the head of department (position). 2) Contiguity: a)
Metonymy – also transform the meaning, but we use part for a whole: a plate of soup; b) Instrumental
metonymy – we use an instrument: the writers are the best pen; 3) Positional metonymy – the name of
the place instead of people: Kyiv’s reply; 4) Synecdoche – pert for the whole, name of the inventor or head
of the company for the whole company: Macentosh, Diesel, Xerox; 5) Hyperbole - exaggeration: hundred
years; 6) Litote – minimize: I hate it – it’s not good; 7) Euphemism – to milder the situation – figurative
meaning; 8) Zoozemy: when we try to find out similarity between an animal and a person: deer party –
мальчишник, hen party – девичник, a fox, a snake...

The Results of Semantic change are the followings: First of all we observe the changes in denotational
and connotational meaning. These changes are in the focus of linguistics, it notices the changes in
denotational meaning first of all. The change results in the restrictional meaning or extentional meaning:
queen – first of all denotes a woman, a squaw was the synonym of it; to write – O.E. to scratch –
handwirtings, writings now. Generalization of the meaning (extention) – to fly.

Connotational component: 1) amelioration of the meaning; 2) degradation of the meaning. 1)

Ameliorating development – the meaning is improved: minister now is high-rank position, O.E. – boy,
servant; knight helped and defended his master; bad fellow meant a villager or peasant. 2) Degradation.
In the course of time some old meanings died out, we can’t find them in the dictionary: a spoon was a
thing of wood. There are some words with lots of meaning, and it’s very difficult to find the first one.
While speaking about semantic change, there is a qualitative change – appearance of polysemantic words;
qualitative words are lost, dead, so appered homonymy. Semantic change is the universal problem, in
each language; it is researched diachronically: how, what is the result of this change.

10. Polysemy in synchronic approach. Types of meaning.

Synchronically we understand polysemy as the coexistence of various meanings

of the same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English language. In this case the
problem of the interrelation and interdependence of individual meanings making up the semantic structure
of the word must be investigated along different lines.
In connection with the polysemantic word table discussed above we are mainly concerned with the
following problems: are all the nine meanings equally representative of the semantic structure of this
word? Is the order in which the meanings are enumerated (or recorded) in dictionaries purely arbitrary or
does it reflect the comparative value of individual meanings, the place they occupy in the semantic
structure of the word table? Intuitively we feel that the meaning that first what occurs to us whenever we
hear or see the word table is ‘an article of furniture’. This emerges as the basic or the central meaning of
the word and all other meanings are minor in comparison.1
It should be noted that whereas the basic meaning occurs in various and widely different contexts,
minor meanings are observed only in certain contexts, e.g. ‘to keep- the table amused’, ‘table of contents’
and so on. Thus we can assume that the meaning ‘a piece of furniture’ occupies the central place in the
semantic structure of the word table. As to other meanings of this word we find it hard to grade them in
order of their comparative value. Some may, for example, consider the second and the third meanings
(‘the persons seated at the table’ and ‘the food put on the table’) as equally “important”, some may argue
that the meaning ‘food put on the table’ should be given priority. As synchronically there is no objective
criterion to go by, we may find it difficult in some cases to single out even the basic meanings since two
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 or more meanings of the word may be felt as equally “central” in its semantic structure. If we analyse the
verb to get, e.g., which of the two meanings ‘to obtain’ (get a letter, knowledge, some sleep) or ‘to arrive’
(get to London, to get into bed) shall we regard as the basic meaning of this word?
A more objective criterion of the comparative value of individual meanings seems to be the frequency of
their occurrence in speech. There is a tendency in modern linguistics to interpret the concept of the central
meaning in terms of the frequency of occurrence of this meaning. In a study of five million words made by
a group of linguistic scientists it was found that the frequency value of individual meanings is different. As
far as the word table is concerned the meaning ‘a piece of furniture’ possesses the highest frequency value
and makes up 52% of all the uses of this word, the meaning ‘an orderly arrangement of facts’ (table of
contents) accounts for 35%, all other meanings between them make up just 13% of the uses of this word.1
Of great importance is the stylistic stratification of meanings of a polysemantic word as individual
meanings may differ in their stylistic reference. Stylistic (or regional) status of monosemantic words is
easily perceived. For instance the word daddy can be referred to the colloquial stylistic layer, the word
parent to the bookish. The word movie is recognisably American and barnie is Scottish. Polysemantic
words as a rule cannot be given any such restrictive labels. To do it we must state the meaning in which
they are used. There is nothing colloquial or slangy or American about the words yellow denoting colour,
jerk in the meaning ‘a sudden movement or stopping of movement’ as far as these particular meanings are
concerned. But when yellow is used in the meaning of ’sensational’ or when jerk is used in the meaning of
‘an odd person’ it is both slang and American.
Stylistically neutral meanings are naturally more frequent. The polysemantic words worker and hand,
e.g., may both denote ‘a man who does manual work’, but whereas this is the most frequent and
stylistically neutral meaning of the word worker, it is observed only in 2.8% of all occurrences of the word
hand, in the semantic structure of which the meaning ‘a man who does manual work’ (to hire factory
hands) is one of its marginal meanings characterised by colloquial stylistic reference.
It should also be noted that the meaning which has the highest frequency is the one representative of the
whole semantic structure of the word. This can be illustrated by analysing the words under discussion. For
example the meaning representative of the word hand which first occurs to us is ‘the end of the arm
beyond the wrist’. This meaning accounts for at least 77% of all occurrences of this word. This can also be
observed by comparing the word hand with its Russian equivalents. We take it for granted that the English
word hand is correlated with the Russian рука, but not with the Russian рабочий though this particular
equivalent may also be found, e.g. in the case of to hire factory hands.
11. Diachronic approach to polysemy.

If polysemy is viewed diachronically, it is understood as the growth and development of or, in general, as a
change in the semantic structure of the word.
Polysemy in diachronic terms implies that a word may retain its previous meaning or meanings and at
the same time acquire one or several new ones.
In the course of a diachronic semantic analysis of the polysemantic word table we find that of all the
meanings it has in Modern English, the primary meaning is ‘a flat slab of stone or wood’, which is proper
to the word in the Old English period (OE. tabule from L. tabula); all other meanings are secondary as
they are derived from the primary meaning of the word and appeared later than the primary meaning,
The terms s e c o n d a r y and d e r i v e d meaning are to a certain extent synonymous. When we
describe the meaning of the word as “secondary” we imply that it could not have appeared before the
primary meaning was in existence. When we refer to the meaning as “derived” we imply not only that, but
also that it is dependent on the primary meaning and somehow subordinate to it. In the case of the word
table, e.g., we may say that the meaning ‘the food put on the table’ is a secondary meaning as it is derived
from the meaning ‘a piece of furniture (on which meals are laid out)’.
It follows that the main source of polysemy is a change in the semantic structure of the word.
Polysemy may also arise from homonymy. When two words become identical in sound-form, the
meanings of the two words are felt as making up one semantic structure. Thus, the human ear and the ear
of corn are from the diachronic point of view two homonyms. One is etymologically related to L. auris,
the other to L. acus, aceris. Synchronically, however, they are perceived as two meanings of one and the
same word. The ear of corn is felt to be a metaphor of the usual type (cf. the eye of the needle, the foot of
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 the mountain) and consequently as one of the derived or, synchronically, minor meanings of the
polysemantic word ear.1
12. Homonymy. Classification of homonyms.

Homonyms – words identical in their spelling or/and sound form but different in their meaning. When
analyzing homonymy, we see that some words are homonyms in all their forms, i.e. we observe full
homonymy of the paradigms of two or more different words, e.g., in seal1 — ‘a sea animal’ and seal2 — ‘a
design printed on paper by means of a stamp’. The paradigm “seal, seal’s, seals, seals’ ” is identical for
both of them and gives no indication of whether it is seal1 or seal2, that we are analysing. In other cases,
e.g. seal1 — ‘a sea animal’ and (to) seal, — ‘to close tightly’, we see that although some individual word -
forms are homonymous, the whole of the paradigm is not identical.

It is easily observed that only some of the word-forms (e.g. seal, seals, etc.) are homonymous, whereas
others (e.g. sealed, sealing) are not. In such cases we cannot speak of homonymous words but only of
homonymy of individual word-forms or of p a r t i a l h o m o n y m y . This is true of a number of other
cases, e.g. compare find [faind], found [faund], found [faund], and found [faund], founded ['faundid],
founded ['faundid]; know [nou], knows [nouz], knew [nju:], and no [nou]; nose [nouz], noses ['nouzis];
new [nju:] in which partial homonymy is observed.
Walter Skeat classified homonyms into: 1) perfect homonyms (they have different meaning, but the
same sound form & spelling: school - school); 2) homographs (H o m o g r a p h s are words identical
in spelling, but different both in their sound-form and meaning, e.g. tear n [tia] — ‘a drop of water that
comes from the eye’ and tear v [tea] — ‘to pull apart by force’.3) homophones are words identical in
sound-form but different both in spelling and in meaning, e.g. sea n and see v; son n and sun n.

Smirnitsky classified perfect homonyms into: 1) full homonyms (identical in spelling, sound form,
grammatical meaning but different in lexical meaning: spring); 2) homoforms (the same sound form &
spelling but different lexical and grammatical meaning: “reading” – gerund, particle 1, verbal noun).
Arnold classified perfect homonyms by 4 criteria (lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, basic forms,
paradigms) into 4 groups: 1) different only in lexical meaning (board - board); 2) different in lexical
meaning & paradigms (to lie/lied/lied – lie/lay/lain); 3) identical only in basic forms (light /adj./- light
/noun/); 4) identical only in one of their paradigms (a bit – bit /to bite/).

13. Origin of homonyms.

1) Diverging meaning of polysemantic word: flower – flour;
2) Convergent sound development of 2 or more words: OE lufu (n) lufian (v) – MnE love (n/v);
3) Split of polysemy. Historical homonyms result from breaking up of the polysemy (one polysemantic
word splits into 2 or more separate words): to bear – a) to sustain; b) to give birth; plant – растение/завод;
pupil – зеница/школьник;
4) Borrowings. Etymological homonyms – words of different origin which have come to be alike in sound
form or spelling. Borrowed and native words can coincide in their forms thus producing homonyms.
E. g. VICE: 1) vitim (Lat.) – wrong, immoral habit; 2) vitis (Lat.) – тиски; 3) vice (Lat.) – “instead of”:
the vice-president.
14. Polysemy and homonymy.
One of the most debatable problems in semasiology is the demarcation line between homonymy and
polysemy, i.e. between different meanings of one word and the meanings of two homonymous words.
Synchronically the differentiation between homonymy and polysemy is a rule wholly based on the
semantic criterion; it is usually held that, if a connection of the various meanings is apprehended by the
speaker, these are to be considered as making up the semantic structure of a polysemantic word, otherwise
it is a case of homonymy, not polysemy. Thus the semantic criterion implies that the difference between
polysemy and homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation between related and unrelated
meanings.
The formal criteria: distribution and spelling. The criterion of distribution suggested by some linguists is
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undoubtedly helpful, but mainly in cases of lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonymy. For example,
in the homonymic pair paper « — (to) paper v the noun may be preceded by the article and followed by a
verb; (to) paper can never be found in identical distribution. This formal criterion can be used to
discriminate not only lexico-grammatical but also grammatical homonyms, but it often fails in cases of
lexical homonymy, not differentiated by means of spelling.
Homonyms differing in graphic form, e.g. such lexical homonyms as knight — night or flower — flour,
are easily perceived to be two different lexical units as any formal difference of words is felt as indicative
of the existence of two separate lexical units. Conversely lexical homonyms identical both in
pronunciation and spelling are often apprehended as different meanings of one word.
We have to admit that no formal means have yet been found to differentiate between several meanings of
one word and the meanings of its homonyms.

15. Semantic classification of vocabulary. Synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms.

Modern English has a very extensive vocabulary.
Classification into monosemantic and polysemantic words is based on the number of meanings the
word possesses. More detailed semantic classifications are generally based on the semantic similarity (or
polarity) of words or their component morphemes. The scope and the degree of similarity (polarity) may
be different.
By h y p o n y m y is meant a semantic relationship of inclusion. Thus, e.g., vehicle includes car, bus,
taxi and so on; oak implies tree;
horse entails animal; table entails furniture. Thus the hyponymic relationship may be viewed as the
hierarchical relationship between the meaning of the general and the individual terms.
The general term (vehicle, tree, animal, etc.) is sometimes referred to as the classifier and serves to
describe the lexico-semantic groups, e.g. Lexico-semantic groups (LSG) of vehicles, movement, emotions,
etc.
The individual terms can be said to contain (or entail) the meaning of the general term in addition to
their individual meanings which distinguish them from each other (cf. the classifier move and the members
of the group walk, run, saunter, etc.).
It is of importance to note that in such hierarchical structures certain words may be both classifiers and
members of the groups. This may be illustrated by the hyponymic structure represented below.

Another way to describe hyponymy is in terms of genus and d i f f e r e n t i a .

The more specific term is called t h e h y p o n y m of the more general, and the more general is
called t h e h y p e r o n y m or the classifier.
It is noteworthy that the principle of such hierarchical classification is widely used by scientists in
various fields of research: botany, geology, etc. Hyponymic classification may be viewed as objectively
reflecting the structure of vocabulary and is considered by many linguists as one of the most important
principles for the description of meaning.
A general problem with this principle of classification (just as with lexico-semantic group criterion) is
that there often exist overlapping classifications. For example, persons may be divided into adults (man,
woman, husband, etc.) and children (boy, girl, lad, etc.) but also into national groups (American,
Russian, Chinese, etc.), professional groups (teacher, butcher, baker, etc.), social and economic groups,
and so on.
Another problem of great importance for linguists is the dependence of the hierarchical structures of
lexical units not only on the structure of the corresponding group of referents in real world but also on the
structure of vocabulary in this or that language.
This can be easily observed when we compare analogous groups in different languages. Thus, e.g., in
English we may speak of the lexico-semantic group of meals which includes: breakfast, lunch, dinner,
supper,
snack, etc. The word meal is the classifier whereas in Russian we have no word for meals in general and
consequently no classifier though we have several words for different kinds of meals.

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

Antonyms - words different in sound-form characterized by different types of semantic contrast of

the denotational meaning and interchangeable at least in some contexts.

16. Synonym. Problem of definition.

S y n o n y m s can be defined in terms of linguistics as two or more words of the same language, belonging
to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings,
interchangeable, at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but
differing in morphemic composition, phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, style, valency and
idiomatic use. Additional characteristics of style, emotional colouring and valency peculiar to one of the
elements in a synonymic group may be absent in one or all of the others.
The definition is of necessity very bulky and needs some commenting upon.
To have something tangible to work upon it is convenient to compare some synonyms within their group,
so as to make obvious the reasons for the definition. The verbs experience, undergo, sustain and suffer, for
example, come together, because all four render the notion of experiencing something. The verb and the noun
experience indicate actual living through something and coming to know it first-hand rather than from
hearsay. Undergo applies chiefly to what someone or something bears or is subjected to, as in to undergo an
operation, to undergo changes. Compare also the following example from L.P. Smith: The French
language has undergone
considerable and more recent changes since the date when the Normans brought it into England. In the
above example the verb undergo can be replaced by its synonyms suffer or experience without any change
of the sentence meaning. The difference is neutralised.
Synonyms, then, are interchangeable under certain conditions specific to each group. This seems to call
forth an analogy with phonological neutralisation. Now, it will be remembered that
n e u t r a l i s a t i o n is the absence in some contexts of a phonetic contrast found elsewhere or
formerly in the language. It appears we are justified in calling s e m a n t i c n e u t r a l i s a t i o n the
suspension of an otherwise functioning semantic opposition that occurs in some lexical contexts.
And yet suffer in this meaning (‘to undergo’), but not in the example above, is characterised by
connotations implying wrong or injury. No semantic neutralisation occurs in phrases like suffer atrocities,
suffer heavy losses. The implication is of course caused by the existence of the main intransitive meaning
of the same word, not synonymous with the group, i.e. ‘to feel pain’. Sustain as an element of this group
differs from both in shade of meaning and style. It is an official word and it suggests undergoing affliction
without giving way.
A further illustration will be supplied by a group of synonymous nouns: hope, expectation, anticipation.
They are considered to be synonymous, because they all three mean ‘having something in mind which is
likely to happen’. They are, however, much less interchangeable than the previous group because of more
strongly pronounced difference in shades of meaning. Expectation may be either of good or of evil.
Anticipation, as a rule, is a pleasurable expectation of something good. Hope is not only a belief but a
desire that some event would happen. The stylistic difference is also quite marked. The Romance words
anticipation and expectation are formal literary words used only by educated speakers, whereas the native
monosyllabic hope is stylistically neutral. Moreover, they differ in idiomatic usage. Only hope is possible
in such set expressions as: hope against hope, lose hope, pin one’s hopes on sth. Neither expectation nor
anticipation could be substituted into the following quotation from T.S. Eliot: You do not khow what hope
is until you have lost it.
Taking into consideration the corresponding series of synonymous verbs and verbal set expressions:
hope, anticipate, expect, look forward to, we shall see that separate words may be compared to whole set
expressions. Look forward to is also worthy of note, because it forms a definitely colloquial counterpart to
the rest. It can easily be shown, on the evidence of examples, that each synonymic group comprises a
8
dominant element. This s y n o n y m i c d o m i n a n t is the most general term of its kind potentially
containing the specific features rendered by all the other members of the group, as, for instance, undergo
and hope in the above.
18. Phraseology: different approaches.
Synchronic approach.
Vinogradov – semantic classification based on the degree of the cohesion of the phraseological units. He
classified them into 3 groups
1) Phraseological combinations / collocations. They are motivated – we can deduce the meaning
knowing the meaning of the words of the phrase, one word having the transfer of meaning (“to have lunch”).
2) Phraseological unities – motivated but the components’ meanings are not direct (not all of them),
the metaphore being slight and transparent (“to lose one’s head”).
3) Phraseological fusions – non-motivated word-combinations. One can’t deduce the whole meaning
with the help of the components. Full transfer of meaning occurs (“white elephant”).
Structural classification – according to the key word of the phrase:
1) Verbal;
2) Substantive;
3) Adjectival:
4) Adverbial;
5) Interjectional.
Classification by Smirnitsky.
1) one-summit units (phraseological units with one meaningful part) – phrasal verbs, verbal,
adverbial phrases (“to be tired of”);
2) multi-summit units (more than one meaningful part) – attributive substantive, verbal, adverbial
(“white lie”).
Communicative classification by Kunin.
1) idioms – stable word-groups characterized by complete or partial transfer of meaning;
2) semi-idioms;
3) phraseological units;
4) communicative phraseological units (proverbs, sayings).

Diachronic approach.

19. Phraseological units vs. free word-combinations. Criteria of distinction.

Phraseological units are word-combinations characterized by semantic unity and complexity as well as
structural inseparateability and invariability.
The term itself p h r a s e o l o g i c a l u n i t s to denote a specific group of phrases was introduced
by Soviet linguists and is generally accepted in our country.

Attempts have been made to approach the problem of phraseology in different ways. Up till now,
however, there is a certain divergence of opinion as to the essential feature of phraseological units as
distinguished from other word-groups and the nature of phrases that can be properly termed
phraseological units.
The complexity of the problem may be largely accounted for by the fact that the border-line between free
or variable word-groups and phraseological units is not clearly defined. The so-called free word-groups are
only relatively free as collocability of their member-words is fundamentally delimited by their lexical and
grammatical valency which makes at least some of them very close to set-phrases. Phraseological units
are comparatively stable and semantically inseparable. Between the extremes of complete motivation and
variability of member-words on the one hand and lack of motivation combined with complete stability of
the lexical components and grammatical structure on the other hand there are innumerable border-line
cases.
However, the existing terms, e.g. set-phrases, idioms, word-equivalents, reflect to a certain extent the main
debatable issues of phraseology which centre on the divergent views concerning the nature and essential
9
features of phraseological units as distinguished from the so-called free word-groups. The term s e t -
p h r a s e implies that the basic criterion of differentiation is stability of the lexical components and
grammatical structure of word-groups. The term i d i o m g e n e r a l l y i m p l i e s that the
essential feature of the linguistic units under consideration is idiomaticity or lack of motivation. This term
habitually used by English and American linguists is very often treated as synonymous with the term
p h r a s e o l o g i c a l u n i t universally accepted in our country. The term w o r d - e q u i v a l e n t
stresses not only the semantic but also the functional inseparability of certain word-groups and their
aptness to function in speech as single words.
Thus differences in terminology reflect certain differences in the main criteria used to distinguish between
free word-groups and a specific type of linguistic units generally known as phraseology. These criteria and
the ensuing classification are briefly discussed below.
Free word-combinations are those whose components are in their direct meaning and they can form new
word-combinations. Also they are relatively free, but this freedom is restricted by grammar, combinability,
& common sense.
The criteria.
Semantic criterion – one idea stands for the whole word-group (in phraseological units), whereas free
word-combinations can be translated word-by-word.
Structural criterion – one cannot take away any part of an idiom from it nor introduce a new part into it; a
phraseological unit possesses grammatical inchangeability (”to be wet from head to foot” – not “to feet”).

20. Synchronic and Diachronic approaches to phraseology.

Synchronic approach. The attempts to classify Phraseological units synchrinically were undertaken.
Vinogradov proposed his semantic classification which was based on the degree of cohesion between the
components of phraseological units. He devided them into 3 groups: 1) Phraseological combinations
(collocations), 2) Phraseological unities; 3) Phraseological fusions. We put all the Phr.Un. in the way
that in the first group the degree of cohesion is the weekest. 1) Phr.Un. of the 1st group are motivated. It
means that we can deduce the meaning of the Phr.Un-s from direct meaning and some components which
possess transfer of meaning: to have lunch, boozing friends. 2) These groups are also motivated, but the
meanings of componnts are not in their direct meaning or not all of them. The metaphor on which this shift
of meaning is based is transparent: last drop, to lose one’s head. It’s very difficult ot put the line between
the 1st and the 2nd points. 3) The same between the 2nd and the 3rd, but in the 3rd it’s easier to find examples.
Fusions are word combinations which are not motivated, we can’t deduce the meaning of the whole from
the meaning of the components, and the semantic complexity is full – so, full transfer of meaning: Jack of
all trades, white elephant, red tape.

There is Structural classification, where all the units are devided into key words of these units (belonging
to some part of speech: 1) Verbal: to burts into laughing, to pull one’s legs; 2) Substantive: red tape,
white dove; 3) Adjective: as busy as bee, as cool as cucumber; 4) Adverbeal: once upon a time, every now
and then; 5) Interjection: for God’s sake! By George!

Scholars try to combine both Structural and Semantic classifications. Professor Smernitsky created his
own classification. He differentiated words into neutral and coloured. He devided all Phr.Un-s into 1) one-
summit units; 2) two- or all-summit units. 1) All Ph.Un-s which have only one meaningful part: to be
glad, to be tired, by heart (prepositional substantive). We destinguish Phr.Un-s which are called: a) Verbal-
Adverbal – work as Verbs: to put up with – the first part is meaninful; b)Units which have the meaninful
part in the second place: to be fond of, to be tired of; c) Prepositional-substantive is equal to an Adverb:
in accordance with, by heart.

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2) Two or more meaninful parts. According to the part of speech: a) Attributive-substantive: white lie,
red tape, black art; b) Verbal-substantive (equal to Verb in a sentence): rain cats and dogs, pull one’s
leg; c) Adverbeal: every other day...

Classification made by Kunin is one of the most famous Structural and Communicative classifications:
1) first Part – Idioms; 2) Semi-idioms; 3) Phraseomatic units. He indicates that idiom is a Phr.Un. which
is a stable word group characterized by completely or partially transferred meaning – semantic
complexity. He also added that communicative Phr.Un-s are equal to proverbs or sayings: you can bring
a horse to the stream but you can’t make it drink.

Diachronic classification. Larin investigated historical development of Phr.Units. The result was the
following: at firts, there were free word combinations (one was used in direct, second - in figurative
meaning, 3rd – not motivated): the red tape (clerks used to show this tape to show that they are busy),
white collar (people worked in the offices), blue collar (worked at plants).

21. Word-structure. Types of morphemes.

Word is an autonomous unit of the language, minimum free form. It consists ofroot morphemes & affixes.
Morpheme defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units. Like a word a morpheme is a two-
facet language unit, an association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern. Unlike a word a mor-
pheme is not an autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word.

The term morpheme is derived from Greek morphe “form ”+ -eme. The Greek suffix –eme has been
adopted by linguistic to denote the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature.

Morphemes are subdivided into root - morphemes and affixational morphemes. The root morpheme is the
lexical center of the word. It is the semantic nucleus of a word with which no grammatical properties of the
word are connected, Affixational morphemes include inflections and derivational affixes.

Morphemes which may occur in isolation and function as independent words are called free morphemes
(pay, sum, form).

Morphemes which are not found in isolation are called bound morphemes (-er, un-, -less)

Inflection is an affixal morpheme has grammatical meaning.

Derivational morpheme is responsible for word-formation

22. Structural Types of Words. Morphemic structure vs Derivational structure.

According to the member and the type of morpheme that words possess we can define several structural
types of the word. Only one morpheme – monomorphic, more – polymorphic. All the polymorphic are
devided into derived and compound (wo stems) words. This compound words may be root (blackbird) or
derivational (blue-eyed, pen-holder).

Morphemic analysis. The aim of it is to find out all the morphemes (especially derivational) which are in
the language: 1) Immediate constituent; 2) Ultimate constituent. The procedre may take several stages: un
(UC) – ubelievably – believably (IC) – believable (IC) – ly (UC) – able (UC) – believe (UC). Derivational
analysis. The aim is to establish structural patterns of the words. The basic of this pattern is stem. Any
word can be presented in any way. N – Noun, V – Verb... rewrite – Prf + V – Prf V; driver – V Sf – N;
blackness – Adj Sf – N; to pocket – N+conversion – V; matchbox – N+N – N.
11
23. Affixation.

Affixation is the formation of new words by means of suffixes and prefixes to stems.

Affixes may be divided

1) according to the parts of speech.

N- -ment, -ness;

A- -full, -al, -less

V- - ate, -ise

D- -ly, -ward

2) according to their etymology

 Native: ish, hood, dom

 Borrowed: -tion,able, ious, ment.
1) productive or non-productive
productive suffixes:

Noun – er, ing, is, ist, ance

Adj – y, ish, ed, able, less

Adv – ly

Verb - ize, /ise, ate

Prefixies - un, die, re

4) semantic classification

Prefixes:

Negative: dis

Denoting repetition of the action: re

Denoting space & time relations: pre-, post-

Suffixes:

a) the agent of an action, e.g. -er, -ant (baker, dancer, defendant, etc.);

b) appurtenance, e.g. -an, -ian, -ese, etc. (Arabian, Elizabethan, Russian, Chinese, Japanese,
etc.);

c) collectivity, e.g. -age, -dom, -ery (-ry), etc. (freightage, officialdom, peasantry, etc.);. .

d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie, -let, -ling, etc. (birdie, girlie, cloudlet, squirellng, wolf ling, etc.).

27. Etymological survey of the English vocabulary. Native words VS borrowings.

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From the point of view of etymology, English vocabulary can be divided into 2 parts: 70% of borrowings
in English language, 30% of native words.

Words of native origin are divide into 3 groups: IE, common Germanic, English proper element.

IE: auxilaries, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, natural phenomena,animals family relations; parts of
human body; numerous verbs: stand, sit; numerals.

common Germanic include words which have parallels in such languages as german, French, etc. 3
groups” common nouns: room; Common Adj:, common V: learn

English element proper.: bird, boy, girl, woman, lord, always, call, daisy.

ROMANIC BORROWINGS.

Latin borrowings: they are divided into 3 periods:

1) 5 century, words are connected with trade (pound, inch, kitchen, wall, port);

2) The time of Christianity, words are connected with religion (Latin words: alter, cross, dean; Greek
words: church, angel, devil, anthem);

3) Time of renaissance, words were borrowed after great vowel shift (17 century) (item, superior, zoology,
memorandum, vice versa, AM, PM).

French: the largest group of borrowings is French borrowings. Most of them came into English during the
Norman Conquest. Normans belong to the race of scand. origin but during their residence in Normandy
they had given up the native language and adopted the French dialect. During 3 centuries after the Norman
Conquest French was the language of the court, of the nobility. There are following semantic groups of
French borrowings:

1) words relating to government (administer, empire, state); 2) ~military affairs (army, war, battle); 3)
~jurisprudence (advocate, petition, sentence); 4) ~fashion (luxury, coat, collar); 5)~jewelry (topaz, pearl);
6)~ food and cooking (lunch, cuisine, menu); 7)~literature and music (pirouette, ballet).

Italian: cultural and trade relations between England and Italy in the epoch of renaissance brought in many
Italian words:

1) musical terms: concert, solo, opera, piano, trio; 2) political terms: manifesto; 3) geological terms:
volcano, lava.

Among the 20th century Italian borrowings, we can mention: incognito, fiasco, and graffiti.

Spanish: a large number of such words was penetrated in English vocabulary in 1588 when Phillip 2 sent a
fleet of armed ships against England (armada, ambuscade); trade terms: cargo, embargo; names of dances
and musical instruments: tango, rumba, guitar; names of vegetables and fruits: tomato, tobacco, banana,
ananas.

GERMANIC BORROWINGS:

Scandinavian: By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian
due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. As a result of this conquest there are about 700
borrowings from Scandinavian into English (pronouns: they, them, their; verbs: to call, to want, to die; adj:
13
flat, ill, happy; noun: cake, egg, knife, window. German: in the period of Second World War such words
were borrowed as: luftwaffe (возд. авиация); bundeswehr (вооруженные силы ФРГ). After the Second
World War the following words were borrowed: Volkswagen, berufsverbot (запрет на профессию (в
ФРГ)), and some other words (cobalt, wolfram, iceberg, rucksack). Dutch: Holland and England have had
constant interrelations for many centuries and more then 2000 Dutch words were borrowed into English.
Many of them are nautical terms and were mainly borrowed in the 14th century, such as: skipper, pump,
keel, dock; and some words from everyday life: luck, brandy, and boss. Russian: Among early Russian
borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rubble, kopeck, sterlet, vodka,
and words relating to nature: taiga, tundra, steppe. After the October revolution many new words appeared
in Russia, connected with the new political system, new culture, and many of them were borrowed into
English: collectivization, udarnik, Komsomol and also translation loans: five-year plan, collective farm.
One more group of Russian borrowings is connected with perestroika, suck as: glasnost, nomenclature, and
apparatchik.

29. Ways of replenishment of the vocabulary.

No vocabulary of any living language is ever stable but is constantly changing, growing and decaying.
The changes occurring in the vocabulary are due both to linguistic and non-linguistic causes, but in most
cases to the combination of both. The appearance of a great number of new words and the development of
new meanings in the words already available in the language may be largely accounted for by the rapid
flow of events, the progress of science and technology and emergence of new concepts in different fields
of human activity. There are two ways of enriching the vocabulary as has been mentioned above: A.
v o c a b u l a r y e x t e n s i o n — the appearance of new lexical items. New vocabulary units appear
mainly as a result of: 1. productive or patterned ways of word-formation; 2. non-patterned ways of
word-creation; 3. borrowing from other languages. B . s e m a n t i c e x t e n s i o n — the appearance
of new meanings of existing words which may result in homonyms.

Productive word-formation is the most effective means of enriching the vocabulary. The most widely used
means are affixation (prefixation mainly for verbs and adjectives, suffixation for nouns and adjectives),
conversion (giving the greatest number of new words in verbs and nouns) and composition (most
productive in nouns and adjectives).

'New’ words that appear as a result of productive word-formation are not entirely new as they are all
made up of elements already available in the language. The newness of these words resides in the
particular combination of the items previously familiar to the language speaker. As has already been
mentioned productivity of derivative devices that give rise to novel vocabulary units is fundamentally
relative and it follows that there are no patterns which can be called ‘fully’ productive.

Productive patterns in each part of speech, with a set of individual structural and semantic constraints,
serve as a formal expression of the regular semantic relationship between different classes or semantic
groupings of words. Thus the types of new words that may appear in this or that lexical-grammatical class
of words can be predicted with a high degree of probability. The regularity of expression of the underlying
semantic relations, firmly rooted in the minds of the speakers, make

the derivational patterns bidirectional rules, that is, the existence of one class of words presupposes the
possibility of appearance of the other which stands in regular semantic relations with it. This can be clearly
observed in the high degree of productivity of conversion. Non-patterned ways of
word-creation

14
New words in different notional classes appear also as a result of various non-patterned ways of word
creation. The two main types of non-patterned word-creation are: I. V a r i o u s ways of transformation of
a word-form into a word usually referred to as l e x i c a l i s a t i o n and II. S h o r t e n i n g which
consists in substituting a part for a whole. Shortening comprises essentially different ways of word
creation. It involves 1. transformation of a word-group into a word, and 2. a change of the word-
structure resulting in a new lexical item, i.e. clipping.

Transformations of word-groups into words

Transformations of word-groups into words involve different types of lexical shortening: ellipsis or
substantivisation, initial letter or syllable abbreviations (also referred to as acronyms), blendings, etc.

Borrowing as a means of replenishing the vocabulary of present-day English is of much lesser importance
and is active mainly in the field of scientific -terminology. It should be noted that many terms are often
made up of borrowed morphemes, mostly morphemes from classical languages.

26. Minor ways of word-formation.

MINOR MEANS OF WORD-FORMATION – NON-PRODUCTIVE MEANS OF WORD

FORMATION IN PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH: SOUND INTERCHANGE, REDUPLICATION, BACK-
FORMATION, BLENDING, DISTINCTIVE STRESS (Q.V.), ETC.

CLIPPING Consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts.

Mathematics – maths ,Laboratory – lab ,Captain – cap

3 types:

1) The first part is left (the commonest type)

advertisement – ad

2) The second part is left

telephone – phone

airplane – plane

3) A middle part is left

influenza – flu

refrigerator – fridge

Accepted by the speakers of the language clipping can acquire grammatical categories (used in plural
forms)

BLENDING Is blending part of two words to form one word (merging into one word)

15
Smoke + fog = smog, Breakfast + lunch = brunch, Smoke + haze = smaze (дымка)

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

smog → smoke & fog

- blending of restrictive type: transformable into an attributive phrase, where the first element serves as
modifier of a second.

Positron – positive electron, Medicare – medical care

WORD MANUFACTURING A word or word combination that appears or especially coined by some
author. But it doesn’t name a new object or doesn’t express a new concept

Sentence – sentenceness

“I am English & my Englishness is in my vision” (Lawrence)

SOUND INTERCHANGE Sound interchange is the way of word building when some sounds are
changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English; it was productive in Old English and
can be met in other Indo-European languages. The causes of sound interchange can be different. It can be
the result of Ancient Ablaut which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the period of the
language development known to scientists., e.g. to strike - stroke, to sing - song etc. It can be also the result
of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front
vowel in the syllable coming after the root (regressive assimilation), e.g. hot - to heat (hotian), blood - to
bleed (blodian) etc.

In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless consonants and in
verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at
the end of the word and in verbs in the intervocal position, e.g. bath - to bathe, life - to live, breath - to
breathe etc.

STRESS INTERCHANGE Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin:
nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent - to ac`cent. This
phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when they
were borrowed into English; verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns. When these
borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second
from the end) . Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same
as in native verbs) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first
syllable. As a result of it we have such pairs in English as: to af`fix -`affix, to con`flict- `conflict, to ex`port
-`export, to ex`tract - `extract etc. As a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such
words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions.

SOUND IMITATION It is the way of word building when imitating different sounds forms a word. There
are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation

a) Sounds produced by human beings, such as: to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc.

b) Sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as: to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter etc.

16
c) Sounds produced by nature and objects, such as: to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong,
to tinkle.

24. Compounding.

Compounding is the process of making new words by combining several stems. This is the most productive
of word-formation. Compounding or word-compositionis is one of the productive types of word-formation
in Modern English. Composition like all other ways of deriving words has its own peculiarities as to the
means used, the nature of bases and their distribution, as to the range of application, the scope of semantic
classes and the factors conducive to productivity. There are tree aspects of Compounding:

Structural aspect. Structurally we can deal with tree types of compounds:

1. Neutral – there are no linking elements.

 Simple: sunflower, bedroom, blackmail, tallboy, blackbird.
 Derived: two stems +affix: early-riser, music-lover, honey-mooner.
 Contracted: there is an element is a contraction: TV-set, H-bag, V-day.
2. Morphological – are fewer in number, non-productive; there is a linking element, usually “o”:
anglosaxon, spokesman, handiwork, craftsmanship.
3. Syntactic – very English type, formed of segments of speech and preserve in their structure traces
of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: good-for-nothing, sit-at-home, Jack-of-all-trades,
breakfast-in-the-bedder, lily-of-the-valley.
Semantic aspect. Three major groups of compounds:

1. Transparant/Non-idiomatic: meaning can be deduced from the meaning of two components:

classroom, dancing hall, sleeping car. Meaning is the sum of compounds.
2. Semi-transparant: one of the components shifts its meaning: chatterbox, lady-killer, pickpocket,
good-for-nothing.
3. Enigmas: impossible to deduce meaning of compound from the meaning of components: ladybird,
wallflower, horse marine, tallboy, blue stocking.
Criteria for distinguishing between compounds and word combinations:

1. spelling
2. phonetic criteria – compound has single stress
3. morphological
4. syntactical – word combination: tall boy – tall handsome boy
5. semantical – two meaningful words must form one solid meaning: lipstick.

25. Conversion.

Conversion, one of the principal ways of forming words in Modern English is highly productive in
replenishing the English word-stock with new words, ‘cause English is analytical language & there are lots
of monosyllabic words. Conversion – affixless way of word-building, affixless derivation; process which
consisits in forming a new word from existing one by changing its category of speech, whereas the
morphemic/phonemic form remains the same.

This question is contraversion. ‘cause some linguists say that it’s not a way of word-formation, but change
of word-function.
17
Semantic classification:

1. N-tool, V- its function: nail

2. N-animal, V-some characteristic of it: fox, dog, rat
3. N-part of body, V- the action performed
4. N-profession, V- activity: cook
5. N-place, V-process of its occupation: room
6. N-container, V-putting smth in it: bottle
7. N-meal, V-taking meal.

30. Stylistic characteristics of the vocabulary.

Linguists divide the English vocabulary into:-formal and informal. Formal English-is used in books ,
magazines, by lectures, public speakers, radio announces, office talks learned words(they’re neutral, not
marked)-mind(mental activity), sun(solar system). In official documents and business correspondence we
use special vocabulary=official vocabulary-room-accommodation, get-obtain. There’s also a layer of
stylistically neutral words, which belong to literature – colloquial sphere. Informal English – is used in
communications and subdivided into: colloquial speech(low-Argot(язык зеков)),familiar colloquial
speech(сленг) Informal vocabulary is stylistically marked. To stylistically marked words, poetic words
belong as well as poetic. Poetic words function specifically in poetic speech-thea=you,behold=see.
Literary colloquial words are used with educated people, in literary works, they form the bulk of the
literary.

Familiar and low colloquial words are used in more or less careless speech and in some aspects rude.
Examples can’t be found in literature to create the atmosphere correctly-pinch(стащить)-low colloquial.

Some words are taken from dialogues, many set-expressions are widely used-I’d sooner die. Argot-are
words used by criminals, it’s not widely used=mini language. Slang is used by different people of social or
professional groups(widely spread in every day speech), special slang is futher subdivided into –
University slang-teenager slang – sport slang; besides there’re vulgarisms/ vulgar words belong to
informal language. They can’t be used in communications as they sound rude, they deal mainly with
sex(dirty Engl.)

31. Territorial variants of English in the lexicological aspect.

All lexical units may be divided into General English (those common to all the variants) and Logically-
marked, those specific to present-day usage in one of the variants and not found in the others (i.e.
Briticisms, Americanisms, etc.). Philologists note the fact that different variants of English use different
words for the same objects: flat-apartment, underground-subway, post-mail. There are also some full
Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., i.e. lexical units specific to the British, American, etc. variant in all their
meanings. For example, the words fortnight, pillar-box are full Briticisms, campus, mailboy are full
Americanisms, outback, backblocks are full Australianisms.

The numerous locally-marked slangisms, professionalisms and dialectisms cannot be considered

distinguishing features either, since they do not belong to the literary language. Lexical peculiarities in
different parts of the English-speaking world are not only those in vocabulary, they also concern the very
fashion of using words. For instance, the grammatical valency of the verb to push is much narrower in
AuE, than in BE and AE. As to word-formation in different variants, the word-building means employed
are the same and most of them are equally productive. The difference lies only in the varying degree of
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productivity of some of them in this or that variant. As compared with the British variant, for example, in
the American variant the affixes -ette, -ee, super-, as in kitchenette, draftee, super-market, are used more
extensively.

Thus, the lexical distinctions between different variants of English are intricate and varied, but they do not
make a system. For the most part they are partial divergences in the semantic structure and usage of
some words.

32. Lexicography as a science. Historical background.

Lexicography is a branch of linguistics that covers theory and practice of compiling dictionaries.
Fundamental work in lexicographic theory was written by Scherba in 1940. Lexicography has a common
object of study with Lexicology, both describe vocabulary of a language. The difference between them lies
in systematization and completeness each of them is able to achieve. Lexicography aims at system-on
revealing characteristic features of words. It can’t claim any completeness as regards units themselves,
because number of these units being very great, systematization and completeness couldn’t be achieved
simultaneously. Province of Lexicography is semantic, formal and functional description of all individual
words. Dictionaries aim at a more or less complete description, but so cant attain systematic treatment.
Lexicologists sort and presents their material in a sequence depending upon their views concerning
vocabulary system, whereas lexicographes have to arrange it most often according to a purely external
characters, namely alphabetically. Neither of these branches of Linguistics could develop successfully
without each other.

Term dictionary is used to denote a book listing words of a lang. with their meanings and often with data
regarding pronunciation, usage and origin. There are also dictionaries which concentrate their attention
upon only one of these aspects: pronouncing and etymological dictionaries.

For dictionaries in which words and their definitions belong to the same language, term unilingual or
explanatory is used, whereas bilingual or translation are those that explain words by giving their
equivalents in another language. Multilingual or polyglot dictionaries are not numerous, they serve chiefly
purpose of comparing synonyms and terminology in various languages.

Unilingual dictionaries are further subdivided with regard to time. Diachronic dictionaries reflect
development of English voc-ry by recording history of form and meaning for every word.Synchronic and
Descriptive dic-s concerned with present-day meaning and usage of words.

Both bilingual and unilingual dictionaries can be general and special. General represent vocabulary as a
whole with a degree of completeness depending upon bulk and scope of book in question. Special
dictionaries cover only a certain specific part of vocabulary. They are subdivided depending on whether
words are chosen accaotding to sphere of human activity in which they are used (technical), type of
unitsthemselves

(phraseological), or relationships existing between them dictionaries of synonyms).

The history of lexicography of the English language goes as far back as the Old English period where its
first traces are found in the form of glosses of religious books with interlinear translation from Latin.
Regular bilingual English-Latin dictionaries already existed in the 15th century.

The First unilingual English dictionary, explaining words appeared in 1604. Its aim was to explain difficult
words.
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The first big explanatory dictionary was complied by Dr Samuel Johnson and published in 1755. The most
important innovation of S. Johnson's Dictionary was the introduction of illustrations of the meanings of the
words by examples from the best writers.

The Golden Age of English lexicography began in the last quarter of the 19th century when the English
Philological Society started work on compiling The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which was
originally named. New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (NED).

The History of American Lexicography

Curiously enough, the first American dictionary of the English language was compiled by a man whose
name was also Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson Jr., a Connecticut schoolmaster, published in 1798 a
small book entitled "A School Dictionary". This book was followed in 1800 by another dictionary by the
same author, which showed already some signs of Americanisation

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