CONTENTS

Lecture1 4
Lecture 2 17
Lecture 3 27
Lecture 4 43
Lecture 5 55
Lecture 6 70
Lecture 7 80
Lecture 8 89
Lecture 9 98
Tests 101
References 111
The list of topics 119

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 LECTURE 1
THE FUNDUMENTALS OF LEXICOLOGY

1. The object and aims of lexicology

2. A word as a fundamental unit of a language
3. Lexicology, its interrelations with other sciences
4. Subbranches of lexicology
5. Methods of investigation

Key terms: lexicology, word, external features, internal

features, lexeme, semasiology, onomastics, phraseology,
etymology, distributional analysis, immediate constituents
analysis, componental analysis, transformational analysis,
contrastive analysis

1. The object and aims of lexicology

Language is studied from different angels every English and
Ukrainian units are composed of several elements without they
can’t exist. They are sound, form, meaning and usage. General
linguistics studies the language from all these angles: phonetics,
grammar, lexicology, stylistics. Lexicology (the term “lexicology
word” and “logos” – “science”). It means “the science of the
word”) is the branch of linguistics which deals with the
vocabulary of a language and properties of words (and word-
groups) as the main units of language. Lexicology is concerned
with words, variable word-groups, phraseological units, and with
morphemes which make up words.
By the vocabulary (or the stock of words) of a language is
understood the total sum of its words and word equivalents that the
language possesses.
Modern Lexicology aims at giving a systematic description
of the word-stock of language. Words, their component parts –
morphemes – and various types of word-groups, are subjected to

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structural and semantic analysis primarily from the synchronic
point. In other words, Modern Lexicology investigates the
problems of word-structure and word-formation, the semantic
structure of words, the main principles underlying the
classification of vocabulary units into various groupings, the laws
governing the replenishment of the vocabulary with new
vocabulary units. It also studies the relations existing between
various lexical layers of the vocabulary and the specific laws and
regulations that govern its development. The source and growth of
the vocabulary, the changes it has undergone in its history are also
dwelt upon, as the diachronic approach revealing the vocabulary in
the making cannot but contribute to the understanding of its
workings at the present time.

2. A word as a fundamental unit of a language

The real nature of a word and the term itself has always been
one of the most ambiguous issues in almost every branch of
linguistics. To use it as a term in the description of language, we
must be sure what we mean by it. To illustrate the point here, let us
count the words in the following sentence:
You can’t tie a bow with the rope in the bow of a boat.
Probably the most straightforward answer to this is to say
that there are 14. However, the orthographic perspective taken by
itself, of course, ignores the meaning of the words, and as soon as
we invoke meanings we at least are talking about different words
bow, to start with.
Being a central element of any language system, the word is
a focus for the problems of phonology, lexicology, syntax,
morphology, stylistics and also for a number of other language and
speech sciences. Within the framework of linguistics the word has
acquired definitions from the syntactic, semantic, phonological
points of view as well as a definition combining various
approaches. Thus, it has been syntactically defined as “the
minimum sentence” by H.Sweet and much later as “the minimum

5
independent unit of utterance” by L.Bloomfield. E. Sapir
concentrates on the syntactic and semantic aspects calling the word
“one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated meaning,
into which the sentence resolves itself”. A purely semantic
treatment is observed in S. Ullmann’s explanation of words as
meaningful segments that are ultimately composed of meaningful
units. The prominent French linguist A. Meillet combines the
semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria: “A word is
defined by the association of a given meaning with a given group
of sounds susceptible of a given grammatical employment”.
Our native school of linguistics understands the word as a
doublefacet unit of form and content, reflecting human notions,
and in this sense being considered as a form of their existence.
Notions fixed in word meanings are formed as generalized and
approximately correct reflections of reality, thus, signifying them
words objectivize reality and conceptual worlds in their content.
So, the word is a basic unit of a language resulting from the
association of a given meaning with a given cluster of sounds
susceptible of a certain grammatical employment.
Taking into consideration the above, let us consider the
nature of the word.
First, the word is a unit of speech which serves the purposes
of human communication. Thus, the word can be defined as a unit
of communication.
Secondly, the word can be perceived as the total of the
sounds which comprise it.
Third, the word, viewed structurally, possesses several
characteristics.
a) The modern approach to the word as a double-facet unit is
based on distinguishing between the external and the internal
structures of the word. By the external structure of the word we
mean its morphological structure. For example, in the word post-
impressionists the following morphemes can be distinguished: the
prefixes post-, im-, the root –press-, the noun-forming suffixes -

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ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s. All these
morphemes constitute the external structure of the word post-
impressionists. The internal structure of the word, or its meaning,
is nowadays commonly referred to as the word's semantic
structure. This is the word's main aspect. Words can serve the
purposes of human communication solely due to their meanings.
b) Another structural aspect of the word is its unity. The
word possesses both its external (or formal) unity and semantic
unity. The formal unity of the word is sometimes inaccurately
interpreted as indivisibility. The example of postimpressionists has
already shown that the word is not, strictly speaking, indivisible,
though permanently linked. The formal unity of the word can best
be illustrated by comparing a word and a word-group comprising
identical constituents. The difference between a blackbird and a
black bird is best explained by their relationship with the
grammatical system of the language. The word blackbird, which is
characterized by unity, possesses a single grammatical framing:
blackbirds. The first constituent black is not subject to any
grammatical changes. In the word-group a black bird each
constituent can acquire grammatical forms of its own: the blackest
birds I've ever seen. Other words can be inserted between the
components which is impossible so far as the word is concerned as
it would violate its unity: a black night bird. The same example
may be used to illustrate what we mean by semantic unity. In the
word-group a black bird each of the meaningful words conveys a
separate concept: bird – a kind of living creature; black – a color.
The word blackbird conveys only one concept: the type of bird.
This is one of the main features of any word: it always conveys
one concept, no matter how many component morphemes it may
have in its external structure. . The difference between a song-bird
and a song bird is explained by their relationship with the
grammatical system of the language.
c) A further structural feature of the word is its susceptibility
to grammatical employment. In speech most words can be used in

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different grammatical forms in which their interrelations are
realized.
So, the formal/structural properties of the word are
1) isolatability (words can function in isolation, can make a
sentence of their own under certain circumstances);
2) inseparability/unity (words are characterized by some
integrity, e.g. a light – alight (with admiration);
3) a certain freedom of distribution (exposition in the
sentence can be different);
4) susceptibility to grammatical employment;
5) a word as one of the fundamental units of the language is
a double facet unit of form (its external structure) and meaning (its
internal/semantic structure).
There are 4 basic kinds of words:
1)orthographic words – words distinguished from each other
by their spelling (night-knight);
2) phonological words – distinguished from each other by
their pronunciation (present-present);
3) word-forms which are grammatical variants (girls-girls-
girl’s);
4) words as items of meaning, the headwords of dictionary
entries, called lexemes.
A lexeme is a group of words united by the common lexical
meaning, but having different grammatical forms. The base forms
of such words, represented either by one orthographic word or a
sequence of words called multi-word lexemes which have to be
considered as single lexemes (e.g. phrasal verbs, some
compounds) may be termed citation forms of lexemes (sing, talk,
head etc), from which other word forms are considered to be
derived.
To sum it up, a word is the smallest naming unit of a
language with a more or less free distribution used for the purposes
of human communication, materially representing a group of

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sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical
employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.

3. Lexicology, its interrelations with other sciences

According to S. Ullmann, lexicology forms next to
phonology, the second basic division of linguistic science (the
third is syntax). Consequently, the interaction between vocabulary
and grammar is evident in morphology and syntax. Grammar
reflects the specific lexical meaning and the capacity of words to
be combined in human actual speech. The lexical meaning of the
word, in its turn, is frequently signaled by the grammatical context
in which it occurs. Thus, morphological indicators help to
differentiate the variant meanings of the word (e.g., plural forms
that serve to create special lexical meaning: colors, customs, etc.;
two kinds of pluralization: brother → brethren - brothers; cloth →
cloths - clothes). There are numerous instances when the syntactic
position of the word changes both its function and lexical meaning
(e.g., an adjective and a noun element of the same group can
change places: library school - school library).
The interrelation between lexicology and phonetics becomes
obvious if we think of the fact that the word as the basis unit in
lexicological study cannot exist without its sound form, which is
the object of study in phonology. Words consist of phonemes that
are devoid of meaning of their own, but forming morphemes they
serve to distinguish between meanings. The meaning of the word
is determined by several phonological features:
a) qualitative and quantitative character of phonemes (e.g.
dog-dock, pot-port);
b) fixed sequence of phonemes (e.g. pot-top);
3) the position of stress (e.g. insult (verb) and insult (noun)).
Summarizing, lexicology is the branch of linguistics
concerned with the study of words as individual items and dealing
with both formal and semantic aspects of words; and although it is

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concerned predominantly with an in-depth description of lexemes,
it gives a close attention to a vocabulary in its totality, the social
communicative essence of a language as a synergetic system being
a study focus.

4. Subbranches of lexicology
There are several branches of lexicology. The general study
of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of
any particular language, is known as general lexicology.
Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are
referred to as language universals. Special lexicology focuses on
the description of the peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given
language. A branch of study called contrastive lexicology
provides a theoretical foundation on which the vocabularies of
different languages can be compared and described, the correlation
between the vocabularies of two or more languages being the
scientific priority.
Within the framework of lexicology, both synchronic (Gr
syn “together”, “with” and chronos “time”) and diachronic or
historical (Gr dia “through”) approaches to the language suggested
by the Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) are
effectively realized. Language is the reality of thought, and
thought develops together with the development of a society, thus
the language and its vocabulary should be studied in the light of
social history. Every new phenomenon in a human society in
general, which is of any importance for communication, finds a
reflection in the corresponding vocabulary. A word is considered
to be a generalized reflection of reality; therefore, it is impossible
to understand its development if one is ignorant of the changes in
socio-political or everyday life, manners and culture, science of a
linguoculture it serves to reflect. These extra-linguistic forces
influencing the evolution of words are taken into the priority
consideration in modern lexicology.

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 With regard to special lexicology the synchronic approach is
concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a
certain time (e.g., a course in Modern English Lexicology). The
diachronic approach in terms of special lexicology deals with the
changes and the development of the vocabulary in the course of
time. It is special historical lexicology that deals with the evolution
of vocabulary units as time goes by.
Vocabulary studies include such aspects of research as
etymology, semasiology and onomasiology.
The evolution of a vocabulary forms the object of historical
lexicology or etymology (from Gr. etymon “true, real”),
discussing the origin of various words, their change and
development, examining the linguistic and extra-linguistic forces
that modify their structure, meaning and usage.
Semasiology (from Gr. semasia “signification”) is a
branch of linguistics whose subject-matter is the study of word
meaning and the classification of changes in the signification of
words or forms, viewed as normal and vital factors of any
linguistic development. It is the most relevant to polysemy and
homonymy.
Onomasiology is the study of the principles and regularities
of the signification of things / notions by lexical and lexico-
phraseological means of a given language. It has its special value
in studying dialects, bearing an obvious relevance to synonymity.
Praseology. It deals with phraseological units.
Lexicography. It is a practical science. It describes the
vocabulary and each lexical unit in the form of dictionaries.
Lexical Morphology. It deals with the morphological
stricture of the word.
Word-formation. It deals with the patterns which are used
in coining new words.

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 5. Methods of investigation
The process of scientific investigation may be subdivided
into several stages. Observation is an early and basic phase of all
modern scientific investigations, including linguistic, and is the
centre of what is called the inductive method of inquiry. The next
stage after observation is classification, or orderly arrangement of
the data obtained through observation. The following stage is
usually generalization, i. e. collection of data and their orderly
arrangement must eventually lead to formulation of a
generalization.
Contrastive typological investigations are carried out with
the help of several methods.
The distributional analysis in its various forms is
commonly used nowadays by lexicologists of different schools of
thought. By the term “distribution” we understand the occurance
of a lexical unit relative to other lexical units of the same level. It
is readily observed that a certain component of the word meaning
described when the word is identified distributionally. For
example, in the sentence “The boy — home” the missing word is
easily identified as a verb — “ The boy went (came, ran, etc.)
home”. Thus, we see that the component of meaning that is
distributionally identified is actually the part-of-speech meaning
but not any individual lexical meaning of the word under analysis.
It is assumed that sameness and difference in distribution is
indicative of sameness and difference in the part-of-speech
meaning.
We can easily find Ukrainian equivalents of many English
words; distributional method shows that they may be equivalents
only in some surroundings and can not coincide with in other
situations.
So, for example,
англ. stop + V infinitive — зупинитися (stop to do smth.);
англ. stop + V gerund — припинити (stop doing smth.);

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 укр. N (іменники чи займенники) + ставати (чоловік
встав ні світ ні зоря) — “приймати вертикальне положення
дуже рано”;
укр. V ставати + Adj (прикметники чи займенники-
прикмет- ники) — (небо ставало темним) — “робилося”.
Distributive analysis needs for Contrastive Lexicology,
because it helps to define the contextual meaning of the word
subjects to its links. For example, English suffixes —er; -ist have
the analogue in Ukrainian: pianist— піаніст; dancer —
танцюрист.
The theory of immediate constituents analysis was
originally elaborated as an attempt to determine the ways in which
lexical units are relevantly related to one another . It was
discovered that combinations of such units are usually structured
into hierarchically arranged sets of binary constructions. In
comparative investigation this analysis shows the significant
difference in the morphemic structure of Ukrainian and English
words. English words can divide into more quantity of morphemes
than Ukrainian words. For example: англ. law/ ful/ness;
dis/cuss/ion; укр. роз/бір/ли/вий; дер/жа/во/тво/рен/ня.
It should be pointed out that the componental analysis deals
with individual meanings. Different meanings of polysemantic
words have different componental structure. For example, the
comparison of two meanings of the noun boy — “дитина
чоловічої статі до 17 чи 18 років”, “обслуговуючий персонал
чоловічої статі незалежно від віку в Африканських і
Азіатських країнах” — reveals that through both of them contain
the semantic components “human” (людина); “male” (чоловік);
the component “young’ (молодий), which is a part of the one
meaning, is not necessarily to be found in the other.
The componental analysis is currently combined with other
linguistic procedures used for investigation of meaning. The
contrastive analysis supplemented by the componental analysis
yields very good results as one can clearly see the lack of one-to-

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one correspondence not only between the semantic structures of
correlated words but also between seemingly identical and
correlated meanings of contrasted words. For example: укр.
широкий and the English words wide, broad, large, extensive,
generous — are not semantically identical because Ukrainian word
широкий is used to describe both humans and objects
indiscriminately (широка жінка “товста”; широка вулиця,
двері), whereas the English word wide does not contain the
semantic component human.
Some American psycholinguists (C.E. Osgood, G.J. Suci,
P.H. Tannenbaum) set up a technique known as semantic
differential by means of which, as they claim, meaning can be
measured. It is perfectly clear, however, that what semantic
differential measures is not word meaning in any of the accepted
senses of the term but the connotational component of meaning or,
to be more exact, the emotive charge. Their technique requires
informations to judge a series of concepts with respect to a set of
antonymic (opposite) adjective scales. This technique we can use
for the fiction translation. For example: a concept like англ. dog is
to be rated in terms of the degree to which it is good or bad; fast or
slow; kind or angry; big or small etc.
The transformational analysis in lexicological
investigation may be defined as repatterning of various
distributional structures in order to discover difference or
sameness of meaning of practically identical distributional
patterns. Briefly, any transformation is a form of expressing some
definite meaning. The simplest transformation is transcoding (for
example: англ. Liverpool, London, Wales; укр. Ліверпуль,
Лондон, Уельс). The transformational method is employed to
identify the nature of a language unit in the source language or in a
target language. Ukrainian sentence “Знаю, прийду” may
understand and treat differently: a) as a definite personal sentence
with two homogeneous predicates; b) as a definite personal main
sentence (why shall I come?) because (I know it); c) as two

14
coordinate definite personal clauses with the causal implicit
meaning. When transformed into English, this sentence acquires
the following structural form: I know it and I shall come. The
transformational method we can use for founding semantic links
between the components of the compound words: англ. sunray
“ray of the sun” (промінь сонця — відношення родового
відмінка); укр. полярник “той, хто досліджує полярні райони”
(polar explorer).
Statistical techniques have been successfully applied in the
analysis of various linguistic phenomena: different structural types
of words, affixes, the vocabularies of great writers and poets and
even in the study of some problems of Historical Lexicology.
The contrastive analysis is applied to reveal the features of
sameness and difference in lexical meanings and semantic
structures of correlated words in different languages. Comparing
of isomorfic features and phenomena can very often be performed
both with the help of the deductive and the inductive methods. For
example: укр. зелене пасовисько; англ. the green pasture.
Polysemantic words in all languages may denote very different
objects and, yet all the meanings are considered by native speakers
to be obviously logical extentions of the basic meaning. For
example, to an Englishman it is self-evident that one should be
able to use the word “head” to denote the following: head of a
person; head of a bed; head of a coin; head of a match etc.
Whereas in Ukrainian different words have to be used: голова,
узголів’я, голівка, etc. In the English synonymic set rude,
impolite, offensive, insulting, tactless, cheeky each word differs in
certain components of meaning from the others, for example: rude
“someone who is rude upsets or offends people by not following
the rules of good social behaviour”; cheeky (only British) “say
about a child who says something rude to a parent or teacher”.
Comparing the corresponding Ukrainian synonymic word грубий,
неввічливий, брутальний, we can say that word укр. грубий —
“неввічлива особа, погано зроблена дія тощо”.

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 To sum up, comparing words or word combinations we can
by using the own intuition and your own linguistic experience. But
it can lead to the subjectivizm. Thus, if we want to get clear
results, we have to use the different scientific structural methods of
the linguistic analysis.

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 `LECTURE 2
ETYMOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
MODERN ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN VOCABULARY

1. Etymological peculiarities of the English and Ukrainian

vocabulary
2. Types of borrowings
3. Assimilation of borrowings
4. Etymological doublets
5. Translation-loans

Key terms: native word, loan word, translation-loan,

assimilation, etymological doublet

1. Etymological peculiarities of the English and

Ukrainian vocabulary
According to the Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics, etymology — the study of the origin of
words, and their history and changes in their meaning.
Etymologically the vocabulary of the language is far from being
homogeneous. It consists of two layers – the native stock and the
borrowed stock of words.
A native word is a word which belongs to the original stock
(native element), as known from the earliest available manuscripts
of the Old period.
A loan word, borrowed word or borrowing is a word
taken over from another language and modified in phonemic
shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of
the language.
Native words comprise only 30% of the total number of
words in the English vocabulary but the native words form the
bulk of the most frequent words actually used in speech and
writing. The native element in English embraces a large number of
high-frequency words like the articles, prepositions, pronouns,

17
conjunctions, auxiliaries, and, also words denoting everyday
objects and ideas.
Native words are subdivided by diachronic linguists into
those of the Indo-European core stock. And in English native
words also include those of Common Germanic origin, i.e. of
words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic,
etc., but none in Russian, French, and Ukrainian.
The Indo-European element represents words of roots
common to all or most languages of the Indo-European group.
English words of this group denote the following groups:
1. Family relations: a mother, a brother, a step
brother.
2. Parts of human body: a foot, lips, a heart.
3. Animals: a cow, a goose, a snake.
4. Plants: a tree, a birch, a corn, a cherry.
5. Times of day: a day, an afternoon, a night.
6. Heavenly bodies: a sun, a star, a moon.
7. Numerous adjectives: new, yellow, sad, blade,
narrow.
8. The numerals from one to a hundred.
9. Some pronouns: you, he, they (Scandinavian
borrowing).
10. Numerous verbs: to be, to stand, to sit, to eat, to bring.
The Germanic element represents words of roots to all or
most Germanic languages. There are some following groups are:
1. Parts of human body: an arm, a bone, a hand.
2. Animals: a bear, a calf, a pork.
3. Plants: an oak, a grass.
4. Natural phenomena: a snow, a lightening, a frost.
5. Seasons of the year: a winter, a spring, a summer.
6. Landscape features: a sea, a land, a valley.
7. Human dwellings and furniture: a room, a flat, a
bench.
8. Transport: a ferry,a ship.

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 9. Adjectives: green, small, thin, old.
10. Verbs: to see, to say, to tell, to talk, to give.
So, the vocabulary of English and Ukrainian languages has
following layers:
1. All-Indo-European vocabulary. For example: англ.
a mother, four, to sit, a guest, an eye, a night, a salt,; укр. мати,
чотири, сидіти, гість, око, ніч, сіль.
2. Germanic element — in English; Slavonic — in
Ukrainian. For example: англ. an arm, a finger, a bear, a grass, a
frost, a spring, a land, a bench, a ship,to give; укр . вівчар,
мачуха, трава, палець, ведмідь, буря, відро, ніж, коровай,
пиво, диво, дума, варити, читати, розумний, солодкий.
3. The borrowed vocabulary. For example: англ. a
desire, to adore, gay, a channel, a chieftain (from French), to
admire, a phenomenon, plum, a wall (from Latin), a skin, a sky, to
screw, a skirt (from Scandinavian), a potato, a tomato (from
Spanish), a philosophy, linguistics, comedy, progress, primadonna
(from Greek), a masterpiece, a wonder child (from German), first
dancer, prima ballerina, an alarm, a piano(from Italian), a
collective farm, a five-year plan (from Russian); укр. повидло,
стъожка (from Polish), св1дом1стъ, фортуна (from Latin),
архангел, псалом (from Greek), штепселъ, ландшафт (from
German), авангард, десерт (from French), бюджет,
менеджмент (from English), валюта, фонтан (from Italian).
In order to have a better understanding of the problem, it will
be necessary to go through a brief survey of certain historical
periods (facts) of English and Firstly, some information about
English vocabulary. There are some periods in English origin:
1. The first century B. C. Most of the territory now
known to us as Europe was occupied by the Roman Empire. The
tribal languages contained only Indo-European and German
elements. Since this period in English appear words from Latin (a
butter, a cheese, a pea, a plant, a kitchen).

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 2. The fifth century A.D. several of Germanic tribes
(Angles, Saxons and Jutes) migrated across the sea now known as
the English Channel to the British Isles. They were controlled by
Celts. Since this period in English words from Celtic (a cradle, a
river, a water), from Latin (a street, a wall) appear.
3. The seventh century A.D. This century was
significant for the christianization of England. Latin was the
official language of the Christian Church. It is a period of the Latin
borrowings (a priest, a bishop, a scholar, a magister).
4. From the end of the 8th c. to the middle of the 11th
c. England underwent several Scandinavian invasions, which
inevitably left their traces on the English vocabulary (to die, to
cast, a law, a husband, a ski (all combinations with sk-), weak,
loose).
5. 1066. It is Empire of Norman Conquest. The epoch
can well be called eventful not only in national, social, political
and human terms, but also in linguistic terms. England became a
bilingual country. There are a lot of French borrowings in this
period (a goverment, a power, a court, a judge, an army, an
enemy, a science, a pen, an autumn, a dinner, a plate).
6. The Renaissance period. Since this period once
more a lot of borrowings from Latin and Greek (major, intellegent,
to elect, to create, a datum, a music, an atom, an esthete), Parisian
dialect of French (a police, a scene, a machine, a technique).
The historical survey is far from complete.
Due to the historical facts of Ukrainian origin, we would
present some of them:
1. Prehistorical period (near 7th— 6h cc. B.C.). There
are a lot of words from Indo-European vocabulary (жінка, ворог,
моряк, вітер); Latin borrowings (Брут, арена, імена). Since 6th
— 7th cc. A.D. there are some influences from Serbian and
Croatian languages (весело, неділя, літо, вабити, травень). By
XI c. any informations about Ukrainian language had not
appeared.

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 2. Period of Kyiv Rus. It is a period of the Old
Slavonic language (житіє помагає, розпитувати, полоненики,
лишися, хоробрий, Василеві, Володимир, порося).
3. Period of Lithuanian-Russian reign. It is a period of
a mixture of the Old-Slavonic, Polish, Latin and Ukrainian
languages.
Nowadays Ukrainian becomes a national language of
Ukrainian nation and in the XXI century continues to develop,
especially terminological system of vocabulary.
Proper Ukrainian vocabulary. There are some groups of it:
1. Social-political vocabulary: громадянин, осередок,
власність, володар.
2. Name of dwellings and theirs parts: приміщення,
підлога, стеля, хвіртка.
3. Meals and drinks: голубці, мачанка, січеники,
узвар, галушка.
4. Clothes and footwears: запаска, спідниця, бриль,
сап’янці.
5. Names of the domestic things: рушник, коцюба,
оброть, рядно.
6. Agricultural vocabulary: сіножать, скирта,
сівалка, сіяч, обжинки, полуниця, цукроварня.
7. Abstract and scientific vocabulary: мрія,
виховання, кісень, похідна, освіта, іспит.
8. Adverbs: осторонь, навпростець, торік, зопалу,
навперейми.
9. Prepositions, conjunctions and particles: щодо,
біля, бо, зате, дарма що, невже, навіть, хіба.

2. Types of borrowings
The term source of borrowing should be distinguished
from the term origin of borrowing. The former should be applied
to the language from which the loan word was taken into English.
The latter, on the other hand, refers to the language to which the

21
word may be traced (e.g. paper ‹ Fr papier ‹ Lat papyrus ‹ Gr
papyrus has French as its source of borrowing and Greek as its
origin).
Sometimes the word borrowing is used in a wider sense,
being extended onto the so-called translation-loans (or calques)
and semantic borrowings. Translation-loans are words and
expressions made from the material available in the language after
the patterns characteristic of the given language, but under the
influence of some foreign words and expressions (e.g. mother
tongue ‹ lingua maternal (Latin); wall newspaper ‹ стенгазета
(Russian); the fair sex ‹ la beau sexe (French), etc.)
Semantic borrowing is the appearance of a new meaning due
to the influence of a related word in another language (e.g. the
word bureau entered the political vocabulary, as in Political
bureau, under the influence of Russian) A special distinction
should be made between true borrowings and words formed from
Latin and Greek (e.g. telephone, phonogram, which were never
part of Latin or Greek and they do not reflect any contacts with
speakers of those languages.
Criteria of borrowings
The criteria of borrowings can be divided into phonetical,
grammatical and lexical.
The phonetical criteria are strange sounds (sound
combination, position of stress), its spelling and the correlation
between sounds and letters (e.g. waltz (G.), psychology (GR),
communiqué (Fr)), the initial position of sounds [v], [z] or the
letters x, j, z is a valid sign that the word is borrowed (e.g. volcano
(It.), vaccine (L.), Jungle (Hindi), zinc (G.), etc.)
The morphological structure of the word and its
grammatical forms also indicate that the word is adopted from
another language (e.g. the suffixes in the words neurosis (Gr.),
violoncello (It.); the irregular plural forms bacteria (bacterium,
L.), papyra (papyrus, Gr.), etc.

22
 There are certain structural features which enable us to
identify some words as borrowings and even to determine the
source language. You can recognize such words by certain
suffixes, prefixes or endings.
The lexical meaning of the word is also crucial (e.g. the
concept denoted by the word ricksha(w), pagoda (Chin.) make us
sure that we deal with borrowings). Sometimes the form of the
word together with its meaning in Modern English enables us to
tell the source of borrowing (e.g. the diagraph ch as [∫] – a late
French borrowing (in machine, echelon); as [k] – through Greek
(archaic, architect); as [t∫] – either an early borrowing (chase,
OFr., cherry, L.) or a word of Anglo-Saxon origin (child, choose)

3. Assimilation of borrowings
The term assimilation of a loan word is used to denote a
partial or total conformation to the phonetical, grammatical and
morphological standards of the receiving language and its
semantic system. The assimilation degree depends on the length of
the period during which the word has been used in the receiving
language, upon its importance for communication purposes and its
frequency.
Grammatical adaptation, for instance, consists in a
complete change of the former paradigm of the borrowed word (i.
e. system of the grammatical forms peculiar to it as a part of
speech). If it is a noun, it is certain to adopt, sooner or later, a new
system of declension; if it is a verb, it will be conjugated according
to the rules of the recipient language. Yet, this is also a lasting
process.
By semantic adaptation is meant adjustment to the system
of meanings of the vocabulary. It has been mentioned that
borrowing is generally caused either by the necessity to fill a gap
in the vocabulary or by a chance to add a synonym conveying an
old concept in a new way. Yet, the process of borrowing is not
always so logical and efficient as it might seem at first sight.

23
Sometimes a word may be borrowed "blindly", so to speak, for no
obvious reason, to find that it is not wanted because there is no gap
in the vocabulary or in the group of synonyms which it could
conveniently fill. Quite a number of such "accidental" borrowings
are very soon rejected by the vocabulary and forgotten. But there
are others which manage to take root by the process of semantic
adaptation. The adjective large, for instance, was borrowed from
French in the meaning of "wide". It was not actually wanted,
because it fully coincided with the English adjective wide without
adding any new shades or aspects to its meaning. This could have
led to its rejection. Yet, large managed to establish itself very
firmly in the English vocabulary by semantic adjustment. It
entered another synonymic group with the general meaning of "big
in size". At first it was applied to objects characterized by vast
horizontal dimensions, thus retaining a trace of its former meaning,
and now, though still bearing some features of that meaning, is
successfully competing with big having approached it very closely,
both in frequency and meaning.
From this point of view borrowings are divided into
1) completely assimilated loan-words that are found in all
layers of older borrowings, following all morphological,
phonetical and orthographic standards, taking an active part in
word formation (street, wall, wine, cheese (Latin); husband,
fellow, gate, , take, ill, root, wing, wrong, etc. (Scandinavian);
table, face, figure, chair, matter, finish, etc. (French);
2) partially assimilated loan words (semantically: e.g.
sombrero, toreador, rickshaw, sherbet; grammatically: e.g. crisis
– crises, datum – data; phonetically: e.g. cartoon, police,
machine; graphically: e.g. buffet, coup, debris);
3) unassimilated loan words or barbarisms that are not
assimilated in any way, for which there are corresponding English
equivalents (e.g. the Italian addio – good-bye; Latin ad libitum –
at pleasure, etc.)

24
 It is often the case that a word is borrowed by several
languages, and not just by one. Such international words usually
convey concepts which are significant in the field of
communication (e.g. philosophy, mathematics, physics, music,
theatre, drama, tragedy, comedy, politics, policy, revolution,
progress, democracy, atomic, antibiotic, radio, television, sputnik,
sports terms, fruits and foodstuffs imported from exotic countries,
etc.)

4. Etymological doublets
The words shirt and skirt etymologically descend from the
same root. Shirt is a native word, and skirt (as the initial sk
suggests) is a Scandinavian borrowing. Their phonemic shape is
different, and yet there is a certain resemblance which reflects their
common origin. Their meanings are also different but easily
associated: they both denote articles of clothing. Such words as
these two originating from the same etymological source, but
differing in phonemic shape and in meaning are called
etymological doublets. They may enter the vocabulary by different
routes. Some of these pairs, consist of a native word and a
borrowed word: shrew, n. (E.) — screw, n. (Sc). Others are
represented by two borrowings from different languages which are
historically descended from the same root: senior (Lat.) – sir (Fr.),
canal (Lat.) –channel (Fr.), captain (Lat.) – chief tan (Fr.). Still
others were borrowed from the same language twice, but in
different periods: corpse [ko:ps] (Norm. Fr.) – corps [ko:] (Par.
Fr.), travel (Norm. Fr.) – travail (Par. Fr.), cavalry (Norm. Fr.) –
chivalry (Par. Fr.), gaol (Norm. Fr.) – jail (Par. Fr.).
Etymological triplets (i. e. groups of three words of common
root) occur rarer, but here are at least two examples: hospital (Lat.)
– hostel (Norm. Fr.) – hotel (Par. Fr.); to capture (Lat.) – to catch
(Norm. Fr.) – to chase (Par. Fr.).

25
 A doublet may also consist of a shortened word and the one
from which it was derived: history – story, fantasy – fancy, fanatic
– fan, defense – fence, courtesy — curtsy, shadow — shade.

5. Translation-loans
By translation-loans we indicate borrowings of a special
kind. They are not taken into the vocabulary of another language
more or less in the same phonemic shape in which they have been
functioning in their own language, but undergo the process of
translation. It is quite obvious that it is only compound words (i. e.
words of two or more stems) which can be subjected to such an
operation, each stem being translated separately: masterpiece
(from Germ. Meisterstuck), wonder child (from Germ.
Wunderkind), first dancer (from Ital. prima-ballerina). During the
2nd World War the German word Blitzkrieg was borrowed into
English in two different forms: the translation-loan lightning-war
and the direct borrowings blitzkrieg and blitz.

26
 LECTURE 3
WORD AS A COMMUNICATION UNIT

1. Word in the communicative sspect

2. Types of meaning
3. Semes
4. Sematic changes

Key words: meaning, referent, concept, word, grammatical

and lexical meaning, denotational and connotational components,
seme, semantic sign, archseme, actual sense of the word

1. Word in the communicative aspect

Generally speaking, meaning can be more or less described
as a component of the word through which a concept is
communicated, in this way endowing the word with the ability of
denoting real objects, qualities, actions and abstract notions. The
complex and somewhat mysterious relationships between referent
(object, etc. denoted by the word), concept and word are
traditionally represented by the following triangle:
By the "symbol" here is meant the word; thought or
reference is concept. The dotted line suggests that there is no
immediate relation between word and referent: it is established
only through the concept. On the other hand, there is a hypothesis
that concepts can only find their realization through words. It
seems that thought is dormant till the word wakens it up. It is only
when we hear a spoken word or read a printed word that the
corresponding concept springs into mind. When we examine a
word we see that its meaning though closely connected with the
underlying concept or concepts is not identical with them. To
begin with, concept is a category of human cognition. Concept is
the thought of the object that singles out its essential features. Our
concepts abstract and reflect the most common and typical features
of the different objects and phenomena of the world. Being the

27
result of abstraction and generalisation all “concepts are thus
intrinsically almost the same for the whole of humanity in one and
the same period of its historical development. The meanings of
words however are different in different languages. That is to say,
words expressing identical concepts may have different meanings
and different semantic structures in different languages. The
concept of ‘a building for human habitation’ is expressed in
English by the word house, in Russian by the word дом, but the
meaning of the English word is not identical with that of the
Russian as house does not possess the meaning of ‘fixed residence
of family or household’ which is one of the meanings of the
Russian word дом; it is expressed by another English
polysemantic word, namely home which possesses a number of
other meanings not to be found in the Russian word дом.
The difference between meaning and concept can also be
observed by comparing synonymous words and word-groups
expressing essentially the same concepts but possessing linguistic
meaning which is felt as different in each of the units under
consideration, e.g. big, large; to, die, to pass away, to kick the
bucket, to join the majority; child, baby, babe, infant.
The precise definition of the content of a concept comes
within the sphere of logic but it can be easily observed that the
word-meaning is not identical with it. For instance, the content of
the concept six can be expressed by ‘three plus three’, ‘five plus
one’, or ‘ten minus four’, etc. Obviously, the meaning of the word
six cannot be identified with the meaning of these word-groups.
To distinguish meaning from the referent, i.e. from the thing
denoted by the linguistic sign is of the utmost importance, and at
first sight does not seem to present difficulties. To begin with,
meaning is linguistic whereas the denoted object or the referent is
beyond the scope of language. We can denote one and the same
object by more than one word of a different meaning. For instance,
in a speech situation an apple can be denoted by the words apple,
fruit, something, this, etc. as all of these words may have the same

28
referent. Meaning cannot be equated with the actual properties of
the referent, e.g. the meaning of the word water cannot be regarded
as identical with its chemical formula H2O as water means
essentially the same to all English speakers including those who
have no idea of its chemical composition. Last but not least there
are words that have distinct meaning but do not refer to any
existing thing, e.g. angel or phoenix. Such words have meaning
which is understood by the speaker-hearer, but the objects they
denote do not exist.
Thus, meaning is not to be identified with any of the three
points of the triangle.
The mechanism by which concepts (i. e. mental phenomena)
are converted into words (i. e. linguistic phenomena) and the
reverse process by which a heard or a printed word is converted
into a kind of mental picture are not yet understood or described.
Probably that is the reason why the process of communication
through words, if one gives it some thought, seems nothing short
of a miracle. Isn't it fantastic that the mere vibrations of a speaker's
vocal chords should be taken up by a listener's brain and converted
into vivid pictures?
The branch of linguistics which specializes in the study of
meaning is called semantics. As with many terms, the term
"semantics" is ambiguous for it can stand, as well, for the
expressive aspect of language in general and for the meaning of
one particular word in all its varied aspects and nuances (i.e. the
semantics of a word = the meaning(s) of a word). As Mario Pei
puts it in The Study of Language, "Semantics is 'language' in its
broadest, most inclusive aspect. Sounds, words, grammatical
forms, syntactical constructions are the tools of language.
Semantics is language's avowed purpose."

2. Types of meaning
It is more or less universally recognised that word-meaning
is not homogeneous but is made up of various components the

29
combination and the interrelation of which determine to a great
extent the inner facet of the word. These components are usually
described as types of meaning. The two main types of meaning
that are readily observed are the grammatical and the lexical
meanings to be found in words and word-forms.
We notice, e.g., that word-forms, such as girls, winters, joys,
tables, etc. though denoting widely different objects of reality have
something in common. This common element is the grammatical
meaning of plurality which can be found in all of them.
Thus grammatical meaning may be defined ,as the
component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual
forms of different words, as, e.g., the tense meaning in the word-
forms of verbs (asked, thought, walked, etc.) or the case meaning
in the word-forms of various nouns (girl’s, boy’s, night’s, etc.).
Comparing word-forms of one and the same word we
observe that besides grammatical meaning, there is another
component of meaning to be found in them. Unlike the
grammatical meaning this component is identical in all the forms
of the word. Thus, e.g. the word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone
possess different grammatical meanings of tense, person and so on,
but in each of these forms we find one and the same semantic
component denoting the process of movement. This is the lexical
meaning of the word which may be described as the component of
meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all
the forms of this word.
Proceeding with the semantic analysis we observe that
lexical meaning is not homogenous either and may be analysed as
including denotational and connotational components.
As was mentioned above one of the functions of words is to
denote things, concepts and so on. Users of a language cannot have
any knowledge or thought of the objects or phenomena of the real
world around them unless this knowledge is ultimately embodied
in words which have essentially the same meaning for all speakers
of that language. This is the denotational meaning, i.e. that

30
component of the lexical meaning which makes communication
possible. There is no doubt that a physicist knows more about the
atom than a singer does, or that an arctic explorer possesses a
much deeper knowledge of what arctic ice is like than a man who
has never been in the North. Nevertheless they use the words atom,
Arctic, etc. and understand each other.
The second component of the lexical meaning is the
connotational component, i.e. the emotive charge and the stylistic
value of the word.
Words contain an element of emotive evaluation as part of
the connotational meaning; e.g. a hovel denotes ‘a small house or
cottage’ and besides implies that it is a miserable dwelling place,
dirty, in bad repair and in general unpleasant to live in The
emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to
words as linguistic units and forms part of the connotational
component of meaning.
Words differ not only in their emotive charge but also in
their stylistic reference. Stylistically words can be roughly
subdivided into literary, neutral and colloquial layers.1
The greater part of the literаrу layer of Modern English
vocabulary are words of general use, possessing no specific
stylistic reference and known as neutral words. Against the
background of neutral words we can distinguish two major
subgroups — standard colloquial words and literary or bookish
words. This may be best illustrated by comparing words almost
identical in their denotational meaning, e. g., ‘parent — father —
dad’. In comparison with the word father which is stylistically
neutral, dad stands out as colloquial and parent is felt as bookish.
The stylistic reference of standard colloquial words is clearly
observed when we compare them with their neutral synonyms, e.g.
chum — friend, rot — nonsense, etc. This is also true of literary or
bookish words, such as, e.g., to presume (cf. to suppose), to
anticipate (cf. to expect) and others.

31
 Literary (bookish) words are not stylistically homogeneous.
Besides general-literary (bookish) words, e.g. harmony, calamity,
alacrity, etc., we may single out various specific subgroups,
namely: 1) terms or scientific words such as, e g., renaissance,
genocide, teletype, etc.;
2) poetic words and archaisms such as, e.g., whilome —
‘formerly’, aught — ‘anything’, ere — ‘before’, albeit —
‘although’, fare — ‘walk’, etc., tarry — ‘remain’, nay — ‘no’;
3) barbarisms and foreign words, such as, e.g., bon mot — ‘a
clever or witty saying’, apropos, faux pas, bouquet, etc. The
colloquial words may be subdivided into:
A. Common colloquial words.
B. Slang, i.e. words which are often regarded as a violation of
the norms of Standard English, e.g. governor for ‘father’,
missus for ‘wife’, a gag for ‘a joke’, dotty for ‘insane’.
C. Professionalisms, i.e. words used in narrow groups bound
by the same occupation, such as, e.g., lab for ‘laboratory’,
hypo for ‘hypodermic syringe’, a buster for ‘a bomb’, etc.
D. Jargonisms, i.e. words marked by their use within a
particular social group and bearing a secret and cryptic
character, e.g. a sucker — ‘a person who is easily
deceived’, a squiffer — ‘a concertina’.
E. Vulgarisms, i.e. coarse words that are not generally used in
public, e.g. bloody, hell, damn, shut up, etc.
F. Dialectical words, e.g. lass, kirk, etc.
G. Colloquial coinages, e.g. newspaperdom, allrightnik, etc.

3. Semes
The modern approach to semantics is based on the
assumption that the inner form of the word (i. e. its meaning)
presents a structure which is called the semantic structure of the
word.
The term “seme” as a microcomponent of meaning was first
introduced by V. Skalichka. The seme reflects specific signs of the

32
phenomenon, named by the word. Each seme consists of two main
parts (components) — the semantic sign and the semic specifier.
Semantic sign — the part of the seme, common with several other
semes (round, oval rectangualr: shape; brown, white, red: colour.
Semic specifier — the part of the seme, specifying the
corresponding semantic sign (red: colour+colour of blood; loud:
sound+intensity; high: vertical size+large; large: size+big).
The field principle of the description of word meaning:
1) the meaning is a system of components (semes),
constituting a structure (sememe);
2) all components of meaning are arranged into one
functional language unit — sememe;
3) the structure of meaning includes semantic
components, belonging both to the same and different types;
4) in the structure of the meaning macrocomponents
can be singled out (denotative, connotative and others), which also
have the field structure;
5) macrocomponents are organized horizontally,
microcomponents are arranged vertically;
6) there are semantic components belonging to nucleus
and periphery;
7) the nucleus is constituted by constant, essential,
bright, and frequent semantic components;
8) the semes of periphery add to the nucleus and
stipulate the semantic development of the word;
9) the border between the semes of nucleus and
periphery is indistinct;
10) the semes that constitute one meaning can be
repeated in other meanings, the semes of nucleus in one meaning
can be those of periphery in a different one;
11) meanings can differ in some semes and coincide in
others (synonyms, antonyms, hypo- and hyperonyms).
According to the system of language semes are usual and
occasional, systemic and personal. Usual — those entering the

33
systemic meaning of the word (usually registered in dictionaries)
(statistics), occasional — those that do not belong to the systemic
meaning of the word, but are evoked by the context or the situation
only in the act of communication (they should be differentiated
from actualized peripheral semes) (lies and statistics).
Systemic semes are generally known to the whole collective
of speakers (football); personal — existing in the individual
language competence (football, fan).
According to capacity of differentiation semes are integral
and differential. Integral — common for the meanings of a group
of words, differential — differentiate between the meanings of
compared words.
According to the degree of abstraction, within integral semes
it is possible to single out the archseme is the most common seme
of an individual lexical meaning. Archseme is the center of the
sememe, it is autonomous; several archsemes can be singled out
for each meaning. For example, tie “a piece of clothes, a
decoration, a piece of material”; table “a piece of furniture, a
man-made object, an inanimate object”.
According to the degree of explication — explicit
(represented in the meaning directly) and implicit (included in
other semes). For example, tractor: “agricultural machine”
(+artefact+man-made+object).
According to the character of meaning — assertive
(rendering objectively the constant signs of the denotate man —
male, adult; student — young, studies) and dispositional (assigned
to the “perfect” denotate man — strong, wise; student —
intelligent, with the desire to get knowledge, leading an interesting
and merry life); sportsman: doing sports + healthy, with a good
figure, strong; distinct (white, black) and indistinct (age: young,
old); positive (reflecting the sign existing in the denotate) and
negative (the absence of a certain sign); a book/ a notebook; a
theatre / a circus; negative are inclusive (negate the existence of
specific features glider — flying means without an engine, stool —

34
seat without supporting parts for arms or back), and exclusive
(negate the existence of all the features but those reflected by the
positive semes drug-store: sells drugs thus does not sell books,
vegetables).
According to the relation to the act of speech — actualized
and not actualized.
His floor was painted brown. He was sleeping on the floor.
Put the books on the floor.
Connotative semes are emotional and evaluative
components.
It is a bad / good / wonderful / stupid idea.
Evaluation can be expressed in the denotative component, or
the whole nomination is evaluative.
He is a thief. He is a villain.
Connotations can be constant or probable.
Terrible, excellent, disgusting, beautiful, ugly // independent,
revolution, king.
The necessity for differentiating between the nucleus and
periphery. The diagnostic signs of nuclear denotative semes:
1) the nuclear sememe denotes the constant sign of the
object (crow — usually black, but can be white; man — brown,
black, red or blonde hair, but can be died green);
2) it denotes the necessary, ineradicable sign of the
object (crow — a bird, has wings; man — human being).
Periphery is not homogeneous; close periphery includes the
semes lacking one of the signs of the nuclear seme, those having
the high degree of brightness, etc. Distant periphery includes weak
semes, exclusive negative semes, and implicit semes. The semantic
components of both close and distant periphery can be actualized
in speech . For example: age: nucleary in “child,youth,baby”;
close periphery “student, schoolboy,pensioner”; distant
periphery: “teacher, interpreter, chief”. Attractive: “beauty” —
“top model, actress”.
Actual sense of the word are the totality of

35
communicatively relevant semes in the specific speech act. The
actual sense of the word is one of possible actualizations of
meaning in the specific communicative act, subordinated to a
specific communicative objective.
Each actualization of meaning is the communicative
variation of meaning, i. e. its semantic variation as far as its
components are concerned. Every actual sense of the word is a
semic variant of its systematic meaning, one out of possible
variants of meaning in the communicative act. The word as a unit
of the lexical and semantic system of the language can have one or
several meanings. In the latter case the speech semantic variation
of the word consists in both the choice of an actualized sememe
and the choice of a set of semes of this sememe which will be
actualized. These two types of the semantic variation of the word
are termed as lexical semantic variation (the choice of a sememe)
and semic variation (the choice of the semes). Words that have
only one meaning display only semic variation, while these with
several meanings demonstrate both lexical semantic and semic
variation. Thus, actual sense of the word is the result of the semic
variation of meaning in the communicative act. It is the
communicative usage of the word, its usage in the communicative
act that stipulates the formation of its actual sense. The
communicative conditions of the word can be considered as the
context in the broad meaning of this term.
The formation of the actual sense of the word is contextually
stipulated semic variation of the meaning, consisting in the
actualization of communicatively relevant components of the
systematic meaning of the word.
The semic variation of meaning is defined as the adaptation
of the meaning and competence to the communicative conditions
of a specific speech act, displayed by the formation of certain
actual senses. Semic variation takes place on the level of a certain
meaning (sememe), it is connected with the choice of semantic
components, which are to be actualized due to a specific

36
communicative objective, and it is realized by means of a number
of semantic processes, going on in the sememe on the level of
certain semes.
Actualization of the seme — the seme is singled out in the
structure of meaning; this process is stipulated by the
communicative act, and the seme is perceived by the
communication act participants as communicatively relevant,
constituting the actual sense of the word. The semes, which were
not employed in the formation of the actual sense of the word,
remain not actualized. For example: Needle: Give me a needle, I
want to mend my socks. Look, your child is holding a needle! The
discovery of metal allowed us to have the needle and the frying
pan, the car and the spaceship. I cannot find the needle, because it
is so dark. I can not undo this tangle even by a needle.
Intensification of the seme — the change of brightness to a
greater degree. Weakening of the seme — the seme becomes less
bright. As the actual sense of the word is formed, some semes
become brighter and automatically other semes become weaker on
their background. For example: His parents were peasants, and he
is a worker. He is a worker, but he wants to study and become an
engineer. She looks very young, but her son is already a student. If
you do well at school, you will become a student.
Split of the seme — incomplete actualization of the seme,
only its part is actualized in the communicative process. Explicit
semes are split: a part of the explicit seme. Actualized in the
communicative act, is one of implicit semes of this explicit seme.
This semantic process is characteristic of the figurative meaning.
For example: political race — severe competition (in sports), piles
of work — very much (material), fruit salad of reports — mixture
(of fruits).
Modification — contextual modification of the content of
the semic specifier within the semantic sign. Sense modification
— the change of its content in the communicative act (often for
indistinct semes): a fish as big as an arm, a fish as big as a palm;

37
as brave as a tiger, as brave as a rabbit; Our club is both for
schoolchildren and college students, Our society is both for
teachers and students; modal modification — certain semes
acquire a modal shade of meaning (mainly for dispositional,
possible semes): He usually visits his father on weekends. How can
you be so indifferent to the boy? You are his father! Her mother
usually cooks for the family. He has caught a cold, but his mother
is now with him.
Specification is the implementation of an abstract seme in a
specific alloseme (mainly for semes with the high level of
abstraction).

4. Sematic changes
Word-meaning is liable to change in the course of the
historical development of language. Changes of lexical meaning
may be illustrated by a diachronic semantic analysis of many
commonly used English words. The word fond (OE. fond) used to
mean ‘foolish’, ‘foolishly credulous’; glad (OE, glaed) had the
meaning of ‘bright’, ’shining’ and so on.
Change of meaning has been thoroughly studied and as a
matter of fact monopolised the attention of all semanticists whose
work up to the early 1930’s was centered almost exclusively on the
description and classification of various changes of meaning.
Abundant language data can be found in almost all the books
dealing with semantics. Here we shall confine the discussion to a
brief outline of the problem as it is viewed in modern linguistic
science.
To avoid the ensuing confusion of terms and concepts it is
necessary to discriminate between the causes of semantic change,
the results and the nature of the process of change of meaning.1
These are three closely bound up, but essentially different aspects
of one and the same problem.
Discussing the causes of semantic change we concentrate on
the factors bringing about -this change and attempt to find out why

38
the word changed its meaning. Analysing the nature of semantic
change we seek to clarify the process of this change and describe
how various changes of meaning were brought about. Our aim in
investigating the results of semantic change is to find out what was
changed, i.e. we compare the resultant and the original meanings
and describe the difference between them mainly in terms of the
changes of the denotational components.
The factors accounting for semantic changes may be roughly
subdivided into two groups: a) extra-linguistic and b) linguistic
causes.
By extra-linguistic causes we mean various changes in the
life of the speech community, changes in economic and social
structure, changes in ideas, scientific concepts, way of life and
other spheres of human activities as reflected in word meanings.
Although objects, institutions, concepts, etc. change in the course
of time in many cases the soundform of the words which denote
them is retained but the meaning of the words is changed. The
word car, e.g., ultimately goes back to Latin carrus which meant ‘a
four-wheeled wagon’ (ME. carre) but now that other means of
transport are used it denotes ‘a motor-car’, ‘a railway carriage’ (in
the USA), ‘that portion of an airship, or balloon which is intended
to carry personnel, cargo or equipment’.
Some changes of meaning are due to what may be described
as purely linguistic causes, i.e. factors acting within the language
system. The commonest form which this influence takes is the so-
called ellipsis. In a phrase made up of two words one of these is
omitted and its meaning is transferred to its partner. The verb to
starve, e.g., in Old English (OE. steorfan) had the meaning ‘to die’
and was habitually used in collocation with the word hunger (ME.
sterven of hunger). Already in the 16th century the verb itself
acquired the meaning ‘to die of hunger’. Similar semantic changes
may be observed in Modern English when the meaning of one
word is transferred to another because they habitually occur
together in speech.

39
 Another linguistic cause is discrimination of synonyms
which can be illustrated by the semantic development of a number
of words. The word land, e.g., in Old English (OE. land) meant
both ’solid part of earth’s surface’ and ‘the territory of a nation’.
When in the Middle English period the word country (OFr.
contree) was borrowed as its synonym, the meaning of the word
land was somewhat altered and ‘the territory of a nation’ came to
be denoted mainly by the borrowed word country.
Some semantic changes may be accounted for by the
influence of a peculiar factor usually referred to as linguistic
analogy. It was found out, e.g., that if one of the members of a
synonymic set acquires a new meaning other members of this set
change their meanings too. It was observed, e.g., that all English
adverbs which acquired the meaning ‘rapidly’ (in a certain period
of time — before 1300) always develop the meaning
‘immediately’, similarly verbs synonymous with catch, e.g. grasp,
get, etc., by semantic extension acquired another meaning — ‘to
understand’.
Results of semantic change can be generally observed in the
changes of the denotational meaning of the word (restriction and
extension of meaning) or in the alteration of its connotational
component (ame-lioration and deterioration of meaning).
Changes in the denotational meaning may result in the
restriction of the types or range of referents denoted by the word.
This may be illustrated by the semantic development of the word
hound (OE. hund) which used to denote ‘a dog of any breed’ but
now denotes only ‘a dog used in the chase’. This is also the case
with the word fowl (OE. fuzol, fuzel) which in old English denoted
‘any bird’, but in Modern English denotes ‘a domestic hen or
cock’. This is generally described as “restriction of meaning” and
if the word with the new meaning comes to be used in the
specialised vocabulary of some limited group within the speech
community it is usual to speak of specialisation of meaning. For
example, we can observe restriction and specialisation of meaning

40
in the case of the verb to glide (OE. glidan) which had the meaning
‘to move gently and smoothly’ and has now acquired a restricted
and specialised meaning ‘to fly with no engine’ (cf. a glider).
Changes in the denotational meaning may also result in the
application of the word to a wider variety of referents. This is
commonly described as extension of meaning and may be
illustrated by the word target which originally meant ‘a small
round shield’ (a diminutive of targe, сf. ON. targa) but now means
‘anything that is fired at’ and also figuratively ‘any result aimed
at’.
If the word with the extended meaning passes from the
specialised vocabulary into common use, we describe the result of
the semantic change as the generalisation of meaning. The word
camp, e.g., which originally was used only as a military term and
meant ‘the place where troops are lodged in tents’ (cf. L. campus
— ‘exercising ground for the army) extended and generalised its
meaning and now denotes ‘temporary quarters’ (of travellers,
nomads, etc.).
As can be seen from the examples discussed above it is
mainly the denotational component of the lexical meaning that is
affected while the connotational component remains unaltered.
There are other cases, however, when the changes in the
connotational meaning come to the fore. These changes, as a rule
accompanied by a change in the denotational’ component, may be
subdivided into two main groups: a) pejorative development or the
acquisition by the word of some derogatory emotive charge, and b)
ameliorative development or the improvement of the connotational
component of meaning. The semantic change in the word boor
may serve to illustrate the first group. This word was originally
used to denote ‘a villager, a peasant’ (cf. OE. zebur ‘dweller’) and
then acquired a derogatory, contemptuous connotational meaning
and came to denote ‘a clumsy or ill-bred fellow’. The ameliorative
development of the connotational meaning may be observed in the
change of the semantic structure of the word minister which in one

41
of its meanings originally denoted ‘a servant, an attendant’, but
now — ‘a civil servant of higher rank, a person administering a
department of state or accredited by one state to another’.
It is of interest to note that in derivational clusters a change
in the connotational meaning of one member doe’s not necessarily
affect a the others. This peculiarity can be observed in the words
accident аn accidental. The lexical meaning of the noun accident
has undergone pejorative development and denotes not only
’something that happens by chance’, but usually’something
unfortunate’. The derived adjective accidental does not possess in
its semantic structure this negative connotational meaning (cf. also
fortune: bad fortune, good fortune and fortunate).

42
 LECTURE 4
WORD-BUILDING

1. The morpheme and its types

2. Derivation
3. Conversion
4. Compounding
5. Shortening (Contraction)
6. Other Ways of Word Building

Key terms: morpheme, form, segmentable and non-

segmentable words, root, affix, stem, derived stem, compound
stem, derivation, conversion, compounding, shortening,
abbreviation, blending, onomatopoeia, reduplication, back-
formation.

1. The morpheme and its types

The word consists of morphemes. The term morpheme is
derived from Greek morphe (form) + -eme. The Greek suffix -eme
has been adopted by linguists to denote the smallest significant or
distinctive unit. The morpheme may be defined as the smallest
meaningful unit which has a sound form and meaning, occurring in
speech only as a part of a word. In other words, a morpheme is an
association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. But
unlike a word it is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech
only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a
word may consist of a single morpheme. Nor are they divisible
into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may also
be defined as the minimum double-facet (shape/meaning)
meaningful language unit that can be subdivided into phonemes
(the smallest singlefacet distinctive units of language with no
meaning of their own). So there are 3 lower levels of a language –
a phoneme, a morpheme, a word.

43
 A form is considered to be free if it may stand alone without
changing its meaning; if not, it is a bound form, so called because
it is always bound to something else. For example, comparing the
words sportive and elegant and their parts, we see that sport,
sortive, elegant may occur alone as utterances, whereas eleg-, -ive,
-ant are bound forms because they never occur alone. A word is,
by L. Bloomfield's definition, a minimum free form. A morpheme
is said to be either bound or free.
Words are segmented into morphemes with the help of the
method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents, first
suggested by L. Bloomfield.
Coming back to the issue of word segmentability as the first
stage of the analysis into immediate constituents, all English words
fall into two large classes:
1) segmentable words, i.e. those allowing of segmentation
into morphemes, e.g. information, unput, downable, silently and
2) non-segmentable words, i.e. those not allowing of such
segmentation, e.g. boy, wife, call, etc.
There are three types of segmentation of words: complete,
conditional and defective. Complete segmentability is
characteristic of words whose the morphemic structure is
transparent enough as their individual morphemes clearly stand out
within the word lending themselves easily to isolation. Its
constituent morphemes recur with the same meaning in many other
words, e.g. establishment, agreement.
Conditional morphemic segmentability characterizes words
whose segmentation into constituent morphemes is doubtful for
semantic reasons. For instance, in words like retain, detain, or
receive, deceive the sound-clusters [ri], [di], on the one hand, can
be singled out quite easily due to their recurrence in a number of
words, on the other hand, they sure have nothing in common with
the phonetically identical morphemes re-. de- as found in words
like rewrite, reorganize, decode, deurbanize; neither the sound-
clusters [ri], [di] nor the sound-clusters [-tein], [si:v] have any

44
lexical or functional meaning of their own. Therefore, the
morphemes making up words of conditional segmentability differ
from morphemes making up words of complete segmentability in
that the former do not reach the full status of morphemes for the
semantic reason and that is why a special term is applied to them –
pseudomorphemes or quasi-morphemes.
Defective morphemic segmentability is the property of
words whose unique morphemic components seldom or never
recur in other words (e.g. in the words cranberry, gooseberry,
strawberry defective morphemic segmentability is obvious due to
the fact that the morphemes cran-, goose-, straw- are unique
morphemes).
Morphemes can be classified into.
1. From semantic point of view: roots and affixes/non-
roots. A root is the lexical nucleus of a word bearing the major
individual meaning common to a set of semantically related words,
constituting one word cluster/word-family (e.g. learn-learner-
learned learnable; heart-hearten, dishearten, hear-broken, hearty,
kind-hearted etc.) with which no grammatical properties of the
word are connected. In this respect, the peculiarity of English as a
unique language is explained by its analytical language structure –
morphemes are often homonymous with independent units
(words). A morpheme that is homonymous with a word is called a
root morpheme.
Here we have to mention the difference between a root and a
stem. A root is the ultimate constituent which remains after the
removal of all functional and derivational affixes and does not
admit any further analysis. Unlike a root, a stem is that part of the
word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm (formal
aspect). For instance, heart-hearts-to one’s heart’s content vs.
hearty-heartier-the heartiest. It is the basic unit at the derivational
level, taking the inflections which shape the word grammatically
as a part of speech. There are three types of stems: simple, derived
and compound.

45
 Simple stems are semantically non-motivated and do not
constitute a pattern on analogy with which new stems may be
modeled (e.g. pocket, motion, receive, etc.). Simple stems are
generally monomorphic and phonetically identical with the root
morphemes (sell, grow, kink, etc.).
Derived stems are built on stems of various structures, they
are motivated, i.e. derived stems are understood on the basis of the
derivative relations between their immediate constituents and the
correlated stems. Derived stems are mostly polymorphic (e.g.
governments, unbelievable, etc.).
Compound stems are made up of two immediate
constituents, both of which are themselves stems, e.g. match-box,
pen-holder, ex-film-star, etc. It is built by joining two stems, one
of which is simple, the other is derived.
The derivational types of words are classified according to
the structure of their stems into simple, derived and compound
words. Derived words are those composed of one root-morpheme
and one or more derivational morphemes. Compound words have
at least two root-morphemes, the number of derivational
morphemes being insignificant.
The morpheme, and therefore the affix, which is a type of
morpheme, is generally defined as the smallest indivisible
component of the word possessing a meaning of its own. Meanings
of affixes are specific and considerably differ from those of root
morphemes. Affixes have widely generalized meanings and refer
the concept conveyed by the whole word to a certain category,
which is all-embracing. So, the noun-forming suffix -er could be
roughly defined as designating persons from the object of their
occupation or labor (painter – the one who paints) or from their
place of origin (southerner – the one living in the South). The
adjective-forming suffix –ful has the meaning of "characterized
by" (beautiful, careful)
The semantic distinctions of words produced from the same
root by means of different affixes are also of considerable interest,

46
both for language studies and research work. Compare: womanly
(used in a complimentary manner about girls and women) –
womanish (used to indicate an effeminate man and certainly
implies criticism); starry (resembling stars) – starred (covered or
decorated with stars).
There are a few roots in English which have developed a
great combining ability in the position of the second element of a
word and a very general meaning similar to that of an affix. These
are semi-affixes because semantically, functionally, structurally
and stylistically they behave more like affixes than like roots,
determining the lexical and grammatical class the word belongs to
(e.g. -man: cameraman, seaman; -land: Scotland, motherland; -
like: ladylike, flowerlike; -worthy: trustworthy, praiseworthy; -
proof: waterproof, bullet-proof, etc.)
2. According to their position affixational morphemes fall
into suffixes – derivational morphemes following the root and
forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or a different
word class (writer, rainy, magnify, etc.), infexes – affixes placed
within the word (e.g. adapt-a-tion, assimila-tion, sta-n-d etc.), and
prefixes – derivational morphemes that precede the root and
modify the meaning (e.g. decipher, illegal, unhappy, etc.)
3. From structural point of view it is presupposed that
morphemes fall into three types: free morphemes which can stand
alone as words in isolation (e.g. friendly, friendship); bound
morphemes that occur only as word constituents (e.g. resist,
deceive, misinterpret, etc.); semi-bound morphemes which can
function both as affixes and as free morphemes (compare, e.g.
well-known, herself, after-thought and well, self, after).
In modern English there are many morphemes of Greek and
Latin origin possessing a definite lexical meaning though not used
autonomously, e.g. tele- “far” (television), -scope
“seeing”(microscope), -graph ‘writing”(typography). Such
morphemes are called combining forms – bound linguistic forms
though in Greek and Latin they functioned as independent words.

47
They are particularly frequent in the specialized vocabularies of
arts and sciences.
4. Affixes are also classified from the etymological POV into
two large groups: native and borrowed. Natrive: er worker, miner,
teacher, painter, -ness, loneliness, loveliness, -ing meaning,
singing, reading, etc. -dom freedom, wisdom, kingdom, etc
Borrowed: prefix –dis disable, disagree, disown, etc. The suffix -
able curable, capable, adorable, etc. The suffix -ate congratulate,
create, appreciate, etc The suffix –ute contribute, constitute,
attribute, etc
5. Affixes can also be classified into productive and
nonproductive types. Productivity is the ability to form new
words after existing patterns which are readily understood by the
speakers of a language: -er, -ing, -ness, -ism (materialism), -ist
(impressionist), -ance
The native noun-forming suffixes -dom and -ship ceased to
be productive centuries ago. Yet, Professor I. V. Arnold in “The
English Word” gives some examples of comparatively new
formations with the suffix -dom: boredom, serfdom, slavedom.
The same is true about -ship (e. g. salesmanship, companionship).

2. Derivation
Word-building involves processes of producing new words
from resources of this particular language. Together with
borrowing, word- building provides for enlarging and enriching
the vocabulary of the language.
Words, which consist of a root and an affix (or several
affixes) are called derived words or derivatives and are produced
by the process of word-building known as affixation (or
derivation).
1. Affixal or derivational word formation in both
languages includes:
a) suffixal word-formation;
b) prefixal word-formation;

48
 c) combined (suffixal and prefixal) word-formation
There are not so much English verb-formation suffixes in
both languages: англ.: -ize/ise: computerize, terrorize, practise,
analyse; -fy: intensify, simplify; -en: widen, darken; -ate:
dominate, estimate; укр.: -(ув/юв)ати/ити: чинити, прямувати,
малювати. The productive adverb-forming suffix in English is -
ly: hardly, warmly.
Prefixal morphemes have also their main features common
in the contrasted languages. English prefixes, however, can form
words of more parts of speech than the Ukrainians ones: англ.
a+sleep (stative), be+dew (verb), pre+war (adjective); in+side
(adverb). The structure of prefixal morphemes in the contrasted
languages is generally common, though there are more single-sign
prefixes in Ukrainian more than in English, which has only one
single letter prefix -a: alike, asleep. Their number in Ukrainian is
larger: встати, зліт, угору, згори.
All English and Ukrainian prefixes can be typologically
subdivided into some groups:
a) International prefixes: anti-: antibody (антитіло);
antiglobal (антиглобальний); counter-: countermeasure
(контрзмова); counterplot (контрасигнувати); ex-: ex-president
(екс-прези-дент); extra-: extramural (екстравагантний); sub-:
subordination (субординиція); subtropical (субтропічний);
b) Prefixes, which only have semantic identity, but are
different in their lingual form since they are national prefixes:
англ. foresee; pre-war; sub-species; intralingual; укр.
передбачати; до(перед)военний; підвиди; внутрішньомовний;
c) National prefixes: англ. upthrow; mis-state; укр.
кидок угору, робити неправдиву заяву.
A specifically Ukrainian phenomenon, which is alien to
English prefix по-: попоблукати, попоспати, попоїсти “to
express an intensive and repeated or durative action”.

49
 Many words in English and Ukrainian are formed by adding
both prefixal and suffixal morphemes to the root or stem of the
same word. There are four models:
1) one prefix+the root morpheme/stem+one suffix
(forming nouns; adjective; verbs; adverbs): en-rich-ment, pre-
script-ive, un-satis- fy, un-tru-ly; відсоток, навушник
2) two or more prefixes+the root
morphemes/stem+one suffix as in the nouns: re-im-prison-ment;
3) one prefix+the root morpheme/stem+two or more
suffixes, as in adverbs that are formed from adjectives and
participles: dis- stress-ing-ly, pre-histor-ic-al; вдосконалити,
зменшити, обідніти, обшукати, перевищити, видужати,
звузити.
4) two more prefixes+ the root morpheme/stem+two or
more suffixes: non-re-act(e)-ation, in-ac-count-abil-ity. за-в-час-
н-ий, не-до-ви-до-бут-ок.

3. Conversion
Conversion consists in making a new word from some
existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the
morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. One
of the major arguments for this approach to conversion is the
semantic change that regularly accompanies each instance of
conversion. Normally, a word changes its syntactic function
without any change in lexical meaning. For example: yellow
leaves, the leaves yellowed.
The other argument is the regularity and completeness with
which converted units develop a paradigm of their new category of
a part of speech. Conversion is not only a highly productive but
also a particularly English way of word-building. Its
overwhelming productivity is considerably encouraged by certain
features of the English language in its modern stage of
development. The analytical structure of Modern English and A
great number of one-syllable

50
 The two categories of parts of speech especially affected by
conversion are nouns and verbs. Verbs made from nouns are the
most numerous amongst the words produced by conversion: e. g.
to hand, to back, to face, to eye. Nouns are frequently made from
verbs: do (e. g. This is the queerest do I've ever come across. Do –
event, incident), go (e. g. He has still plenty of go at his age. Go –
energy), make, run, find, catch, cut, walk, worry, show, move, etc.
Verbs can also be made from adjectives: to pale, to yellow, to cool,
to grey, to rough (e. g. We decided to rough it in the tents as the
weather was warm), etc. Other parts of speech are not entirely
unsusceptible to conversion as the following examples show: to
down, to out (as in a newspaper heading Diplomatist Outed from
Budapest), the ups and downs, the ins and outs, like, n. (as in the
like of me and the like of you), to ooooh and aaaah, the whys and
wherefores, etc.
In the group of verbs made from nouns some of the regular
semantic associations are as indicated in the following list:
1. The name of a tool or implement: a pin — to pin; a
pencil — to pencil.
2. The name of an animal: a monkey — to monkey; a
fish — to fish.
3. The name of a part of the human body: a face — to
face; a back — to back.
4. The name of a profession or occupation: a cook —
to cook; a nurse — to nurse.
5. The name of a place: a room — to room; a table —
to table.
6. The name of a container: a can — to can; a bottle
— to bottle.
7. The name of a meal: a lunch — to lunch; a
breakfast — to breakfast.

51
 4. Compounding
The formation of compound words in English and Ukrainian
is characterised both by isomorphic and allomorphic features as
well. Common are two ways of forming compounds in English and
Ukrainian:
a) by the juxtaposition of the determing and the determined
parts;
b) with the help of the linking/interfixal o, e, s in English and
o, e/є, у in Ukrainian.
The largest group of compounds formed through the
juxtaposition of free root/stem words in English: mankind, peace-
loving, take-off, nowadays, everything, two-third.
Pertaining mostly to English are compounds with
prepositions and conjunctions used as connectors of different
roots/stems often referred to as whole phrases: англ. commander-
in-chief, out-of-date, never-to-be- forgotten, kiss-in-the-ring, pen-
in-ink, one hundred and ten, can’t-we-all- get-along;
Ukrainian has only a few compound adverbs of its own and
some nouns of foreign origin of this type: де-не-де, як-не-як,
Ростов-на- Дону, Франкфукт-на-Майні.
Ukrainian has many composite words, which are formed
with help of the linking elements (-и, -й): крутиголовка (bird),
перекотиполе, мати-й-мачуха. Compare in English: Anglo-
Saxon, tradesfolk, electro-therapy.
Several Ukrainian family names and geographical names
have been formed from word-groups or sentences as well:
Панібудьласка, До-бривечір, Вишгород, Крутояри.
Compounding by juxtaposition of free word is considerably
less productive in Ukrainian: вагон-ресторан, медик-хірург,
казна-хто, хто-небудь, казна-як. Close to the above-mentioned
compounds in Ukrainian are also some compound nouns and verbs
of coordinate nature: хліб-сіль, нібито, говорити-балакати.

52
 5. Shortening (Contraction)
This comparatively new way of word-building has achieved
a high degree of productivity nowadays, especially in American
English. Shortenings are produced in two different ways. The first
is to make a new word from a syllable of the original word: англ.
phone — telephone, flu — influenza; укр. міськрада — міська
рада, генпрокуратура — генеральна прокуратура. More often
we can use contraction in oral speech or in slang: комп —
комп’ютер, універ — університет.
The second way of shortening is to make a new word from
the initial letters of a word group: англ. Interpol (International
Criminal Police Organisation), modem (modulator-demodulator);
укр. Мінфін (Міністерство фінансів), нардеп (народний
депутат).
Abbreviation. As a word-forming means it represents a
generally common type of word-formation in the contrasted
languages, though it is not devoid of some national divergences
either. Common and equally productive in both contrasted
languages are the following types:
1) The so-called initial abbreviation: англ. USA,
UNESCO, AIDS, CNN; укр. США, ЮНЕСКО, СНД, МВФ; англ.
H-bag (handbag), U-language (upper-class English); cnd. (for
commander), ft. (foot); укр. га (гектар), м (метри), с.
(сторінка);
2) Partial abbreviation is generally rare in English, in
Ukrainian it is rather productive: англ. Colo (Colorado), Okla
(Oklahoma); укр. начмед, Донбас, ботсад, Кривбас;
3) Combined abbreviation is also less productive in
English that in Ukrainian: англ. COSPAR (Committee on Space
Reseach), Cf. CONUS (Continental US); укр. облсу, облвно.

6. Other ways of replenishing the vocabulary

Blending. Blends or “telescoped” words are formed by
confrontation (поєднання) of two or even more truncated

53
(усічених) words or roots of words: англ. fan(tasy)+(maga)zine =
fanzine; fl(y)+(h)urry = flurry; cinem(a) + actress = cinematress;
укр. ас(пі- рін)+кофе(їн) = аскофен; витріщатик “ходити по
Хрещатику, витріщивши очі”.
Onomatopoeia (sound-imitation). Words coined by this
interesting type of word-building are made by imitating different
kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects,
human being and inanimate objects: англ. to bark, cock-a-doodle-
doo; укр. гавкати, кукуріку.
Reduplication. In reduplication new words are made by
doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in (coll.
for. bye-bye) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as
in ping-pong, chit¬chat.
Back-formation (reversion) is rather productive type of
word-for mation in English, where many short words are inferred
from longer words: англ. greed — greedy, to house-clean —
house- cleaner, own — owning, укр. крик — кричати, говір —
говорити.

54
 LECTUTE 5
WORD GROUPS

1. Free word-groups vs. set expressions.

2. Different approaches to the classification of
phraseological units.
3. Ways of forming phraseologisms.

Key terms: free word-group,set expression, idiom, proverb,

phraseological combination, phraseological unities, one-summit
unit, two-summit and multi-summit unit, nominative
phraseological unit, nominative-communicative phraseological
unit, phraseological unit, communicative phraseological unit.

1. Free word-groups vs. set expressions.

Words put together to form lexical units make phrases or
word-groups. The degree of structural and semantic cohesion of
word-groups may vary. The component members in some word-
groups (e.g. man of wisdom, to take lessons, etc.) seem to possess
semantic and structural independence. Word-groups of this type
are defined as free phrases and are usually studied in syntax.
Some word-groups (e.g. by means of, to take place, etc.)
seem to be functionally and semantically inseparable. They are
usually described as set-phrases or phraseological units that are
non-motivated and cannot be freely made up in speech but are
reproduced as ready-made and are regarded as subject-matter of
phraseology. Phraseological units, or idioms, as they are called
by most western scholars, represent what can probably be
described as the most picturesque, colorful and expressive part of
the language's vocabulary. If synonyms can be figuratively
referred to as the tints and colours of the vocabulary, then
phraseology is a kind of picture gallery in which are collected
vivid and amusing sketches of the nation's customs, traditions and

55
prejudices, recollections of its past history, scraps of folk songs
and fairy-tales.
In modern linguistics, there is confusion about the
terminology associated with these word-groups. Most Russian and
Ukrainian scholars use the term "phraseological unit"
(фразеологічна одиниця) which was first introduced by
Academician V.V. Vinogradov whose contribution to the theory of
Russian phraseology cannot be overestimated. The term "idiom"
widely used by western scholars has comparatively recently found
its way into Russian and Ukrainian phraseology but is applied
mostly to only a certain type of phraseological unit as it will be
clear from further explanations.
There are some other terms denoting more or less the same
linguistic phenomenon: set-expressions, set-phrases, phrases, fixed
word-groups, collocations. The terminology confusion reflects
insufficiency of positive or wholly reliable criteria by which
phraseological units can be distinguished from free word-groups.It
should be pointed out that the "freedom" of free word-groups is
relative and arbitrary. Nothing is entirely "free" in speech as its
linear relationships are governed, restricted and regulated, on the
one hand, by requirements of logic and common sense and, on the
other, by the rules of grammar and combinability. One can speak
of a black-eyed girl but not of a black-eyed table (unless in a piece
of modernistic poetry where anything is possible). Also, to say the
child was glad is quite correct, but a glad child is wrong because
in Modern English glad is attributively used only with a very
limited number of nouns (e. g. glad news), and names of persons
are not among them.
Free word-groups are so called not because of any absolute
freedom in using them but simply because they are each time built
up anew in the speech process whereas idioms are used as ready-
made units with fixed and constant structures.
Scholars suggest the following criteria for distinguishing
between free wordgroups and set-phrases.

56
 1. Criterion of stability of the lexical components and lack of
motivation. It is assumed that unlike constituents of free word-
groups that may vary according to communication needs, member-
words of phraseological units are always reproduced as single
unchangeable collocations. For example, the constituent red in the
free word-group red flower may be substituted for by any other
adjective denoting color, without essentially changing the
denotational meaning of the word-group under consideration (a
flower of a certain color). But in the phraseological unit red tape
(meaning “bureaucratic methods”) no substitution like this is
possible, as a change of the adjective would involve a complete
change in the meaning of the whole group.
2. Criterion of function. Phraseological units function as
word-equivalents, the denotational meaning belongs to the word
group as a single semantically inseparable unit and grammatical
meaning i.e. the part-of-speech meaning is felt as belonging to the
word-group as a whole irrespective of the part-of-speech meaning
of the component words. (cf.: the free word group a long day and
the phraseological unit in the long run).
3. Criterion of context. The point of this criterion is in the
fact that free word-groups make up variable contexts whereas the
essential feature of phraseological units is a fixed context. Thus,
in free word-groups small town/ room the adjective small has the
meaning “not large” but in the set-phrases small hours the
meaning of the word small has nothing to do with the size. It
means “early hours from 1 to 4 a.m.”
4. Criterion of idiomaticity. Phraseological units are ready-
made phrases registered in dictionaries while free word-groups are
made up spontaneously. The above is probably the most discussed
– and the most controversial – problem in the field of phraseology.
The task of distinguishing between free word-groups and
phraseological units is further complicated by the existence of a
great number of marginal cases, the so-called semi-fixed or semi-
free word-groups, also called nonphraseological word-groups

57
which share with phraseological units their structural stability but
lack their semantic unity and figurativeness (e. g. to go to school,
to go by bus, to commit suicide).
There are two other major criteria for distinguishing between
phraseological units and free word-groups: semantic and
structural. Compare the following examples:
A. C a m b r i d g e don: I'm told they're inviting more
American professors to this university. Isn't it rather carrying
coals to Newcastle? (To carry coals to Newcastle means "to take
something to a place where it is already plentiful and not
needed".)
B. This cargo ship is carrying coal to Liverpool.
The first thing that captures the eye is the semantic
difference of the two wordgroups consisting of the same essential
constituents. In the second sentence the free word-group is
carrying coal is used in the direct sense, the word coal standing for
real hard, black coal and carry for the plain process of taking
something from one place to another. The first context quite
obviously has nothing to do either with coal or with transporting it,
and the meaning of the whole word-group is something entirely
new and far removed from the current meanings of the
constituents. The semantic shift affecting phraseological units does
not consist in a mere change of meanings of each separate
constituent part of the unit. The meanings of the constituents
merge to produce an entirely new meaning (e. g. to have a bee in
one's bonnet means "to have an obsession about something; to be
eccentric or even a little mad"). The humorous metaphoric
comparison with a person who is distracted by a bee continually
buzzing under his cap has become erased and half-forgotten, and
the speakers using the expression hardly think of bees or bonnets
but accept it in its transferred sense: "obsessed, eccentric". That is
what is meant when phraseological units are said to be
characterized by semantic unity. In the traditional approach,
phraseological units have been defined as word-groups conveying

58
a single concept (whereas in free word-groups each meaningful
component stands for a separate concept). It is this feature that
makes phraseological units similar to words: both words and
phraseological units possess semantic unity. Yet, words are also
characterized by structural unity which phraseological units very
obviously lack being combinations of words.
Most Russian scholars today accept the semantic criterion of
distinguishing phraseological units from free word-groups as the
major one and base their research work in the field of phraseology
on the definition of a phraseological unit offered by Professor A.
V. Kunin, the leading authority on problems of English
phraseology in our country: "A phraseological unit is a stable
word-group characterized by a completely or partially transferred
meaning."
The border-line dividing phraseological units with partially
changed meanings from the so-called semi-fixed or non-
phraseological word-groups (marginal cases) is uncertain and
confusing.
The term "idiom", both in this country and abroad, is mostly
applied to phraseological units with completely transferred
meanings, that is, to the ones in which the meaning of the whole
unit does not correspond to the current meanings of the
components. There are many scholars who regard idioms as the
essence of phraseology and the major focus of interest in
phraseology research.
The structural criterion also brings forth pronounced
distinctive features characterizing phraseological units and
contrasting them to free word-groups. Structural invariability is an
essential feature of phraseological units, though, as we shall see,
some of them possess it to a lesser degree than others. Structural
invariability of phraseological units finds expression in a number
of restrictions. First of all, restriction in substitution. As a rule, no
word can be substituted for any meaningful component of a

59
phraseological unit without destroying its sense ( as it has been
explained above).
The second type of restriction is the restriction in introducing
any additional components into the structure of a phraseological
unit.
The third type of structural restrictions in phraseological
units is grammatical invariability. A typical mistake with students
of English is to use the plural form of fault in the phraseological
unit to find fault придираться with somebody (e. g. The teacher
always found f a u l t s with the boy). Though the plural form in
this context is logically well-founded, it is a mistake in terms of
the grammatical invariability of phraseological units. A similar
typical mistake often occurs in the unit from head to foot с головы
до пят (e. g. From head to foot he was immaculately dressed).
Proverbs are different from those phraseological units. The
first distinctive feature is the obvious structural dissimilarity.
Phraseological units are a kind of ready-made blocks which fit into
the structure of a sentence performing a certain syntactical
function, more or less as words do (e.g. a) George liked her for she
never put on airs (predicate). b) Big bugs"шишка" like him care
nothing about small fry like ourselves, (a) subject). Proverbs, if
viewed in their structural aspect, are sentences, and so cannot be
used in the way in which phraseological units are used.
In the semantic aspect, proverbs sum up the collective
experience of the community. They moralize (Hell is paved with
good intentions), give advice (Don't judge a tree by its bark), give
warning (// you sing before breakfast, you will cry before night),
admonish (Liars should have good memories), criticize (Everyone
calls his own geese swans). No phraseological unit ever does any
of these things. They do not stand for whole statements as
proverbs do but for a single concept. Their function in speech is
purely nominative (i. e. they denote an object, an act, etc.). The
function of proverbs in speech, though, is communicative (i. e.
they impart certain information). The question of whether or not

60
proverbs should be regarded as a subtype of phraseological units
and studied together with the phraseology of a language is a
controversial one.
Professor A. V. Kunin includes proverbs in his classification
of phraseological units and labels them communicative
phraseological units. From his point of view, one of the main
criteria of a phraseological unit is its stability. If the quotient of
phraseological stability in a word-group is not below the
minimum, it means that we are dealing with a phraseological unit.
The structural type – that is, whether the unit is a combination of
words or a sentence – is irrelevant.
The criterion of nomination and communication cannot be
applied here either, says Professor A.V. Kunin, because there are a
considerable number of verbal phraseological units which are
word-groups (i. e. nominative units) when the verb is used in the
Active Voice, and sentences (i. e. communicative units) when the
verb is used in the Passive Voice. E. g. to cross (pass) the Rubicon
– the Rubicon is crossed {passed); to shed crocodile tears –
crocodile tears are shed. Hence, if one accepts nomination as a
criterion of referring or not referring this or that unit to
phraseology, one is faced with the absurd conclusion that such
word-groups, when with verbs in the Active Voice, are
phraseological units and belong to the system of the language, and
when with verbs in the Passive Voice, are non-phraseological
word-groups and do not belong to the system of the language.
One more argument in support of this concept is that there
does not seem to exist any rigid border-line between proverbs and
phraseological units as the latter rather frequently originate from
the former (e.g. the phraseological unit the last straw originated
from the proverb The last straw breaks the camel's back; birds of a
feather from the proverb Birds of a feather flock together, to catch
at a straw (straws) from A drowning man catches at straws).
Besides, some proverbs are easily transformed into phraseological
units (e.g. Don't put all your eggs in one basket > to put all one's

61
eggs in one basket; don't cast pearls before swine > to cast pearls
before swine.

2. Different approaches to the classification of

phraseological units.
So, a phraseological unit is a complex phenomenon with a
number of important features, which can therefore be approached
from different points of view. Hence, there exist a considerable
number of different classifications devised by defferent scholars
and based on different principles.
Semantic approach stresses the importance of idiomaticity,
functional – syntactic inseparability, contextual – stability of
context combined with idiomaticity. The traditional and oldest
principle for classifying phraseological units is based on their
original content and might be alluded to as thematic (although the
term is not universally accepted). The approach is widely used in
numerous English and American guides to idiom, phrase books,
etc. On this principle, idioms are classified according to their
sources of origin, "source" referring to the particular sphere of
human activity, of life of nature, of natural phenomena, etc. So, L.
P. Smith gives in his classification groups of idioms used by
sailors, fishermen, soldiers, hunters and associated with the realia,
phenomena and conditions of their occupations. In Smith's
classification we also find groups of idioms associated with
domestic and wild animals and birds, agriculture and cooking.
There are also numerous idioms drawn from sports, arts, etc. This
principle of classification is sometimes called etymological. The
term does not seem appropriate since we usually mean something
different when we speak of the etymology of a word or word-
group: whether the word (or word-group) is native or borrowed,
and, if the latter, what is the source of borrowing. It is true that
Smith makes a special study of idioms borrowed from other
languages, but that is only a small part of his classification system.
The general principle is not etymological. Smith points out that

62
word-groups associated with the sea and the life of seamen are
especially numerous in English vocabulary. Most of them have
long since developed metaphorical meanings which have no longer
any association with the sea or sailors. Here are some examples: to
be all at sea — to be unable to understand; to be in a state of
ignorance or bewilderment about something; to sink or swim — to
fail or succeed; in deep water — in trouble or danger; in low
water, on the rocks — in strained financial circumstances; to be in
the same boat with somebody — to be in a situation in which
people share the same difficulties and dangers; to sail under false
colors – to pretend to be what one is not; to pose as a friend and,
at the same time, have hostile intentions; to show one's colors — to
betray one's real character or intentions; to strike one's colors —
to surrender, give in, admit one is beaten; to weather (to ride out)
the storm — to overcome difficulties; to have courageously stood
against misfortunes; to bow to the storm — to give in, to
acknowledge one's defeat; three sheets in(to) the wind (sl.) — very
drunk; Half seas over (sl.) – drunk.
The thematic principle of classifying phraseological units
has real merit but it does not take into account the linguistic
characteristic features of the phraseological units.
In this respect a considerable contribution was made by
Russian scholars, especially by Academician V.V. Vinogradov.
His classification system of phraseological units is considered by
some linguists of today to be outdated, and yet its value is beyond
doubt because it was the first classification system which was
based on the semantic principle, which is of immense importance.
In his classification founded on the degree of semantic cohesion
between the components of a phraseological unit (its motivation)
V.V. Vinogradov developed some points first advanced by the
Swiss linguist Charles Bally. Units with a partially transferred
meaning show the weakest cohesion between their components.
The more distant the meaning of a phraseological unit from the
current meaning of its constituent parts, the greater is its degree of

63
semantic cohesion. Accordingly, Vinogradov classifies
phraseological units into three classes: phraseological
combinations, unities and fusions.
Phraseological combinations are word-groups with a
partially changed meaning. They may be said to be clearly
motivated, that is, the meaning of the unit can be easily deduced
from the meanings of its constituents (e.g. to be at one's wits' end,
to be good at something, to be a good hand at something, to have a
bite, to come off a poor second, to come to a sticky end (coll.), to
look a sight (coll.), to take something for granted, to stick to one's
word, to stick at nothing, gospel truth, bosom friends).
Phraseological unities are word-groups with a completely
changed meaning, that is, the meaning of the unit does not
correspond to the meanings of its constituent parts. They are
motivated units or, putting it another way, the meaning of the
whole unit can be deduced from the meanings of the constituent
parts; the metaphor, on which the shift of meaning is based, is
clear and transparent (e.g. to stick to one's guns ( = to be true to
one's views or convictions. The image is that of a gunner or gun
crew who do not desert their guns even if a battle seems lost); to
sit on the fence (= in discussion, politics, etc. refrain from
committing oneself to either side); to catch/clutch at a
straw/straws ( = when in extreme danger, avail oneself of even the
slightest chance of rescue
Phraseological fusions are word-groups with a completely
changed meaning but, in contrast to the unities, they are
demotivated, that is, their meaning cannot be deduced from the
meanings of the constituent parts; the metaphor, on which the shift
of meaning was based, has lost its clarity and is obscure (e.g. to
come a cropper (to come to disaster); neck and crop (entirely,
altogether, thoroughly, as in: He was thrown out neck and crop.
She severed all relations with them neck and crop.); at sixes and
sevens (in confusion or in disagreement.

64
 It is obvious that this classification system does not take into
account the structural characteristics of phraseological units. On
the other hand, the border-line separating unities from fusions is
vague and even subjective. One and the same phraseological unit
may appear motivated to one person (and therefore be labeled as a
unity) and demotivated to another (and be regarded as a fusion).
The more profound one's command of the language and one's
knowledge of its history, the fewer fusions one is likely to discover
in it.
The structural principle of classifying phraseological units is
based on their ability to perform the same syntactical functions as
words. In the traditional structural approach, the following
principal groups of phraseological units are distinguishable.
1. Verbal: to run for one's {dear) life, to get (win) the upper
hand;
2. Substantive: dog's life, cat-and-dog life, calf love,
3. Adjectival: high and mighty, spick and span, brand new,
safe and sound. In this group the so-called comparative word-
groups are particularly expressive and sometimes amusing in their
unanticipated and capricious associations: (as) cool as a
cucumber,(as) nervous as a cat, (as) weak as a kitten, (as) good as
gold (usu. spoken about children), (as) pretty as a picture, as large
as life,
4. Adverbial: high and low, by hook or by crook, for love or
money, in cold blood, in the dead of night, between the devil and
the deep sea, to the bitter end, by a long chalk.
5. Interjectional: my God! by Jove! by George! goodness
gracious! good Heavens!
Professor A.I. Smirnitsky offered a classification system for
English phraseological units which is interesting as an attempt to
combine the structural and the semantic principles. Phraseological
units in this classification system are grouped according to the
number and semantic significance of their constituent parts.
Accordingly two large groups are established:

65
 A. One-summit units, which have one meaningful
constituent (e. g. to give up, to make out, to pull out, to be tired, to
be surprised);
B. Two-summit and multi-summit units which have two
or more meaningful constituents (e. g. black art, first night,
common sense, to fish in troubled waters).
Within each of these large groups the phraseological units
are classified according to the category of parts of speech of the
summit constituent. So, one-summit units are subdivided into: a)
verbal-adverbial units equivalent to verbs in which the semantic
and the grammatical centers coincide in the first constituent (e. g.
to give up); b) units equivalent to verbs which have their semantic
centre in the second constituent and their grammatical centre in the
first (e. g. to be tired); c) prepositional-substantive units equivalent
either to adverbs or to copulas and having their semantic centre in
the substantive constituent and no grammatical centre (e. g. by
heart, by means of).
Two-summit and multi-summit phraseological units are
classified into:
a) attributive-substantive two-summit units equivalent to
nouns (e. g. black art);
b) verbal-substantive two-summit units equivalent to verbs
(e. g. to take the floor),
c) phraseological repetitions equivalent to adverbs (e. g. now
or never);
d) adverbial multi-summit units (e. g. every other day через).
Professor Smirnitsky also distinguishes proper
phraseological units which, in his classification system, are units
with non-figurative meanings, and idioms, that is, units with
transferred meanings based on a metaphor.
Professor A.V. Kunin, the leading Russian authority on
English phraseology, pointed out certain inconsistencies in this
classification system. First of all, the subdivision into
phraseological units (as non-idiomatic units) and idioms

66
contradicts the leading criterion of a phraseological unit suggested
by Professor Smirnitsky: it should be idiomatic. Professor Kunin
also objects to the inclusion of such wordgroups as black art, best
man, first night in phraseology (in Professor Smirnitsky's
classification system, the two-summit phraseological units) as all
these word-groups are not characterized by a transferred meaning.
It is also pointed out that verbs withpost-positions (e. g. give up)
are included in the classification but their status as phraseological
units is not supported by any convincing argument.
The classification system of phraseological units suggested
by Professor A. V. Kunin is the latest outstanding achievement in
the Russian theory of phraseology. The classification is based on
the combined structural-semantic principle and it also considers
the quotient ['kwəuʃ(ə)nt] часть of stability of phraseological
units. Phraseological units are subdivided into the following four
classes according to their function in communication determined
by their structural-semantic characteristics.
1. Nominative phraseological units are represented by word-
groups, including the ones with one meaningful word, and
coordinative phrases of the type wear and tear, well and good. The
first class also includes word-groups with a predicative structure,
such as as the crow flies, and, also, predicative phrases of the type
see how the land lies, ships that pass in the night.
2. Nominative-communicative phraseological units include
word-groups of the type to break the ice – the ice is broken, that is,
verbal word-groups which are transformed into a sentence when
the verb is used in the Passive Voice.
3. Phraseological units which are neither nominative nor
communicative include interjectional word-groups.
4. Communicative phraseological units are represented by
proverbs and sayings.
These four classes are divided into sub-groups according to
the type of structure of the phraseological unit. The sub-groups
include further rubrics representing types of structural-semantic

67
meanings according to the kind of relations between the
constituents and to either full or partial transference of meaning.
The classification system includes a considerable number of
subtypes and gradations and reflects the wealth of types of
phraseological units existing in the language. It is based on truly
scientific and modern criteria and represents an earnest attempt to
take into account all the relevant aspects of phraseological units
and combine them within the borders of one classification system.

3. Ways of forming phraseologisms.

Phraseological units can be classified according to the ways
they are formed, according to the degree of the motivation of their
meaning, according to their structure and according to their part-
of-speech meaning.
A.V. Kunin classified phraseological units according to the
way they are formed, pointing out primary and secondary ways of
forming phraseological units. Primary ways of forming
phraseological units are those when a unit is formed on the basis of
a free word-group:
a) most productive in Modern English is the formation of
phraseological units by means of transferring the meaning of
terminological word-groups (e.g. launching pad, to link up);
b) a large group of phraseological units was formed from
free word-groups by transforming their meaning (e.g. granny flat,
Troyan horse);
c) phraseological units can be formed by means of
alliteration (e.g. a sad sack, culture vulture);
d) they can be formed by means of expressiveness,
especially it is characteristic for forming interjections (My aunt!
Hear, hear!);
e) by means of distorting a word group (e.g. odds and ends);
f) by using archaisms (e.g. in brown study a mood of deep
absorption or thoughtfulness; reverie);

68
 g) by using a sentence in a different sphere of life (e.g. that
cock won’t fight);
h) by using some unreal image (e.g. to have butterflies in the
stomach, to have green fingers);
i) by using expressions of writers or politicians in everyday
life (e.g. corridors of power, American dream, the winds of
change).
Secondary ways of forming phraseological units are those
when a phraseological unit is formed on the basis of another
phraseological unit. They are:
a) conversion: to vote with one’s feet → vote with one’s feet;
b) changing the grammar form: make hay while the sun
shines → to make hay while the sun shines;
c) analogy: curiosity killed the cat → care killed the cat;
d) contrast: acute surgery → cold surgery;
e) shortening of proverbs and sayings: you can’t make a silk
purse out of a sow’s ear → a sow’s ear;
f) borrowing phraseological units from other languages,
either as translation loans: living space (German), to take the bull
by the horns (Latin); or by means of phonetic borrowings: sotto
voce (Italian)

69
 LECTURE 6
LEXICO-SEMANTIC PROCESSES
1. Polysemy
2. Homonymy
3. Synonymy
4. Antonymy
5. Euphemism

Key words: radiation, concatenation, split of polysemy,

transference based on resemblance, transference based on
contiguity, broadening, narrowing, degeneration, elevation,
homonym, homonyms proper, homophone, homograph,
homoform, paronym, synonym, synonymic dominant, antonym,
euphemism.

1. Polysemy.
The semantic structure of the word does not present an
indissoluble unity (that is, actually, why it is referred to as
"structure"), nor does it necessarily stand for one concept. It is
generally known that most words convey several concepts and thus
possess the corresponding number of meanings. A word having
several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words
to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy.
1. Is polysemy an anomaly or a general rule in English
vocabulary?
2. Is polysemy an advantage or a disadvantage so far as the
process of communication is concerned?
Polysemy is certainly not an anomaly. Most English words
are polysemantic. It should be noted that the wealth of expressive
resources of a language largely depends on the degree to which
polysemy has developed in the language. if each word is found to
be capable of conveying, let us say, at least two concepts instead
of one, the expressive potential of the whole vocabulary increases

70
twofold. Hence, a well-developed polysemy is not a drawback but
a great advantage in a language.
On the other hand, it should be pointed out that the number
of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is
limited. Therefore at a certain stage of language development the
production of new words by morphological means becomes
limited, and polysemy becomes increasingly important in
providing the means for enriching the vocabulary. From this, it
should be clear that the process of enriching the vocabulary does
not consist merely in adding new words to it, but, also, in the
constant development of polysemy.
There are two main processes of the semantic development
of a word: radiation and concatenation.
In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the
center and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays.
Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning
(e.g. in the word face the primary meaning denotes “the front part
of the human head”. Connected with the front position such
meanings as “the front part of a watch”, “the front part of a
building”, “the front part of a playing card” were formed).
In cases of concatenation or a semantic chain the meaning
stands at the very beginning of a chain and all the secondary
meanings develop from the previous meaning, which makes it
difficult to trace some meaning to the primary one. It can be
illustrated by the word style: 1) a pointed stick; 2) a pointed stick
for writing on wax in Rome; 3) a manner of writing; 4) a manner
of doing smth in general.
Sometimes these two ways of semantic development merge.
It is called the split of polysemy. In such cases polysemy ends and
homonymy starts (e.g. the word bar: the first bars of the
symphony, then – a narrow band/strip of color or light, then –
barrier/obstacle (poor sight can be a bar to success), then – a
counter separating the judge and the lawyers and the prisoner from
spectators and one more meaning – the counter where spirits are

71
sold. Later one the last two meanings developed meanings of their
own: the last but one – the meaning “barrister” (She is training for
the bar) and the last one – “a place where food and drinks are
served”). It is where polysemy splits and homonymy starts.
The process of development of a new meaning (or a change
of meaning) is traditionally termed transference. Two types of
transference are distinguishable depending on the two types of
logical associations underlying the semantic process
Transference Based on Resemblance (Similarity) This type
of transference is also referred to as linguistic metaphor. A new
meaning appears as a result of associating two objects
(phenomena, qualities, etc.) due to their outward similarity. The
noun eye, for instance, has for one of its meanings "hole in the end
of a needle, which also developed through transference based on
resemblance. A similar case is represented by the neck of a bottle.
In general, metaphorical change of meaning is often observed in
idiomatic compounds. The main meaning of the noun branch is
"limb or subdivision of a tree or bush". On the basis of this
meaning it developed several more. One of them is "a special field
of science or art" (as in a branch of linguistics). This meaning
brings us into the sphere of the abstract, and shows that in
transference based on resemblance an association may be built not
only between two physical objects, but also between a concrete
object and an abstract concept.
Transference Based on Contiguity Another term for this type
of transference is linguitic metonymy. The association is based
upon subtle of psychological links between different objects and
phenomena, sometimes traced and identified with much difficulty.
The two objects may be associated together because they often
appear in common situations, and so the image of one is easily
accompanied by the image of the other; or they may be associated
on the principle of cause and effect, of common function, of some
material and an object which is made of it, etc. Let us consider
some cases of transference based on contiguity. You will notice

72
that they are of different kinds. The foot of a bed is the place where
the feet rest when one lies in the bed, but the foot of a mountain
got its name by another association: the foot of a mountain is its
lowest part, so that the association here is founded on common
position. By the arms of an arm-chair we mean the place where
the arms lie when one is sitting in the chair, so that the type of
association here is the same as in the foot of a bed. Meanings
produced through transference based on contiguity sometimes
originate from geographical or proper names. China in the sense of
"dishes made of porcelain" originated from the name of the
country which was believed to be the birthplace of porcelain.
Tweed ("a coarse wool cloth") got its name from the river Tweed
The name of a painter is frequently transferred onto one of his
pictures: a Matisse = a painting by Matisse.
Broadening (or Generalization) of Meaning. Narrowing (or
Specialization) of Meaning
Sometimes, the process of transference may result in a
considerable change in range of meaning. For instance, the verb to
arrive (French borrowing) began its life in English in the narrow
meaning "to come to shore, to land". In Modern English it has
greatly widened its combinability and developed the general
meaning "to come" (e. g. to arrive in a village, town, city, country,
at a hotel, hostel, college, theatre, place, etc.). The meaning
developed through transference based on contiguity (the concept
of coming somewhere is the same for both meanings), but the
range of the second meaning is much broader.
Deer: | any beast | > | a certain kind of beast
The so-called "Degeneration" ("Degradation") and
"Elevation" of Meaning
Knave: boy > swindler
These examples show that the second meaning, in contrast
with the one from which it developed, denotes a person of bad
repute or character. Semantically speaking, the second meaning

73
developed a negative evaluative connotation which was absent in
the first meaning.
Tory: brigand > member of the Tories; knight: manservant >
noble, courageous man.

2. Homonymy
Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and
spelling, or, at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their
meaning (e.g. bank, n. – a shore; bank, n. – an institution for
receiving, lending, exchanging, and safeguarding money; ball, n. –
a sphere; any spherical body; ball, n. – a large dancing party
The most widely accepted classification of homonyms is that
recognizing homonyms proper, homophones and homographs.
Homonyms proper (or perfect, absolute) are words identical
in pronunciation and spelling but different in meaning (e.g. back n.
"part of the body" – back adv. "away from the front"- back v. "go
back"; bear n. "animal" – bear v. "carry, tolerate").
Homophones are words of the same sound but of different
spelling and meaning (e.g. buy v. – by prep.; him pr. – hymn
церковний гімн n.; piece n. – peace n.; rite обряд n. – write v. –
right adj.).
The following joke is based on a pun which makes use of
homophones:
"Waiter!"
"Yes, sir."
"What's this?"
"It's bean soup, sir."
"Never mind what it has been. I want to know what it is
now."
Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning
but accidentally identical n spelling (e.g. bow [bau], v. – to incline
the head or body in salutation; bow [bou], n. – a flexible strip of

74
wood for propelling arrows; lead [li:d], v. – to conduct on the
way, go before to show the way; lead [led] n. – a heavy, rather soft
metal).
Homoforms are words identical in some of their
grammatical forms (e.g. to bound (jump, spring) – bound (past
participle of the verb bind); found (establish) found (past
participle of the verb find).
Paronyms are words that are alike in form, but different in
meaning and usage. They are liable to be mixed and sometimes
mistakenly interchanged. The term paronym comes from the Greek
para "beside" and onoma "name" (e.g. precede ↔ proceed;
preposition ↔ proposition; popular ↔ populous; grateful ↔
gracious)
There are several sources of homonyms:
a) phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of
their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or
more words which were formerly pronounced differently may
develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms (e.g.
night and knight were not homonyms in Old English as the initial
k in the second word was pronounced, and not dropped as it is in
its modern sound form;
b) conversion which serves the creating of grammatical
homonyms (e.g. iron →to iron, work→ to work, etc.);
c) shortening is a further type of word-building which
increases the number of homonyms (e.g. fan, n. in the sense of "an
enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer" is
a shortening produced from fanatic;
d) borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed
word may, in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in
form either a native word or another borrowing (e.g. ritus Lat. →
rite n. – write v. – right adj.; pais OFr → piece,n. – pettia OFr →
peace n.);
e) words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of
homonyms with other words (e.g. bang, n. "a loud, sudden,

75
explosive noise" – bang, n. "a fringe of hair combed over the
forehead"; mew, n. "the sound a cat makes" – mew, n. "a sea gul").
One of the most debatable points in semasiology is the
demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between
different meanings of one word and the meanings of two or more
homonymous words. Scientists use different criteria to distinguish
between polysemy and homonymy.
1. Semantic criterion. It is usually held that if a connection
between various meanings is apprehended by the speaker, they are
to be considered as making up the semantic structure of a
polysemantic word, otherwise it is a case of homonymy. This
traditional criterion implying that the difference is reduced to the
difference between related and unrelated meanings is not reliable
due to its subjectivity and to the fact that it cannot be applied to a
large group of Modern English words made as a result of
conversion.
2. The criterion of distribution. It is helpful in cases of
lexico-grammatical homonyms (e.g. the homonymic pair paper n.
– paper v.) but it fails in case of lexical polysemy.
3. The criterion of spelling. Homonyms differing in graphic
forms such as flower-flour are easily perceived to be two different
lexical units but there are numerous exceptions to the validity of
the present criterion. That is why it is lexicographers’ duty to
define the boundaries of each word, i.e. to differentiate homonyms
and to unite lexico-grammatical variants deciding on the nature of
the object analyzed.

3. Synonymy
Synonyms are traditionally described as words different in
sound-form but identical or similar in meaning. This definition has
been severely criticized on the following points:
1) it cannot be applied to polysemantic words (e.g. the verb
to look is usually regarded as a synonym of to watch, to observe,

76
etc. but in its other meanings it is not synonymous with this group
but rather with the verbs to seem, to appear);
2) it is hardly possible to speak of similarity of lexical
meaning as a whole as it is only the denotational component that
may be described as similar (e.g. to die and to pass away are
considered synonymous, but the stylistic reference is completely
different);
3) it is impossible to speak of identity in meaning as a
criterion of synonymity since identity of meaning is very rare even
among monosemantic words. The principal function of synonyms
is to represent the same phenomenon in different aspects, shades
and variations.
The synonymic dominant is the most general term
potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the
other members of the group. The words face, visage, countenance
have a common denotational meaning – the front of the head
which makes them close synonyms. Face is the dominant, the
most general word; countenance is the same part of the head with
the reference to the expression it bears; visage is a formal word,
chiefly literary, for face or countenance
The only existing classification system for synonyms was
established by Academician V. V. Vinogradov, the famous
Russian scholar. In his classification system there are three types
of synonyms: ideographic (which he defined as words conveying
the same concept but differing in shades of meaning), stylistic
(differing in stylistic characteristics) and absolute (coinciding in all
their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics).
According to the criterion of interchangeability in context
synonyms are classified into total, relative and contextual. Total
synonyms are those members of a synonymic group which can
replace each other in any given context, without the slightest
alteration in denotative meaning or emotional meaning and
connotations. They are very rare. Examples can be found mostly in

77
special literature among technical terms and others (fatherland –
motherland; suslik - gopher.
Some authors class groups like ask - beg - implore, or like -
love ~ adore, gift - talent - genius, famous - celebrate - eminent as
relative synonyms, as they denote different degree of the same
notion or different shades of meanings and can be substituted only
in some contexts.
Contextual or context-dependent synonyms are similar in
meaning only under some specific distributional conditions. It may
happen that the difference between the meanings of two words is
contextually neutralized (buy and get would not generally be taken
as synonymous, but they arc synonyms in the following examples
– I'll go to the shop and buy some bread and I'll go to the shop and
get some bread).

4. Antonymy
Antonyms may be defined as two or rarely more words of
the same language belonging to the same part of speech identical
in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and used
together so that their denotative meanings render contrary or
contradictory notions Antonymy is not evenly distributed among
the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives,
which seems to be natural because qualitative characteristics are
easily compared and contrasted: high - low, wide — narrow,
strong — weak, old—young, friendly - hostile. Verbs take second
place, so far as antonymy is concerned. Yet, verbal pairs of
antonyms are fewer in number: to lose - to find, to live - to die, to
open - to close, to weep - to laugh. Nouns are not rich in antonyms,
but even so some examples can be given: friend'- enemy, joy -
grief, good - evil, heaven - earth, love - hatred.

5. Euphemism

78
There are words in every language which people instinctively
avoid because they are considered indecent, indelicate, rude, too
direct or impolite. As the "offensive" referents, for which these
words stand, must still be alluded to, they are often described in a
roundabout way, by using substitutes called euphemisms. This
device is determined by social conventions which are sometimes
apt to be over-sensitive, see "indecency" where there is none and
seek refinement in absurd avoidances and pretentiousness.
Numerous euphemisms are used to avoid the so-called social
taboos and are inspired by social convention. To illustrate, the
word lavatory has, naturally, produced many euphemisms. Here
are some of them: powder room, washroom, restroom, retiring
room, (public) comfort station, ladies' room), gentlemen's (room),
water-closet, w. c., public conveniences and even Windsor castle
(which is a comical phrase for "deciphering" w.c.). Pregnancy is
another topic for "delicate" references. Here are some of the
euphemisms used as substitutes for the adjective pregnant: in an
interesting/delicate condiition, in the family way, with a baby
coming, (big) with child, expecting. Euphemisms may, of course,
be used due to genuine concern not to hurt someone's feelings (e.g.
a liar can be described as a person who does not always strictly tell
the truth and a stupid man can be said to be not exactly brilliant

79
 LECTURE 7
STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES OF THE ENGLISH AND
UKRANIAN VOCABULARY

1. Informal vocabulary
2. Formal vocabulary
3. Basic vocabulary

Key terms: functional style, informal vocabulary,

colloquialism, slang, jargon, cant, official vocabulary, officialese
literary word, mode of poetic diction, archaic and obsolete word,
neologisms, basic vocabulary.

The social context in which the communication is taking

place determines the modes of speech. When placed in different
situations people instinctively choose different words. The
suitability of a word depends on its stylistic characteristics, on the
functional style. The term “functional style” is generally accepted
in modern linguistics. Professor I. V. Arnold defines it as “a
system of expressive means peculiar to a specific sphere of
communication”. By the sphere of communication we mean the
circumstances attending the process of speech in each particular
case: professional communication, a lecture, an informational talk,
a formal letter, a speech in court, etc. Accordingly, functional
styles are classified into two groups, with furthers depending on
different situations.
Informal vocabulary is used in one’s immediate circle:
family, relatives or friends. One uses informal words when at
home or when feeling at home. Informal style is relaxed, free-and-
easy, familiar and unpretentious. It should be pointed out that the
informal talk of well-educated people considerably differs from
that of the illiterate or the semi-educated; the choice of words with
adults is different from the vocabulary of teenagers; people living
in the provinces use certain regional words and expressions.

80
Consequently, the choice of words is determined not only by an
informal (or formal) situation, but also by the speaker’s
educational and cultural background, age group, and his
occupational regional characteristics. Informal words and word-
groups are traditionally divided into three types: colloquial, slang
and dialect words and word-groups.
Among other informal words, colloquialisms are the least
exclusive: they are used by everybody, and their sphere of
communication is comparatively wide, at least of literary
colloquial words. These are informal words that are used in
everyday speech both by cultivated and uneducated people of all
age groups. The sphere of communication of literary colloquial
words also includes the printed page, which shows that the term
colloquial is somewhat inaccurate. Examples: Pal and chum are
colloquial of friend; girl, when used colloquially, denotes a
woman of any age; bite and snack stand for meal; hi, hello are
informal greetings, and so long a form of parting; to have a crush
on somebody is equivalent of to be in love. A bit (of) and a lot (of)
also belong to this group, A considerable number of shortenings
arc found among words of this type: pram, exam, flu, prop, zip,
movie.
Literary colloquial words are to be distinguished from
familiar colloquial and low colloquial. The borderline between
the literary and familiar colloquial is not always clearly marked.
Yet the circle of speakers using familiar colloquial is more limited:
these words are used mostly by the young and the semi-educated.
This vocabulary group closely verges on slang and has something
of its coarse flavour: doc (for doctor), hi (for how do you do), ta-ta
for good-bye), goings-on (for behaviour, usually with a negative
connotation), to kid (to tease, banter), to pick up smb. (for make a
quick and easy acquaintance), Low colloquial is defined by G. P.
Krapp as uses characteristic of the speech of persons who may be
broadly described as uncultivated. It is very difficult to find hard
and fast rules that help to establish the boundary between low

81
colloquial and dialect, because in actual communication the two
are often used together. Moreover, we have only the evidence of
fiction to go by, and this may be not quite accurate in speech
characterisation. The basis of distinction between low colloquial
and the two other types of colloquial is purely social. Everybody
remembers G.B. Shaw’s "Pygmalion where the problem of speech
as a mark of one’s social standing and of social inequalities is one
of the central issues. Ample material for observation of this layer
of vocabulary is provided by the novels of Alan Sillitoe, Sid
Chaplin or Stan Barstow. The chief peculiarities of low colloquial
concern grammar and pronunciation; as to the vocabulary, it is
different from familiar colloquial in that it contains more vulgar
words, and sometimes also elements of dialect.
Slang is language of a highly colloquial style, is considered
as below the level of standard educated speech, and consists either
of new words or of current words employed in some special sense.
All or most slang words are current words whose meanings have
been metaphorically shifted. Each slang metaphor is rooted in a
joke, but not in a kind or amusing joke, This is the criterion for
distinguishing slang from colloquialisms: most slang words are
metaphors and jocular, often with a coarse, mocking, cynical
colouring. Slang words cannot be distinguished from other words
by sound or meaning. Indeed, all slang words were once cant,
jargon, argot, dialect, nonstandard, or taboo. For example, the
American slang to neck (to kiss and caress) was originally student
cant; flattop (an aircraft carrier) was originally navy jargon; and
pineapple (a bomb or hand grenade) was originally criminal argot.
Such words did not, of course, change their sound or meaning
when they became slang. Many slang words, such as blizzard,
mob, movie, phone, gas, and others, have become informal or
standard and, of course, did not change in sound or meaning when
they did so. In fact, most slang words are homonyms of standard
words, spelled and pronounced just like their standard
counterparts, as for example (American slang), cabbage (money),

82
cool (relaxed), and pot (marijuana [ˌmærɪ'wɑːnə] марихуана). Of
course, the words cabbage, cool, and pot sound alike in their
ordinary standard use and in their slang use.
H.W. Fowler states that as style is the great antiseptic, so
slang is the great corrupting matter, it is perishable, and infects
what is round it.
People use slang for a number of reasons: to be picturesque,
arresting, striking and above all, different from others; to avoid the
tedium of outmoded hackneyed words; to demonstrate one’s
spiritual independence and daring, to sound modern and up-to-
date. The circle of users of slang is more narrow than that of
colloquialisms. It is used by the young and uneducated. Yet,
slang’s colourful and humorous quality makes it catching, so that a
considerable part of slang may become accepted by nearly all the
groups of speakers.
Slang can be contrasted with jargon (technical language of
occupational or other groups) and with argot or cant (secret
vocabulary of underworld groups), but the borderlines separating
these categories from slang are greatly blurred, and some writers
use the terms cant, argot, and jargon in a general way to include all
the foregoing meanings
"Cant" comprises the restricted, non-technical words and
expressions of any particular group, as an occupational, age,
ethnic, hobby, or special-interest group. (Cool, uptight,) "Jargon"
is defined as the restricted, technical, or shoptalk words and
expressions of any particular group, as an occupational, trade,
scientific, artistic, criminal, or other group. (Finals used by
printers and by students, Fannie May FNMA certificate by money
men). "Argot" is merely the combined cant and jargon of thieves,
criminals, or any other underworld group. (Hit used by armed
robbers; scam by corporate confidence men.)
H. W. Fowler defines a dialect as a variety of a language
which prevails in a district, with local peculiarities of vocabulary,
pronunciation and phrase. England is a small country, yet it has

83
many dialects which have their own distinctive features .
Lancashire, Dorsetshire, Norfolk dialects). So dialects are regional
forms of English. Standard English is defined by Random House
Dictionary as the English language as it is written and spoken by
literate people in both formal and informal usage and that is
universally current while incorporating regional differences.

2. Formal style
Formal style is restricted to formal situations. In general,
formal words fall into two groups: words associated with
professional communication and a less exclusive group of so-
called learned words.
Learned words are mainly associated with the printed page.
It is in this vocabulary stratum that poetry and fiction find their
main resources. The term learned is not precise and does not
adequately describe the exact characteristic of these words. A
somewht out-of-date term for the same category of words is
bookish. To this group belongs so-called officialese. These are the
words of the official, bureaucratic language: assist (for help),
endeavour (for to try) proceed (for go), approximately (for about),
sufficient (for enough), attired (dressed)(for inquire (for ask).
Probably the most interesting subdivision of learned words is
represented by the words found in descriptive passages of fiction.
These words, which may be called literary, also have a particular
flavour of their own, usually described as refined. They are mostly
polysyllabic words drawn from the Romance languages and,
though fully adapted to the English phonetic system, some of them
continue to sound singularly foreign. They also seem to retain an
aloofness associated with the lofty contexts in which they have
been used for centuries. Their very sound seems to create complex
and solemn associations, eg. solitude, fascination, fastidiousness,
facetiousness,; delusion, meditation, felicity, elusive, illusionary.
There is one further subdivision of learned words: modes of
poetic diction. These stand close to the previous group many

84
words from which, in fact, belong to both these categories. Yet,
poetic words have a further characteristic - a lofty, high-flown,
sometimes archaic colouring:
Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues
can poison truth And constancy lives in realms above; And life is
thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love, Doth
work like madness in the brain...” (Coleridge)
Yet, generally speaking, educated people in both modem
fiction and real life use learned words quite naturally and their
speech is certainly the richer for it.
On the other hand, excessive use of learned elements in
conversational speech presents grave hazards. Utterances
overloaded with such words have pretensions of refinement and
elegance but achieve the exact opposite verging on the absurd and
ridiculous. Writer use this phenomenon for stylistic purposes.
When a character in a book or in a play uses too many learned
words, the obvious inappropriatencss of his speech in an informal
situation produces a comic effect:
Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion by B. Shaw engaging in
traditional English small talk answers the question “Will it rain,
do you think?” in the following way:
“The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely
to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no indications of
any great change in the barometrical situation.
Archaic and obsolete words stand close to the learned
words, particularly to the modes of poetic diction. Learned words
and archaisms arc both associated with the printed pages. Yet
many learned words may also be used in conversational situations.
This cannot be happened to archaisms, which are invariably
restricted to the printed page. These words are moribund, already
partly or fully out of circulation, rejected by the living language.
Their last refuge is in historical novels (whose authors use them to
create a particular period atmosphere) and, of course, in poetry
which is rather conservative in its choice of words.

85
 Thou and thy, aye (yes) and nay (no) are certainly archaic
and long since rejected by –common usage, yet poets use them
even today. We also find the same four words and many –other
archaisms among dialectisms, which is quite natural, as dialects
are also conservative m and retain many archaic words and
structures. Further examples of archaisms are: morn (for
morning), eve (for evening), moon (for month), damsel (for girl),
errant (for wandering, e. g. errant knights), etc. steed /horse/,
slay /kill/, behold /see/, perchance /perhaps/, woe /sorrow/ etc.
Sometimes a lexical archaism begins a new life, getting a
new meaning, then the old meaning becomes a semantic archaism,
e.g. «fair» in the meaning «beautiful» is a semantic archaism, but
in the meaning «blond» it belongs to the neutral style.
It should be pointed out that the borderline between obsolete
and archaic is vague and and uncertain in many cases it is difficult
to decide to which of the groups this or that word belongs. There is
a further term for words which arc no longer in use: historisms. By
this we mean words denoting objects and phenomena which are,
things of the past and no longer exist. goblet, lute, vizor,
cataphract, childe.
At the present moment English is developing very swiftly
and there is so called «neology blowup». R. Berchfield who
worked at compiling a four-volume supplement to NED says that
averagely 800 neologisms appear every year in Modern English. It
has also become a language-giver recently, especially with the
development of computerization.
New words, as a rule, appear in speech of an individual
person who wants to express his idea in some original way. This
person is called «originater». New lexical units are primarily used
by university teachers, newspaper reporters, by those who are
connected with mass media.
Neologisms can develop in three main ways: a lexical unit
existing in the language can change its meaning to denote a new
object or phenomenon. In such cases we have semantic

86
neologisms, e.g. the word «umbrella» developed the meanings:
«авіаційне прикриття», політичне прикриття. A new lexical
unit can develop in the language to denote an object or
phenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it. In
such cases we have transnomination, e.g. the word «slum» was
first substituted by the word «ghetto» then by the word-group
«inner town». A new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a
new object or phenomenon. In this case we have «a proper
neologism», many of them are cases of new terminology. Quite a
number of neologisms appear on the analogy with lexical units
existing in the language, e.g. snowmobile /automobile/,
danceaholic /alcoholic/, airtel /hotel/, cheeseburger /hamburger/,
autocade / cavalcade/.
Hundreds of thousands of words belong to special scientific,
professional or trade tcrminological systems and are not used or
even understood by people outside the particular speciality. Every
field of modem activity has its specialised vocabulary.

3. Basic vocabulary
Basic vocabulary are stylistically neutral, and, in this
respect, opposed to formal and informal words described above.
Their stylistic neutrality makes it possible to use them in all kinds
of situations, both formal and informal, in verbal and written
communication. Certain of stylistically marked vocabulary strata
are, in a way, exclusive: professional terminology is used mostly
by representatives of the professions; dialects are regional; slang is
favoured mostly by the young and the uneducated. Not so basic
vocabulary. These words are used every day, everywhere and by
everybody, regardless of profession, occupation, educational level,
age group or geographical location. These arc words without
which no human communication would be possible as they denote
objects and phenomena of everyday importance e.g. house, bread,
summer, winter, child, mother, green, difficult, to go, to stand, etc
The basic vocabulary is the central group of the vocabulary, its

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historical foundation and living core. That is why words of this
stratum show a considerably greater stability in. comparison with
words of the other strata, especially informal. Basic vocabulary
words can be recognized not only by their stylistic neutrality but
also by entire lack of other connotations (i.e. attendant meanings).
Their meanings are broad general and directly convey the concept,
without supplying any additional information.

Basic vocabulary Informal Formal

begin start, get started commence
continue go on, get on proceed
end finish, be through, be terminate
child, baby over kid, brat, beam (dial.) infant, babe (poet.)

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 LECTURE 8
VARIANTS AND DIALECTS

1. General Characteristics of the English Language

2. Lexical Differences of Territorial Variants
3. Local Dialects in the British Isles

Key terms: variant, dialect, briticism, Americanism, realia

1. General Characteristics of the English Language

Modern linguistics distinguishes territorial variants of a
national language and local dialects.
Variants of a language are regional varieties of a standard
literary language characterised by some minor peculiarities in the
sound system, vocabulary and grammar and by their own literary
norms.
Dialects are varieties of a language used as a means of oral
communication in small localities, they are set off (more or less
sharply) from other varieties by some distinctive features of
pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.
It is over half a century already that the nature of the two
main variants of the English language, British and American (Br
and AE) has been discussed. Some American linguists, H. L.
Mencken for one, speak of two separate languages with a steady
flood of linguistic influence first (up to about 1914) from Britain to
America, and since then from America to the British Isles. They
even proclaim that the American influence on British English is so
powerful that there will come a time when the American standard
will be established in Britain. Other linguists regard the language
of the USA as a dialect of English.
Still more questionable is the position of Australian English
(AuE) and Canadian English (CnE).
The differences between the English language as spoken in
Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada are immediately

89
noticeable in the field of phonetics. However these distinctions are
confined to the articulatory-acoustic characteristics of some
phonemes, to some differences in the use of others and to the
differences in the rhythm and intonation of speech. The few
phonemes characteristic of American pronunciation and alien to
British literary norms can as a rule be observed in British dialects.
The variations in vocabulary, to be considered below, are not
very numerous. Most of them are divergences in the semantic
structure of words and in their usage.
The dissimilarities in grammar like AE gotten, proven for
BE got, proved are scarce. For the most part these dissimilarities
consist in the preference of this or that grammatical category or
form to some others. For example, the preference of Past Indefinite
to Present Prefect, the formation of the Future Tense with will as
the only auxiliary verb for all persons, and some others. Recent
investigations have also shown that the Present Continuous form in
the meaning of Future is used twice as frequently in BE as in the
American, Canadian and Australian variants; infinitive
constructions are used more rarely in AE than in BE and AuE and
passive constructions are, on the contrary, more frequent in
America than in Britain and in Australia.
Since BE, AE and AuE have essentially the same grammar
system, phonetic system and vocabulary, they cannot be regarded
as different languages. Nor can they be referred to local dialects;
because they serve all spheres of verbal communication in society,
within their territorial area they have dialectal differences of their
own; besides they differ far less than local dialects. Another
consideration is that AE has its own literary norm and AuE is
developing one. Thus we must speak of three variants of the
English national language having different accepted literary
standards, one spoken in the British Isles, another spoken in the
USA, the third in Australia.
Nowadays Ukrainian dialects are classified into two basic
groups—the northern (Polisian) and the southern dialects—

90
between which there extends a wide belt of ‘transitional’ dialects,
southern dialects on northern foundations (that is, historically
northern dialects that were assimilated by southern dialects). The
northern boundary of this transitional belt runs along the line
Włodawa–Kamin-Koshyrskyi–the town of Stepan–Kyiv–Nizhyn–
Hlukhiv; the southern, along the line Hrubeshiv–Zhytomyr–
Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi–Lubny–Romny–Sumy. The fundamental
difference between the northern and southern dialectal groups lies
in the role of accentuation in the transmutation of the old vowels ě,
o, and e to the i sound (did from dědъ [old man]; dim from domъ
[house]; lid from ledъ [ice]). In the south this change occurred
independently of the accent (lis – lisý [forest]; dim – dimký); in the
north it took place only under the accent (lies – lesý; müst, muost –
mostkí [bridge]). The same applies to the vowel ’a from the
Common Slavic ę (in the northern group, when accented—’a, ja:
z’at’ [son-in-law]; when unaccented—e: zetí [pl]). The northern
dialectal group is subdivided into the following dialects: the east
Polisian (east of the Dnieper River), the central Polisian (between
the Dnieper and the Horyn River), the west Polisian (between the
Horyn and the Buh River and Lisna River), and the Podlachian
dialects. The main differences among them are the varying
developments of diphthongs in place of ě, o, e; the appearance of
akan'e in east Polisian and dzekan'e and partially ukan'e in central
Polisian; and/or morphological similarities with the southwestern
dialects (in west Polisian).
The southern group of dialects is divided into two
subgroups: the more uniform southeastern dialects (central
Dnieper dialects, Slobidska Ukraine dialects, and steppe dialects)
and the southwestern dialects, which are highly differentiated (the
approximate boundary between the two is the line Khvastiv–
Uman–Balta). The southwestern group is composed of the
following dialects: South Volhynian dialects, Podilian dialects,
Dniester dialects, Sian dialects, Bukovyna-Pokutia dialects, Hutsul
dialect, Boiko dialect, Middle-Transcarpathian dialects, and

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Lemko dialects. The differences among them lie in the
preservation of a number of archaisms in the phonetic and word-
inflection patterns of the final three (Carpathian) dialects, and in a
number of phonetic and morphological innovations in the others.
The development of various lexical and phraseological
peculiarities in the Carpathian dialects was influenced by the
conditions of mountain life, by ancient tribal differences, and by
various foreign-language admixtures (Romanian, Slovak,
Hungarian, Polish, etc).
Historically, Ukrainian linguistic territory covered two
groups of dialects: the northern and the southern. Their boundaries
underwent considerable changes as a result of various migrations
of the population: there were periodic waves of migration of the
steppe inhabitants to the northwest in their flight from the nomadic
Pecheneg, Cuman, and Tatar tribes (10th–13th century and 15th
century) and their subsequent resettlement in the southeast (14th
century, and 16th–19th century); smaller movements of
colonization took place in Podlachia (to the north, 13th century), in
the Carpathian Mountains (over the mountains to the west, 14th–
15th century), in Transcarpathia (the Lemkos to the southeast, 18th
century; the Hutsuls to the south, 17th–19th century).
After the Ukrainian literary language stabilized in the 19th
century, the use of dialects came to characterize primarily the
peasantry. But in the course of the 20th century, with the influence
of the church, education, the press, and radio, elements of the
literary language began, and continued increasingly, to penetrate
even the language of the peasants. This process is most rapid in the
areas of phonetics and morphology, slower in syntax and
vocabulary; geographically, it is more rapid in suburban and
industrial regions, especially among those groups of speakers who
most frequently spend time outside the village (youth, men). The
opposite influence—of dialects on the standard language—which
was substantial as late as the 19th century, has become, since the
1930s–1940s, insignificant.

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 Systematic study of Ukrainian dialects in their entirety on a
truly scholarly foundation was first undertaken by Kostiantyn
Mykhalchuk, sometimes called ‘the father of Ukrainian
dialectology’ (1877). This work was carried on by Aleksei
Sobolevsky (1892), Nikolai Durnovo (Moscow Dialectological
Commission, 1915), Ivan Zilynsky (1916, 1933, and,
posthumously, 1975), Vsevolod Hantsov (1924), Fedot Zhylko
(1955), Yosyp Dzendzelivsky (1965–6), and Tetiana Nazarova
(1977). Mykhalchuk's tripartition of the Ukrainian dialects was
disputed by Sobolevsky and Durnovo, but, with minor
specifications and modifications suggested by Hantsov, Ivan
Pankevych, and Zilynsky, it prevailed and is now generally
accepted.
Since the early 20th century the collection of dialectal data
has been performed on the basis of broadly discussed and
published questionnaires, of which the most important were those
of Kostiantyn Mykhalchuk and Ahatanhel Krymsky (in Russian)
and Mykhalchuk and Yevhen Tymchenko (in Ukrainian, both
1909), Oleksa Syniavsky (1924, 1927), Tymchenko (1925),
Mykola Nakonechny (1941), and Borys Larin (1948, 1949).
In the area of compilation of dialectal atlases, some regional
atlases were pioneering: Zdzisław Stieber's Atlas językowy dawnej
Lemkowszczyzny (Linguistic Atlas of the Ancient Lemko Region,
8 issues, 1956-64) and Yosyp Dzendzelivsky's Linhvistychnyi
atlas ukraïnśkykh narodnykh hovoriv Zakarpats'koï oblasti URSR
(Linguistic Atlas of Ukrainian Folk Dialects of Transcarpathia
Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, lexical only, 2 parts, 1958-60). The atlas of
Ukrainian dialects in eastern Slovakia by Vasyl Latta remains in
manuscript, as does the three-volume all-Ukrainian atlas edited by
Fedot Zhylko and completed by the early 1970s.
The compilation of dialectal dictionaries is underdeveloped
in Ukrainian dialectology, as is, to an even greater extent, the
publication of such dictionaries. The most important have been P.
Lysenko's Slovnyk polis'kykh hovoriv (Dictionary of Polisian

93
Dialects) and Mykhailo Onyshkevych's Slovar' boikovskogo
dialekta (Dictionary of the Boiko Dialect; only letters B and K
have been published [1966, 1972]). A Hutsul dictionary by Jan
Janów and a Transcarpathian one by Ivan Pankevych remain
entirely in manuscript. There is no general dialectal dictionary, nor
is one in preparation.

2. Lexical Differences of Territorial Variants

Speaking about the lexical distinctions between the territorial
variants of the English language it is necessary to point out that
from the point of view of their modern currency in different parts
of the English-speaking world all lexical units may be divided into
general English, those common to all the variants and locally-
marked, those specific to present-day usage in one of the variants
and not found in the others (i.e. Briticisms, Americanisms,
Australianisms, Canadianisms etc.).
When speaking about the territorial differences of the
English language philologists and lexicographers usually note the
fact that different variants of English use different words for the
same objects. Thus in describing the lexical differences between
the British and American variants they provide long lists of word
pairs like
BE AE
flat - apartment
underground subway
lorry truck
pavement sidewalk
post mail
tin-opener can-opener
government administration
leader editorial
teaching staff faculty
From such lists one may infer that the words in the left
column are the equivalents of those given in the right column and

94
used on the other side of the Atlantic. But the matter is not as
simple as that. These pairs present quite different cases.
It is only in some rare cases like tin-opener — can-opener or
fishmonger — fish-dealer that the members of such pairs are
semantically equivalent.
In pairs like government — administration, leader —
editorial only one lexical semantic variant of one of the members
is locally-marked. Thus in the first pair the lexical semantic variant
of administration — ‘the executive officials of a government’ is an
Americanism, in the second pair the word leader in the meaning of
‘leading article in a newspaper’ is a Briticism.
In some cases a notion may have two synonymous
designations used on both sides of the Atlantic ocean, but one of
them is more frequent in Britain, the other — in the USA. Thus in
the pairs post — mail, timetable — shedule the first word is more
frequent in Britain, the second — in America. So the difference
“here lies only in word-frequency.
Most locally-marked lexical units belong to partial
Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., that is they are typical of this or
that variant only in one or some of their meanings. Within the
semantic structure of such words one may often find meanings
belonging to general English, Americanisms and Briticisms, e.g.,
in the word pavement, the meaning ’street or road covered with
stone, asphalt, concrete, etc’ is an Americanism, the meaning
‘paved path for pedestrians at the side of the road’ is a Briticism
(the corresponding American expression is sidewalk), the other
two meanings ‘the covering of the floor made of flat blocks of
wood, stone, etc’ and ’soil’ are general English. Very often the
meanings that belong to general English are common and neutral,
central, direct, while the Americanisms are colloquial, marginal
and figurative, e.g. shoulder — general English — ‘the joint
connecting the arm or forelimb with the body’, Americanism —
‘either edge of a road or highway’.

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 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.
These may be subdivided into lexical units denoting some
realia that have no counterparts elsewhere (such as the
Americanism junior high school) and those denoting phenomena
observable in other English-speaking countries but expressed there
in a different way (e.g. campus is defined in British dictionaries as
‘grounds of a school or college’).
The number of lexical units denoting some “realia having no
counterparts in the other English-speaking countries is
considerable in each variant. To these we may refer, for example,
lexical units pertaining to such spheres of life as flora and fauna
(e.g. AuE kangaroo, dingo, gum-tree), names of schools of
learning (e.g. junior high school and senior high school in AE or
composite high school in CnE), names of things of everyday life,
often connected with peculiar national conditions, traditions and
customs (e.g. AuE boomerang, AE drug-store). But it is not the
lexical units of this kind that can be considered distinguishing
features of this or that variant. As the lexical units are the only
means of expressing the notions in question in the English
language some of them have become common property of the
entire English-speaking community (as, e.g., drug-store, lightning
rod, super-market, baby-sitter that extended from AE, or the
hockey terms that originated in Canada (body-check, puck-carrier,
etc.); others have even become international (as the former
Americanisms motel, lynch, radio, cybernetics, telephone,
anesthesia, or the former Australianisms dingo, kangaroo and
cockatoo.
Lexical peculiarities in different parts of the English-
speaking world are not only those in vocabulary, to be disposed of
in an alphabetical list, they also concern the very fashion of using

96
words. For instance, the grammatical valency of the verb to push is
much narrower in AuE, than in BE and AE (e.g. in this variant it is
not used in the patterns VVen, NVen, NVing, NprpVing. Some patterns
of the verb are typical only of one variant (e.g. NVen and NprpVinf
— of BE, NV and NVing — of AE). There are also some features of
dissimilarity in the word’s lexical valency, e.g. a specifically
British peculiarity observed in newspaper style is the ability of the
verb to be used in combination with nouns denoting price or
quality (to push up prices, rents, etc.).
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
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, -ее, super-, as in kitchenette, draftee, super-market,
are used more extensively; the same is true of conversion and
blending (as in walk-out — ‘workers’ strike’ from (to) walk out;
(to) major — ’specialise in a subject or field of study’ from the
adjective major; motel from motor + hotel, etc.). In the Australian
variant the suffixes -ie/-y and -ее, as well as abbreviations are
more productive than in BE.
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.

3. Local Dialects in the British Isles

In the British Isles there exist many speech varieties
confined to particular areas. These local dialects traceable to Old
English dialects may be classified into six distinct divisions:
1) Lowland (Scottish or Scotch, North of the river Tweed),
2) Northern (between the rivers Tweed and Humber),
3) Western,
4) Midland

97
 5) Eastern (between the river Humber and the Thames),
6) Southern (South of the Thames).
Their sphere of application is confined to the oral speech of
the rural population in a locality and only the Scottish dialect can
be said to have a literature of its own with Robert Burns as its
greatest representative.
Offsprings of the English national literary language, the
British local dialects are marked off from the former and from
each other by some phonetic, grammatical and lexical
peculiarities.
Careful consideration of the national and the dialect
vocabularies discloses that the most marked difference between
them lies in the limited character of the dialect vocabularies. The
literary language contains many words not to be found in dialects,
among them technical and scientific terms.
Local lexical peculiarities are most noticeable in specifically
dialectal words pertaining to local customs, social life and natural
conditions: laird — ‘landed proprietor in Scotland’, burgh —
‘Scottish chartered” town’, kirk — ‘church’, loch — ‘Scottish
lake or landlocked arm of the sea’, etc. There are many names of
objects and processes connected with farming, such as the names
of agricultural processes, tools, domestic animals and the like, e.g.
galloway — ‘horse of small strong breed from Galloway,
Scotland’. There is also a considerable number of emotionally
coloured dialectal words, e.g. Scot, bonny — ‘beautiful, healthy-
looking’, braw — ‘fine, excellent’, daffy — ‘crazy, silly’, cuddy
— ‘fool, ass’, loon — ‘clumsy, stupid person’.
In addition, words may have different meanings in the
national language and in the local dialects, e.g. in the Scottish
dialect the word to call is used in the meaning of ‘to drive’, to set
— ‘to suit’, short — ‘rude’, silly — ‘weak’, etc.
Dialectal lexical differences also embrace word-building
patterns. For instance, some Irish words contain the diminutive
suffixes -an, -een, -can, as in bohaun — ‘cabin’ (from Irish both

98
— ‘cabin’); bohereen — ‘narrow road’ (from Irish bothar —
‘road’); mearacaun — ‘thimble’ (from Irish mear — ‘finger’); etc.
Some of these suffixes may even be added to English bases, as in
girleen, dogeen, squireen (squirrel), etc. Some specifically
dialectal derivatives are formed from standard English stems with
the help of standard English affixes, e.g. Scot. flesher — ‘butcher’,
suddenty — ’suddenness’.
A great number of words specifically dialectal appeared as a
result of intense borrowing from other languages, others are words
that have disappeared from the national literary language or
become archaic, poetical, such as gang — ‘go’,; bairn — ‘child’,
OE bearn, etc. Thus, the lexical differences between the English
national language and its dialects are due to the difference in the
spheres of application, different tempoes of development, different
contacts with other peoples, and deliberate elaboration of literary
norms.
The English language in the United States is characterised by
relative uniformity throughout the country. One can travel three
thousand miles without encountering any but the slightest dialect
differences. Nevertheless, regional variations in speech
undoubtedly exist and they have been observed and recorded by a
number of investigators.
The following three major belts of dialects have so far been
identified, each with its own characteristic features: Northern,
Midland and Southern, Midland being in turn divided into North
Midland and South Midland.
The differences in pronunciation between American dialects
are most apparent, but they seldom interfere with understanding.
Distinctions in grammar are scarce. The differences in vocabulary
are rather numerous, but they are easy to pick up. Cf., e.g., Eastern
New England sour-milk cheese, Inland Northern Dutch cheese,
New York City pot cheese for Standard American cottage cheese
(творог).

99
 The American linguist O. F. Emerson maintains that
American English had not had time to break up into widely diverse
dialects and he believes that in the course of time the American
dialects might finally become nearly as distinct as the dialects in
Britain. He is certainly greatly mistaken. In modern times „dialect
divergence cannot increase. On the contrary, in the United States,
as elsewhere, the national language is tending to wipe out the
dialect distinctions and to become still more uniform.
Comparison of the dialect differences in the British Isles and
in the USA reveals that not only are they less numerous and far
less marked in the USA, but that the very nature of the local
distinctions is different. What is usually known as American
dialects is closer in nature to regional variants of the literary
language. The problem of discriminating between literary and
dialect speech patterns in the USA is much more complicated than
in Britain. Many American linguists point out that American
English differs from British English in having no one locality
whose speech patterns have come to be recognised as the model
for the rest of the country.

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 LECTURE 9
LEXICOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

1. History of lexicology.
2. Types of dictionaries

Key terms: lexicology, encyclopedia, linguistic dictionary.

The theory and practice of compiling dictionaries is called
lexicography.
In other words it is the art and craft of writing dictionaries.
The Erya, from the early 3rd century BC, was the first
Chinese language dictionary. The book organized Chinese
characters by semantic groups. The intention of this dictionary was
to explain the true meaning and interpretation of words in the
context of older ancient texts.
One of the earliest dictionaries known, and which is still
extant today in an abridged form, was written in Latin during the
reign of the emperor Augustus. It is known by the title De
Significatu Verborum ("On the meaning of words") and was
originally compiled by Verrius Flaccus. It was twice abridged in
succeeding centuries, first by Sextus Pompeius Festus, and then by
Paul the Deacon. Verrius Flaccus' dictionary was an abridged list
of difficult or antiquated words, whose usage was illustrated by
quotations from early Roman authors.
The word "dictionary" comes from neoclassical Latin, dictio,
meaning simply "word".
The history of compiling dictionaries for English comes as
far back as The Old English period, where we can find glosses of
religious books. Regular bilingual dictionaries began to appear in
the 15th century. These dictionaries were Anglo-Latin, Anglo-
German, Anglo-French.
The first true English dictionary was Robert Cawdrey's Table
Alphabetical of 1604, although it only included 3,000 words and
the definitions it contained were little more than synonyms. The

101
first one to be at all comprehensive was Thomas Blount's
dictionary Glossographia of 1656.
In 1721 an English scientist and writer Nathaniel Bailey
published the 1st etymological dictionary which explained the
origin of English words. It was called Universal Etymological
English Dictionary. Bailey’s entries are fuller, compared with the
glosses in the hard-word books, and there’re more of them (as
many as 60, 000 in the 1736 edition), but his definitions lack
illustrative support, and he gives little guidance about usage.
The history of lexicography is dominated by the names of 3
figures: Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster and James A. H. Murray.
The role played by the first two in the Early Modern English
period of the language was very significant. Their influence
continues today – directly, in the case of Webster, through the
series of dictionaries which bear his name; and indirectly, in the
case of Johnson, through the tradition which led the Philological
Society to sponsor a «new» English dictionary.
In 1755 an English scientist Samuel Johnson compiled a
famous explanatory dictionary which was called A Dictionary of
the English language. Over a seven-year period, Johnson wrote the
definitions of 40,000 words, illustrating their use from the best
authors since the time of the Elizabethans. Although Johnson was
fewer entries than Bailey, his selection is more wide-ranging, and
his lexicological treatment is far more discriminating and
sophisticated.
The book, according to his biographer Boswell, «conferred
stability» on the language – and at least with respect to spelling
(where most of Johnson’s choices are found in modern
practice).The alphabetical section of Johnson’s Dictionary is
preceded by a famous Preface in which he outlines his aims and
procedures:
The preliminaries also include a short history of the
language, with long extracts from earlier authors, and a grammar,
much influenced by the work of John Wallis, with sections on

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orthography and prosody. But it is in the Preface, often
anthologized as an independent text, that we find an unprecedented
statement of the theoretical basis of a dictionary project. The
statement is notable for its awareness of the realities of the
lexicographer’s task, and also for its descriptive intention – an
interesting change of opinion from the prescriptive attitudes
Johnson expressed in his 1747 Dictionary plan. There he had
written: «The chief intent is to preserve the purity and ascertain the
meaning of our English idiom». The Preface, by contrast, stresses
that his aim is «not form, but register the language»; and it is this
principle which introduces a new era in Lexicography.
The Johnsonian Method.
This page illustrates several features of the approach Johnson
outlines in his Preface:
1. Most of the definitions are appropriate and consistent
between entries;
2. He plays special attention to the different senses of a word
– five, in the case of eternal;
3. There’s a copious use of quotations to support a definition
– 116,000 in all;
4. He routinely identifies parts of speech;
5. He shows the most strongly stressed syllable in a
headword by an accent;
6. There’s an openness of approach;
7. He includes topical explanations of some words;
8. A wide range of ordinary words are included alongside
technical terms;
9. It includes, in the «hard-words» tradition, many
cumbersome Latinate forms, such as cubicula, estuation, whose
status within English was doubtful;
10. His creations are highly selective, chosen more for their
literary or moral value than for their linguistic clarity;
11. Several of his definitions use difficult words, such as
reciprocates in estuary;

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 12. Several of his definitions have become famous for their
subjectivity.
Some Johnsonian Definitions.
There’re not many truly idiosyncratic definitions in the
Dictionary, but some have become famous.
LEXICOGRAPHER – a writer of dictionary, a harmless
drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing
the signification of words.
EXCISE – a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and
adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches
hired by those to whom excise is paid.
OATS – a grain, which in England is generally given to
horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
PATRON – one, who countenances, supports or protects.
PENSION – an allowance made to anyone without an
equivalent. In England it’s generally understood to mean pay
given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
His definitions sometimes got him into trouble. He was
threatened with libel over excise, and much lampooned over
pension.
So Johnson’s Dictionary was the first attempt at a truly
principled lexicography. It portrayed the complexity of the lexicon
and of English usage more accurately than ever before; and his
quotations initiated a practice which has informed English
dictionaries ever since. The dictionary influenced normalization of
the English vocabulary but at the same time it helped to preserve
the English spelling in its conservative form.
In 1857 the Philological Society of Great Britain, noting the
inadequacies of the English dictionaries then available, adopted the
decision to compile a dictionary including all the words existing in
the language from Anglo-Saxon times.
Twenty six years later in 1884 the first volume was
published; it contained words ginning with A and B. The editor of
this dictionary was James A. H. Murray. The aim was to produce a

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4-volume work in a period of 10 years; but after 5 years, Murray
and his colleagues had managed to complete only the section A-
ANT; it was 352 pages, and sold for 62 ½ p in modern money. It
was evident that the dictionary was a much greater work than had
been envisaged. Additional editors were appointed and the last
volume was published in 1928, the dictionary was called NED
(New English Dictionary). It contained 12 volumes, comprising
15,487 pages and covering 414,825 lexical items.
In 1933 the dictionary was republished under the title «The
Oxford English Dictionary» because the work on this dictionary
was conducted at Oxford. The dictionary contained 13 volumes.
Work on the dictionary recommended in1957, with the
appointment of R.W. Burchfield to edit a new supplement. This
appeared in 4 volumes between 1972 and 1986, and included the
content of the 1933 work: it added 5,732 pages to the dictionary,
and nearly 70,000 further lexical items.
As it was large and very expensive scientists continued their
work and made shorter editions of the dictionary. The shorter
Oxford dictionary contained the same number of entries but far
less examples from literature. They also compiled a Concise
Oxford Dictionary. It contained only one volume and no examples
at all.
American lexicography began to develop much later at the
end of the 18th century. The most famous American dictionary was
compiled by Noah Webster. In 1828 he published a two volume
dictionary (70,000 words), which was called American Dictionary
of the English language. He tried to simplify English spelling and
transcription. The work greatly improved the coverage of scientific
and technical terms, as well as terms to do with American culture
and institutions and added a great deal of encyclopedic
information. A new feature was the introduction of Webster’s own
etymologies – though the speculative nature of many of these was
an early source of unwelcome criticism. The spellings were
somewhat more conservative than those used in the 1806 book. Its

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pronunciations were generally provincial in character – those of
Webster’s own New England. The label «American» in the title is
more a reflection of the works of American authors referred to
than of its uniquely American lexicon. Indeed, at one point
Webster observed that «there were not 50 words in all which were
used in America and not in England». On the other hand, nearly
half of the words he did include are not to be found in Johnson’s
Dictionary, which added considerable force to his claim that he
was giving lexicography a fresh direction.
Despite its weaknesses and its critics, the American
Dictionary made Webster a household name in the USA. It was
fiercely attacked in Britain for its Americanism especially in
matters of spelling and usage; but the work was crucial in giving to
US English an identity and status comparable to that given to the
British English lexicon by Dr Johnson.
Indeed, it’s difficult to appreciate today the impact which
Webster’s Dictionary made at the time, and just how authoritative
the book was perceived to be. After Webster’s death (1843), the
rights were purchased by George and Charles Merriam, and later
editions have appeared under the name of Merriam-Webster. A
revision in 1847 was edited by Webster’s son-in-law, Chauncey A.
Goodrich. Several dictionaries within this tradition appeared in the
following decades, via the Webster’s International Dictionary of
1890 to the Webster’s New International Dictionary of 1909, with
a second edition in 1934. The 3rd edition appeared in 1961, edited
by Philip B. Gove, based on a collection of over 6 million citations
of usage, and dealing with over 450,000 words. This edition
prepared over a 10-year period, took up 757 editor-years, and
proved to be highly controversial. Three supplements later
appeared – of 6,000 words (1976), 89,000 words (1983), and
12,000 words (1986), and a CD is also available. Outside of this
tradition, many other publishers have come to use the «Webster»
name for their dictionaries and word-books.

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 The largest dictionary in the world is "het Woordenboek der
Nederlansche Taal (WNT)" (the Dictionary of the Dutch
language). It took 134 years to create the dictionary (1864 - 1998).
It consists of approximately 400,000 words on 45805 pages in
92000 columns.

2. Types of dictionaries
If we speak about the dictionary as a linguistic term, it is a
list of words with their definitions, a list of characters, or a list of
words with corresponding words in other languages. Many
dictionaries also provide pronunciation information; grammatical
information; word derivations, histories, or etymologies;
illustrations; usage guidance; and examples in phrases or
sentences. Dictionaries are most commonly found in the form of a
book, but more and more dictionaries are produced as software
runs from electronic PDA or a general purpose computer. Most
dictionaries are produced by lexicographers.
Since words and their meanings develop over time,
dictionary entries are organized to reflect these changes.
Dictionaries may either list meanings in the historical order in
which they appeared, or may list meanings in order of popularity
and most common use.
Dictionaries also differ in the degree to which they are
encyclopedic, providing considerable background information,
illustrations, and the like, or linguistic, concentrating on
etymology, nuances of meaning, and quotations demonstrating
usage.
Any dictionary has been designed to fulfill one or more
functions. The dictionary functions chosen by the maker(s) of the
dictionary provide the basis for all lexicographic decisions, from
the selection of entry words, over the choice of information types,
to the choice of place for the information (e.g. in an article or in an
appendix). There are two main types of function. The
communication-oriented functions comprise text reception

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(understanding), text production, text revision, and translation. The
knowledge-oriented functions deal with situations where the
dictionary is used for acquiring specific knowledge about a
particular matter, and for acquiring general knowledge about
something. The optimal dictionary is one that contains information
directly relevant for the needs of the users relating to one or more
of these functions. It is important that the information is presented
in a way that keeps the lexicographic information costs at a
minimum.
All dictionaries are divided into linguistic and encyclopedic.
Encyclopedic dictionaries describe different objects,
phenomena and people and give some information about them.
Linguistic dictionaries describe vocabulary units, their
semantic structure, their origin and their usage; words are usually
given in the alphabetical order.
Linguistic dictionaries are divided into general and
specialized dictionaries.
General dictionaries include explanatory (monolingual) and
translation (bilingual) dictionaries.
In explanatory (monolingual) dictionaries the entry consists
of the spelling, transcription, grammatical forms, meanings,
examples, phraseology.
Translation (bilingual) dictionaries give words and their
equivalents in the other language.
Specialized dictionaries include dictionaries of synonyms,
antonyms, collocations, word frequency, slang, neologisms;
etymological, pronouncing, phraseological and other dictionaries.
Specialized dictionaries (also technical dictionaries) focus on
linguistic and factual matters relating to specific subject fields. A
specialized dictionary may have a relatively broad coverage, e.g. a
picture dictionary, in that it covers several subject fields such as
science and technology (a multi-field dictionary), or their coverage
may be more narrow, in that they cover one particular subject field
such as law (a single-field dictionary) or even a specific sub-field

108
such as contract law (a sub-field dictionary). Specialized
dictionaries may be maximizing dictionaries, i.e. they attempt to
achieve comprehensive coverage of the terms in the subject field
concerned, or they may be minimizing dictionaries, i.e. they
attempt to cover only a limited number of the specialized
vocabulary concerned. Generally, multi-field dictionaries tend to
be minimizing, whereas single-field and sub-field dictionaries tend
to be maximizing.
Phraseological dictionaries describe idioms, colloquial
phrases and proverbs. Some of them have examples from
literature.
Etymological dictionaries trace present-day words to the
oldest forms of these words and forms of these words in other
languages.
Pronouncing dictionaries record only pronunciation.
Dictionaries of neologisms contain newly appearing words.
English is famous for its unpredictable spellings and a
dictionary is obviously going to be very useful here. A dictionary
will tell you whether this spelling is British or American. You can
even find out whether a verb has an irregular past tense or whether
an adjective has an irregular comparative form.
The phonetic alphabet is used in dictionaries to tell you
about the pronunciation of a word, and a special indication will
help you get the stress in the right place.
List of major English dictionaries:
The Penguin English Dictionary
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Webster's Third New International Dictionary (descriptive)
Random House Dictionary of the English Language
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
Webster's New World Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary (descriptive)
Concise Oxford Dictionary
New Oxford Dictionary of English

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 New Oxford American Dictionary
Canadian Oxford Dictionary
ITP Nelson Canadian Dictionary
Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary Samuel
Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (prescriptive)
Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English
Language (prescriptive)
The Century Dictionary
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Macquarie Dictionary, The, a dictionary of Australian
English
Chambers Dictionary
Collins COBUILD
Collins English Dictionary
Gage Canadian Dictionary
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Black's Law Dictionary, a law dictionary

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 TESTS
1. By external structure of the word we mean
a) its morphological structure
b) its semantic structure
c) its grammatical employment
2. A Matisse, a jersey, factory hands are examples of:
a) linguistic metonymy;
b) linguistic metaphor;
c) generalization.
3. In contemporary from the point of view of the semantic criterion
words with
the same denotation, but differing connotations are
a) metaphors;
b) antonyms;
c)synonyms.
4. Phraseological units are defined as units of fixed context
according to
a) A.I. Smirnitsky;
b) N.N.Amosova
c) S.V.Kunin
5. Aye, nay, thy are examples of:
a) professional terminology;
b) obsolete words;
c) basic vocabulary.
6. Datum-data, criterion-criteria illustrate
a) the phonetic adaptation;
b) the semantic adaptation;
c) the grammatical adaptation
7. The semantic relationship of inclusion existing between
elements of various
levels (e.g., vehicle including car, bus, bike) is called
a) hyponomy;
b) word-family;
c) ideographic group.

111
8. Which among the following is NOT a neutral compound?
a) craftsmanship;
b) bedroom;
c) shop-window
9. Affixes that take part in deriving new words in this particular
period of
language development are called
a) native;
b) productive;
c) frequently occurring.
10. Diamond drops, mint drops, snowdrops are instances of
a) metonymy;
b) metaphor;
c) broadening of meaning.
11. The initial sk usually indicates
a) Italian borrowings;
b) French borrowings;
c) Scandinavian borrowings
12. –land in Ireland, wonderland and –like in businesslike, ladylike
are examples
of
a) stem;
b) suffix;
c) semi-affix.
13. Such words as humming-bird, to bark, to howl are produced by
a) shortening;
b) onomatopoeia;
c) reversion
14. Chi-chi, shilly-shallying illustrate
a) composition;
b) reduplication;
c) back-formation
15. Street, wall, London are
a) Celtic borrowings;

112
b) Greek borrowings;
c) native words.
16. Homonyms which are the same in sound and spelling are
termed
a) homonyms proper;
b) homophones;
c) homographs.
17. to lay, v. and lay, v. (Past Indef. of to lie) are
a) partial lexical homonyms;
b) simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms;
c) complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms
18. V.V.Vinogradov’s classification of synonyms include: 1) ;
2) ; 3) synonyms.
19. The book is a splendid read shows
a) conversion;
b) affixation;
c) contraction
20. Neck and crop, to show the white feather, at sixes and sevens
are examples of
(V.V.Vinogradov’s classification)
a) phraseological collocations (combinations);
b) phraseological unities;
c) phraseological fusions
21.The most productive ways of word-building in English are:
a) conversion, derivation, composition;
b) shortening and affixation;
c) composition, contraction and conversion
22. –ish, -dom, -ly are examples of:
a) native suffixes;
b) noun-forming suffixes;
c) borrowed affixes.
23. To lunch, to nurse, to back are illustrations of
a) derivation;
b) conversion;

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c) substantivization.
24. Phraseological units are subdivided into nominative,
nominativecommunicative,
interjectional word groups and communicative phraseological
units according to
a) A.I. Smirnitsky;
b) N.N.Amosova
c) S.V.Kunin
25. H-bag, T-shirt, G-man are examples of:
a) neutral compounds;
b) contracted compounds;
c) derived compounds.
26. In the phrase a black little bird the word little illustrates
a) the graphic criterion of distinguishing between a word and a
word-group;
b) the phonetic criterion of distinguishing between a word and a
word-group;
c) the morphological-syntactic criterion of distinguishing between
a word and a
word-group.
27. Comb-to comb, to make-make contribute to the growth of
a) hyponomy;
b) homonymy;
c) synonymy.
28. According to Professor A.I. Smirnitsky, which among the
following are NOT
partial lexical homonyms?
a) rose, n. and rose, v (Past Indef. of to rise);
b) to can (canned, canned) and (I) can (could);
c) to lie (lay, lain), v. and to lie (lied, lied), v.
29. Foolish> loving, affectionate illustrate:
a) the degradation of meaning;
b) the elevation of meaning;
c) the narrowing of meaning.

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30. A jersey, the foot of a mountain, China are instances of
a) metonymy;
b) metaphor;
c) broadening of meaning.
31. A unit of fixed context like small talk, small change, in the
nick of time where
one component is phraseologically bound in its meaning and the
other
determines the context is called
a) a motivated idiom;
b) a demotivated idiom;
c) a phraseme.
32. Waterproof, kissproof are examples of
a) root;
b) suffix;
c) semi-affix.
33. The leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a
word is called
a) denotative component;
b) connotative component;
c) contextual component
34. Light-mindedness, honey-mooner, newcomer belong to
a) syntactic compounds;
b) derivational compounds;
c) morphological compounds.
35. Senior (Lat)-sir (Fr), defence-fence, shirt-skirt are
a) translation loans;
b) etymological doublets;
c) international words.
36.Which among the words below belong to the Indo-European
element of lexis?
a) day, night, be, star, son, new;
b) bird, boy, daisy, always;
c) bone, sea, ship, tell, summer.

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37. To baby-sit, to blood-transfuse, to beg represent
a) conversion;
b) composition;
c) back-formation (reversion)?
38. Words representing the same category of parts of speech,
whose paradigms
has one identical form but it is never the same form are called
a) synonyms;
b) full homonyms;
c) partial homonyms.
39. Which connotation type is realized in the following groups of
synonyms: to
admire-to love-to adore- to worship?
a) emotive ;
b) of degree;
c) of duration
40. From A.I.Smirnitsky’s point of view, to take the floor, to fish
in troubled
waters are instances of
a) phraseological repetition;
b) verbal-adverbial one-summit unit;
c) verbal-substantive two-summit unit.

116
 REFERERNCES

1. Арбекова Т. И. Лексикология английского языка

(практический курс) / Т. И.Арбекова. – М. : ВШ, 1977.
2. Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского
языка / И.В.Арнольд. – М. : ВШ, 1973.
3. Верба Л. Г. Порівняльна лексикологія англійської та
української мов / Л. Г.Верба. – Вінниця : Нова Книга, 2008.
4. Заботкина В. И. Новая лексика современного
английского языка / В. И.Заботкина. – М. : ВШ, 1989.
5. Кочерган М. П. Вступ до мовознавства /
М. П.Кочерган. – К. : Либідь, 2002.
6. Кунин А. В. Фразеология современного английского
языка / А. В.Кунин. – М. : ВШ, 1998.
7. Лексикологія сучасної англійської мови: збірник
вправ / Є. І. Гороть. – К. : Либідь, 1996.
8. Мостовий М. I. Лексикологiя англiйської мови. –
Харкiв, 1993.
9. Смирницкий А. И. Лексикология английского языка /
А. И.Смирницкий. – М. : ВШ, 1999.
10. Харитончик З. А. Лексикология английского языка. –
Минск : Вышэйшая школа, 1992. – 229 с.
11. Ющук І. П. Українська мова / І. П. Ющук. – К. : Либідь,
2005.
12. Януш Я. В. Сучасна українська мова / Я. В.Януш. – К. :
Либідь, 2005.
13. Alexandrova O.V. Introduction to Functional Anglistics /
O. V.Alexandrova, L.V. Boldyreva. – Moscow, 1998.
14. Arnold I.V. The English Word / I. V.Arnold. – M., 1973.
15. Ginsburg R. S. A Course in Modern English Lexicology /
R. S.Ginsburg, S. S.Khidekel, G.Y. Knyaseva, A. A.Sankin. – M.,
1966.

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 16. Nikolenko A.G. English Lexicology . Theory and Practice /
A.G.Nikolenko. – Vinnytsya : Nova Knyha, 2007.
17. Rayevska N. N. English Lexicology. – K. : Vysca Skola
Publishers, 1977. – 293 р.
18. Thomas B.J. Advanced Vocabulary and Idiom. – Harlow,
Essex: Longman Group Ltd., 2007.
19. Ullman S. The Principle of Semantics. – Glasgow:
Glasgow University Press, 1978.
20. Wellman G. Wordbuilder. – Oxford: Macmillan,
Heinemann, 1998.
21. Wright J. Idioms Organiser. – Boston: Heinle, Thomson,
2002.

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 THE LIST OF TOPICS

1. Concept and Meaning.

2. Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to the Study of
Language.
3. Words of Native Origin and their Characteristics.
4. Foreign Elements in Modern English.
5. Etymological Doublets. Hybrids.
6. Assimilation of Borrowings.
1. Morphological Structure of a Word.
2. Structural Types of Words.
9. Productive Ways of Word-Formation.
10. Non-productive Ways of Word-Formation.
11. New Tendencies in Present-Day English Word-Formation.
12. Referential and Functional Approaches to the Study of Word
Meaning.
13. Types of Word Meaning.
14 . Main Tendencies of the Change of Meaning.
15 . Polysemy.
16 . Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to Polysemy.
17 . Semantic Structure of a Polysemantic Word.
18 . Free Word-groups and Phraseological Units.
19. Classification of Phraseological Units.
20. Homonyms.
21 . Synonyms.
22 . Antonyms.
23 . Hyponymy.
24. Semantic Grouping of the English Vocabulary.
25. English Vocabulary as an adaptive System.
26 . Lexico-Semantic Groups. Semantic Fields.
27 . Main Problems of Lexicography.
28. Main Types of English Dictionaries.
29. Historical Development of British and American Lexicography.
30 . Variants and Dialects of the English Language.

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31 . Regional and Social Varieties of English.
32 .The Theoretical and Practical Value of English Lexicology and
its Connection with other Branches of Linguistics.

120