1.

The structure of the word as a linguistic unit can be traced on different

language levels:
▪ at the level of phonemes we deal with the phonetic structure of the word;
▪ at the level of morphemes – with the morphological structure of the word;
▪ at the level of word semantics we speak of semantic structure of the word.
2. Three basic types of motivation of meaning are distinguished:
▪ phonetic motivation;
▪ morphological motivation;
▪ semantic motivation.

3. The question of word motivation is examined by Onomasiology which

studies nomination, or means and ways of naming the elements.
4. Phonetic motivation implies a direct connection between the phonetic
structure of the word (i.e. sounds that make up the word) and its meaning.
All phonetically motivated words have their sounding similar to the
meaning they signify and often the meaning of such words can easily be guessed.
Such words are referred to as “onomatopoeic words”, i.e. sound-imitating words.
5. Morphological motivation implies a direct connection between the lexical
meaning of the constituent morphemes, the pattern of their arrangement and the
meaning of the word. The constituent morphemes are the morphemes that make up
a word. They may be of two types: root-morphemes and affixal morphemes, the
latter falling into prefixes and suffixes
Morphological motivation is found in two cases:
1) when we deal with the words with affixal morphemes (i.e. words with
suffixes and prefixes) and
2) when we deal with compound words.
 6. Morphologically motivated words constitute the largest part of the
motivated vocabulary in English and Russian: 88,5 % in English and 91,7 %
respectively.
7. Semantic motivation implies a direct connection between the primary
meaning of the word and its coexisting meaning which is understood as a
transferred extension of the primary meaning, the transfer being often based on
metaphor or metonymy.
8. In the languages under consideration there are many semantically
motivated words whose meaning is extended on the basis of metaphoric and
metonymic transfers. For example, metaphoric transfers: mouth of a harbor, hand
of a watch, face of a building, tongues of a flame, bed of a river, the flowers of
speech.
Semantic motivation is also characteristic of some words denoting popular
names of flowers, trees, birds and animals.
9. There are also words in whose semantic structure different kinds of
motivation interlace. This type of motivation is sometimes called complex
morpho-semantic motivation. Morpho-semantic motivation deals with the words
whose primary meaning serving as the basis for secondary nomination is
morphologically motivated, while the new meaning appears to be semantically
motivated.
10. Sometimes in an attempt to find motivation for a word (often a borrowed
one) the speakers change its form so as to give it a connection with some well-
known word. These cases of mistaken motivation received the name of folk
etymology.
11. Cockroach – the name comes from Spanish cucaracha, the first part of
which must have been particularly obscure to English ears. There is no connection
with cock.
Helpmate – the form comes from a Bible translation of Genesis 2.18, when
God said ‘I will make him a help meet for him’. Meet in this context is an adjective
meaning ‘suitable’; but the popular view preferred to take the word as a form of
mate.
A nightmare is not ‘a she-horse that appears at night’ but ‘a terrifying dream
personified in folklore as a female monster’ (OE mara ‘an evil spirit’).

In Russian the word свидетель ‘очевидец’ may serve as an example of folk

etymology. This word originated from Old Slavonic âhähòè ‘ведать, знать’ and
should have been spelt as *сведетель, but under the influence of the word видеть
that is better-known to modern speakers of Russian began to be regarded as its
derivative.
Folk etymology may be the means of creating a humorous effect. The
examples of such folk etymologies in Russian are as follows: заморыш
‘иностранец’, главбух ‘начальник артиллерии’, праздношатающийся
‘человек, идущий с праздничного ужина’, парильщик ‘любящий пари’.
12. The main differences of the word motivation in the languages under study
lie within the limits of semantic motivation. When we compare this type of
motivation of the correlated English and Russian words (i.e. words denoting the
same denotatum in both languages) we can come to the following conclusions.
1. In different languages designation of objects can be based on their different
characteristic features which results in nationally specific semantic motivation of
words in these languages.
2. There are cases when one of the correlated words in the contrasted
languages has quite a transparent motivation while the motivation of the other is no
longer transparent at present or remains absolutely obscure.