1.

The object and aims of lexicology

Lexicology, a branch of linguistics, is the study of words. It is also the study about
the nature of the word.
Its basic task is to study and descript systematically the vocabulary in respect to its
origin, development and current use.
LG is concerned with words, variable workgroups, phrasiological units and with
morphemes. Modern English LG investigates the problems of word structure and
word formation in modern English.
The semantic structure of English words, the main principles underline the
classification of vocabulary units into various groupings, the laws, governing, and
the development of the vocabulary.
It also studies the variation, existing between various lexical layers of the English
vocabulary and the specific laws and regulations that govern its development at the
present time. The source and the growth of the EV and the changes.

2. A word as a fundamental unit of a language

The term word denotes the basic unit of a given language resulting from the
association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a
particular grammatical employment. A word therefore is simultaneously a
semantic, grammatical and phonological unit.”
the word is the fundamental unit of a language used for the purposes
of human communication, resulting from the association of a group of sounds with
a meaning, capable of grammatical employment. It is the smallest language unit
that can stand alone as a complete utterance. The word is a two-facet unit: it has
form and content. Its content or meaning reflects human notions. Concepts fixed in
the meaning of words are formed as generalized reflections of reality, therefore in
signifying them words reflect reality in their content.

3. Motivation as a language universal. Types of motivation.

The term mоtivation is used to denote the relationship existing between the
phonemic or morphemic composition and structural pattern of the word, on the one
hand, and its meaning, on the other. There are three main types of motivation:
phonetical motivation, morphological, motivation and semantic motivation When
there is a certain similarity between the sound that make up words and their
meaning, the motivation is phonetical, e.g., bump, buzz, chatter, clatter, giggle,
hiss, whistle, etc. Here the sounds of a word are imitative of sounds in nature
because what is referred to is a sound. It is also suggested that sounds themselves
may be emotionally expressive which accounts for the phonetical motivation in
certain words. Initial /f / and / p /, e.g., are felt as expressing scorn, disapproval or
disgust: pooh! fie! fiddle-sticks, etc. The sound-cluster /ıŋ/ is imitative of sound or
swift movement: ring, sing, swing, fling, etc. The main criterion in morphological
motivation is the relationship between, morphemes. Hence, all one-morpheme
words are morphologically non-motivated. Morphological motivation is "relative",
i.e. the degree of motivation may be different. The word "endless” e.g., is
completely motivated as both the lexical meaning of the component morphemes
and the meaning of the pattern are perfectly transparent. The word "cranberry" is
only partially motivated because of; the absence of the lexical meaning in the
morpheme "crap-". The words "matter", "repeat" are non-motivated because the
connection between the structure of the lexical unit and its meaning is completely
conventional. Semantiс motivation is based on the co-existence of direct and
figurative meaning of the same word within the same synchronous system. E.g.,
"mouth" denotes a part of a human face and can be metaphorically applied to any
opening: the mouth of a river, the mouth of a furnace. Semantic motivation is clear
in popular names of flowers, plants and birds violet, bluebell, blue-bottle,
blackcup, blackbird, nightingale, humming-bird, etc. As to compounds their
motivation is morphological if the meaning of the whole is based on the direct
meaning of the components (e.g., headache - pain in the head), and semantic if the
combination of components is used figuratively (headache - anything or anyone
very annoying). Sometimes in an attempt to find motivation for a borrowed word
the speakers change its form so as to give it a connection with some well-known
word. These oases of mistaken motivation received the name of fо1к etуmоlogy
(popular etymology, false etymology). E.g. "mushroom* from French
"moucheron" has nothing in common with "room".

4. Lexicology, its interrelations with other sciences.

The word is studies in several branches of linguistics and not is Lexicology only,
and the latter, in its turn, is closely connected with general linguistics, the history
of the language, phonetics, stylistics, grammar and such new branches of our
science as sociolinguistics, paralinguistics, pragmalinguistics.

The importance of the connection between Lexicology and P h o n e t i c s can be

explained if we remember that a word is an association of a given group of sounds
with a given meaning. Numerous examples show that in actual speech certain
words acquire a different meaning because they are pronounced differently. Thus,
discrimination between words may be based upon stress. E.g., ‘import, v. Stress
also distinguishes compounds from homonymous word-groups: ‘blackbird : :
‘black ‘bird.

The points of contact between Lexicology and G r a m m a r are numerous and

varied. Interactions between them are evident both in the sphere of morphology
and in syntax.

The grammatical form and function of the word affect its lexical meaning. E.g.
“He is going to write a new book” – the verb expresses an action in the nearest
future; “The house is gone” – the verb denotes absence.

S t y l i s t i c s, although from a different angle, studies many problems treated in

Lexicology. These are the problems of meaning, connotations, synonymy,
functional differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication
and others. The expressive elements of a language cannot be studied outside of
their relations to other styles, which are emotionally neutral.

Lexicology is closely connected with s o c i o l i n g u i s t i c s. It is the branch of

linguistics, dealing with relations between the way the language works and
develops, on the one hand, and the facts of social life, on the other hand. Language
is the reality of thought, and thought develops with the development of society.
Every new phenomenon in human society finds a reflection in vocabulary, e.g.,
computer, cyclotron, psycholinguistics. In contrast with Phonology, Morphology
and Syntax, Lexicology is essentially a sociolinguistic science. The lexicologist
should always take into account correlations between purely linguistic facts and
the underlying social facts which brought them into life.

5. Subbranches of lexicology.

There is general lexicology and special lexicology. General lexicology studies

vocabulary in different languages of the world. Special lexicology studies the
vocabulary of one language. There is also historical lexicology and descriptive
lexicology. Historical lexicology studies the changes of the vocabulary in the
course of time. Descriptive lexicology studies the vocabulary at a given stage of its
development. Historical lexicology uses the diachronic approach to the vocabulary,
it focuses on the regularities of the development of the vocabulary. Descriptive
lexicology uses the synchronic approach to the vocabulary; it describes the
principles of the organization of the vocabulary as a system. There also exist
comparative lexicology, which studies the lexical systems of closely related
languages aiming at their typological identity or differentiation; contrastive
lexicology, which studies similarities and differences of related and non-related
languages; and applied lexicology, which includes terminology and lexicography,
translation, linguodidactics and pragmatics of speech.
Borrowing – 1) (process) resorting to the word-stock of other languages for words to express new
concepts, to further differentiate the existing concepts and to name new objects, etc.; 2) (result) a loan
word, borrowed word – a word taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape,
spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the English language. – See Assimilation,
Source of borrowing, Origin of borrowing. The following types of borrowings can be distinguished:

- loan words proper (собственно заимствования) – the sound-form and the meaning are borrowed
together (sky – Scandinavia, to dance – French).

- borrowed word-building morphemes – first a number of words with the morpheme is taken from
another language, then the morpheme begins to form new words (-able-Latin; -ment-French; -ism-
Greek).

- translation loans (кальки) – patterns taken from another language are formed with native English
material (Lingua materna – mother-tongue) 

- semantic loans – a new sense of an English word that appeared under the influence of a related word
in another language (reaction; to move (change))
- word coins (произведенные) from Latin and Greek – are formed to denote new notions or inventions
using Latin or Greek words (telephone)

^ Latin borrowings.

Among words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period when the British Isles were a part
of the Roman Empire, there are such words as: street, port, wall etc. Many Latin and Greek words came
into English during the Adoption of Christianity in the 6-th century. At this time the Latin alphabet was
borrowed which ousted the Runic alphabet. These borrowings are usually called classical borrowings.
Here belong Latin words: alter, cross, dean, and Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem.

Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle English period due to the Great Revival
of Learning. These are mostly scientific words because Latin was the language of science at the time.
These words were not used as frequently as the words of the Old English period, therefore some of them
were partly assimilated grammatically, e.g. formula - formulae. Here also belong such words as:
memorandum, minimum, maximum, veto etc.

Classical borrowings continue to appear in Modern English as well. Mostly they are words formed with the
help of Latin and Greek morphemes. There are quite a lot of them in medicine (appendicitis, aspirin), in
chemistry (acid, valency, alkali), in technique (engine, antenna, biplane, airdrome), in politics (socialism,
militarism), names of sciences (zoology, physics). In philology most of terms are of Greek origin
(homonym, archaism, lexicography).

^ French borrowings

The influence of French on the English spelling.

The largest group of borrowings are French borrowings. Most of them came into English during the
Norman Conquest. French influenced not only the vocabulary of English but also it’s spelling, because
French scribes wrote documents as the local population was mainly illiterate, and the ruling class was
French. Runic letters remaining in English after the Latin alphabet was borrowed were substituted by
Latin letters and combinations of letters, e.g. «v» was introduced for the voiced consonant /v/ instead of
«f» in the intervocal position /lufian - love/, the digraph «ch» was introduced to denote the sound /ch/
instead of the letter «c» / chest/ before front vowels where it had been palatalized, the digraph «sh» was
introduced instead of the combination «sc» to denote the sound /sh/ /ship/, the digraph «th» was
introduced instead of the Runic letters  «0» and «   »  /this, thing/, the letter «y» was introduced instead
of the Runic letter «3» to denote the sound /j/ /yet/,  the digraph «qu» substituted the combination
«cw» to denote the combination of sounds /kw/ /queen/, the digraph «ou» was introduced to denote the
sound /u:/ /house/ (The sound /u:/ was later on diphthongized and is pronounced /au/ in native words
and fully assimilated borrowings). As it was difficult for French scribes to copy English texts they
substituted the letter «u» before «v», «m», «n» and the digraph «th» by the letter «o» to escape the
combination of many vertical lines /«sunu» - «son», luvu» - «love»/.
^ Scandinavian borrowings. 

By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian due to the
Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. Scandinavians belonged to the same group of peoples as
Englishmen and their languages had much in common. As the result of this conquest there are about 700
borrowings from Scandinavian into English. 

Scandinavians and Englishmen had the same way of life, their cultural level was the same, they had
much in common in their literature therefore there were many words in these languages which were
almost identical, e.g. 

However there were also many words in the two languages which were different, and some of them were
borrowed into English, such nouns as: bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window etc, such adjectives as:
flat, ill, happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong, such verbs as : call, die, guess, get, give, scream and many
others. 

Even some pronouns and connective words were borrowed which happens very seldom, such as: same,
both, till, fro, though, and pronominal forms with «th»: they, them, their. Scandinavian influenced the
development of phrasal verbs, which did not exist in Old English, at the same time some prefixed verbs
came out of usage, e.g. ofniman, beniman. Phrasal verbs are now highly productive in English /take off,
give in etc/. 

^ German borrowings.

There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Some of them have classical roots, e.g.
in some geological terms, such as: cobalt, bismuth, zink, quarts, gneiss, wolfram. There were also words
denoting objects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German:  iceberg, lobby, and rucksack,
Kindergarten etc.

In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Volkssturm, Luftwaffe, SS-
man, Bundeswehr, gestapo, gas chamber and many others. After  the Second World War the following
words were borrowed: Berufsverbot, Volkswagen etc.
9. Assimilation of borowings.
Assimilation is the process of change that a borrowed word undergoes while being adopted to the
phonetic, grammatical and semantic structure of the host language:

1) Phonetic — includes changes in sound-form and in stress (царь-tzar); or they just simplified
(psychology-Greek). In Old English the stress was always on the first syllable of the root (reason-French).

2) Grammatical — the acquisition of new grammatical forms on analogy with other English words
(sputnik, kindergarten)

3) Lexical — usually means the development of new senses in the borrowed word (discus -> disc -> dish,
to move). There, are 543 pairs of doublets. 

Assimilation is the process and we should mind that it has different stages:

- complete — words undistinguished from native words.

- partial — phonetically (police) or grammatically (datum-data) unassimilated words

- unassimilated words (ad-lib — импровизация (Лат.))

10. International words.

It is often the case that a word is borrowed by several languages, and not just by one. Such words
usually convey concepts which are significant in communication.

Many of them are of Latin and Greek origin. Most names of sciences are international, e.
g. philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, linguistics, lexicology. There are
also numerous terms of art in this group:music, theatre, drama, tragedy, comedy, artist, primadonna.

It is quite natural that political terms frequently occur in the international group of
borrowings: politics, policy, revolution, progress, democracy, communism, anti-militarism.

20th c. scientific and technological advances brought a great number of new international
words: atomic, antibiotic, radio, television, sputnik. The latter is a Russian borrowing, and it became
an international word (meaning a man-made satellite) in 1961, immediately after the first space flight
by Yury Gagarin.

The English language also contributed a considerable number of international words to world
languages. Among them the sports terms occupy a prominent position: football, volley-ball, baseball,
hockey, cricket, rugby, tennis, golf, etc.
Fruits and foodstuffs imported from exotic countries often transport their names too and, being simul-
taneously imported to many countries, become international:coffee, cocoa, chocolate, coca-cola,
banana, mango, avocado, grapefruit.

It is important to note that international words are mainly borrowings. The outward similarity of such
words as the E. son, the Germ.Sohn and the R.cuh should not lead one to the quite false conclusion
that they are international words. They represent the Indo-European group of the native element in
each respective language and are cognates, i.e. words of the same etymological root, and not
borrowings.

11. Etymological doublets.

The words shirt andskirt etymologically descend from the same root.Shirt is a native word,
andskirt (as the initialsk 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, like shirt andskirt, 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.) —
chieftan (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.).

A doublet may also consist of a shortened word and the one from which it was derived (see Ch. 6 for
a description of shortening as a type of word-building):history — story, fantasy — fancy, fanatic —
fan, defence — fence, courtesy — curtsy, shadow — shade.

12. Translation-loans.
The term loan-word is equivalent to borrowing. 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 separate-
ly: masterpiece (from Germ. Meisterstűck), wonder child (from Germ. Wunderkind), first
dancer (from Ital. prima-ballerina), collective farm (from R.колхоз), five-year plan (from
R. пятилетка).

There are cases when a word is borrowed twice, by way of translation-loan and by way of direct
borrowing. During the 2nd World War the German wordBlitzkriegwas also borrowed into English in
two different forms: the translation-loanlightning-war and the direct borrowingsblitzkrieg andblitz.

14. Types of meaning.

Word meaning is made up of various components which are usually described as types of
meaning. The two main types of meaning are grammatical and lexical meanings. 

^ Grammatical meaning unites words into parts of speech. Such words as goes, stops,
works have different lexical meanings, but are united by a common grammatical meaning: they
are characterized by a common system of forms in which their grammatical categories are
expressed.

^ Lexical meaning is individual for every word: grammatically identical words have individual
lexical meanings (cf.: went, kissed, looked), which are common for all forms of one and the same
word. Go, went, going – all these forms denote the process of movement.

Lexical meaning includes two components: denotational and connotational.

^ Denotational component is present in every word and makes communication possible. It

expresses the notional content of the word, shows what the word refers to.

Connotational component expresses additional meanings of the word which may be of different

types: stylistic, evaluative and emotional, etc.

Evaluative connotation expresses positive or negative attitude to the object or phenomenon

denoted by the word. It may be rational and emotional. In the latter case we speak of emotive-
evaluative connotation. The words brain (“a clever man”), for example, is evaluated as positive,
while the word brock (“a scoundrel”), to cheat – have negative connotations. Cf.
also:notorious – celebrated.

Emotional, or emotive connotation of the word is its capacity to evoke and express emotion
(duckling, darling (diminutive emotive value)).

Stylistic connotation shows the stylistic status of a word: neutral, bookish, colloquial, slang, etc.

It should be noted that connotation is not an obligatory component of word meaning. Many
words, for instance, give, take, walk, book, table, etc., used in their direct meaning, denote but
not connote anything.

The meaning of a word is studied with the help of Componential Analysis. It consists in
decomposition of the word meaning into semes – minimal components of meaning, or
elementary units of sense. One and the same seme may be found in the meaning of different
related words. Thus, such words as boy and man have the common seme “the male sex”, and the
wordsgirl and woman – the seme “the female sex”. Different semes may have different statuses
in the system of semes in the word meaning. Lexicologists usually distinguish archisemes wich
express the generic meaning and differential semes which modify or qualify the idea expressed
by the archiseme. Thus, the word spinster may be split into the following semes: 1) human being
(archiseme); 2) female, unmarried; elderly (differential semes). Componential analysis is one of
the modern metods of semantic research which provides a deeper insight into semantic aspects of
the language.

16. Semantic changes.

1. Widening/Extension
=> range of meanings of a word increases so that the word can be used in more
contexts than were appropriate before the change
-dog =>1) specific powerful breed of dog => all breeds or races of dog
-cupboard => 1) table upon which cups or vessels were placed, a piece of furniture
to display plates  => closet or cabin with shelves for the keeping cups and dishes
=>AE: small storage cabinet

2. Narrowing (specialisation, restriction)

=> range of meaning is decreased so that a word can be used appropriately only in
fewer contexts than before the change
*meat => 'food' in general ;
*hound => OE hund 'dog in general' => species of dog (long eared hunting dog);
*wife => OE 'woman' =>'woman of humble rank  or low employment' => 'married
woman,  spouse'   
*girl => ME 'child or young person of either sex' =>'female child, young woman'

3. Metaphor

-involves relationship of perceived similarity

*root (of plant) => > root of plant, root of word, root in algebra, source
*stud => 'good-looking sexy man '(of slang origin) derived from stud 'a male
animal used for breeding
*chill => "relax, calm down' of slang origin, original 'to cool'

4. Metonymy

-inclusion of additional senses which were originally not present but which are
closely associated with word's original meaning
-tea => 'drink' => 'evening meal accompanied by drinking tea';
cheek 'fleshy side of the face below the eye' < OE: cēace ' jaw, jawbone'

5. Synecdoche

-kind of metonymy, involves part-to-whole relationship

-hand 'hired hand, employed worker';
tongue  'language'

6. Degeneration / Pejoration

-sense of a word takes on a less positive, more negative evaluation in the minds of
the users
- knave 'a rogue'  < OE: cnafa ' a youth, a child' > 'servant' ;
-spinster 'unmarried woman' < 'one who spins' ;
-silly 'foolish, stupid'  < ME sely 'happy, innocent' < OE sælig ''blessed, blissful'
-disease 'illness' < 'discomfort' (cf. dis+ease)
7. Elevation /Amelioration

-shifts in the sense of a word in the direction towards a more positive value in the
minds of the users
-pretty < OE: prættig 'crafty, sly'
-knight 'mounted warrior serving a king' 'lesser nobility' < OE cniht 'boy, servant'
>'servant' > 'military servant';

dude 'guy, person' < in 1883 a word of ridicule for 'man who affects an
exaggerated fastidiousness in dress, speech and deportment', a dandy'

8. Taboo replacement and avoidance of obscenity

-ass 'long-eared animal related to a horse' => donkey;

-cock 'adult male chicken' => rooster,
-bloody nose => blood nose/bleeding nose
-toilet : WC, bathroom, lavatory, restroom, loo, john

9. Hyperbole

-shift in meaning due to exaggeration by overstatement

-terribly, horribly, awfully   'very'

10. Litotes

- exaggeration by understatement

17. The morpheme and its types

Morpheme is the smallest meaningful lexical unit.
Phoneme – meaningless unit
Lexical units
         morphemes
         words
         set expressions
Морфемный анализ
cloud-y
de-nat-ion-al-iz-ation
 
Classification of morphemes
1. The semantic classification
1. root-morpheme remains after removing all functional and derivational (словообразующие) affixes. It
is recurrent in word of the family (повторяется) and has an individual lexical meaning. [re-do]
2. non-root-morphemes are morphemes which added to the root morpheme to make new forms of the
same word of new words. (строить формы слова: -s, -ing, -ed –derivational affixes? )
 
The functional classification of non-root morphemes
1. inflexions – they carry only grammatical meaning (specific feature of any syntactical language)
2. affixes  - derivational morphemes (словообразовательные)– are added to the base and modify its
meaning or form new words.
do – redo (переделать)
prefixes – stay before the root morpheme
suffixed – stay after the root morpheme
interfixes – stay between stems (handicraft,  Anglo-Saxon)
 
2. Structural classification
1. free morphemes (встречаться как свободно функционирующие слова) can be found as
independent functioning words.
friendship :
friend  - free morpheme, word friend
ship  - not the word ship but suffix
2. bound morphemes (связанные) are morphemes which occur (встречаются) only as a constituent
part of a word.
terr-or, horr-or
terr, horr – таких слов нет
 
3. Functional classification
1. unique morphemes  are met only in one word of the given language
cran-berry
2. recurrent morphemes are met in a number of words
straw-berry

18. Affixation
The process of affixation consists in containing a new word by adding an affix or several affixes
to some root morpheme. The role of the affix in this procedure is very important and therefore it
is necessary to consider certain facts about the main types of affixes.
From the etymological point of view affixes are classified into the same two large groups as
words: native and borrowed.

Some frequent native suffixes

Noun-forming: -er: worker, miner, teacher, etc.
-ness: coldness, loneliness, etc.
-ing: feeling, singing, reading, etc.

-dom: freedom, wisdom, kingdom, etc.

Adjective-forming: -ful: careful, joyful, wonderful, etc.

-less: careless, sleepless, senseless, etc.

-y: tidy, cozy, merry, snowy

-ish: English, reddish, childish

-ly: lonely, lovely, ugly

-en: wooden, silken, golden

Verb-forming: -en widen, darken, redden

Adverb-forming: -ly warmly, hardly, simply, carefully

Affixes can also be classified into productive and non-productive types. By productive affixes
we mean the ones, which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language
development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms
and so-called nonce-words, i.e. words coined and used only for this particular occasion. The
latter are usually formed on the level of living speech and reflect the most productive and
progressive patterns in word-building. The adjectives thinnish and baldish are examples of
nonce-words coined on the current pattern of Modern English. They bring in mind dozens of
other adjectives made with the same suffix: oldish, youngish, yellowish, etc. proving that the
suffix –ish is a live and active one.

One should not confuse the productivity of affixes with their frequency of occurrence. There
are quite a number of high-frequency affixes which are no longer used in word-derivation (e.g.
the adjective-forming native suffixes –ful, -ly; the adjective-forming suffixes of Latin origin –
ant,-ent, -al which are quite frequent).

Some productive affixes

Noun-forming suffixes -er (trainer, leader), -ing (dying,

building), -ness (coldness, fairness), -ism
(materialism), -ist (impressionist)

Adjective-forming suffixes -y (angry, merry), -ish (oldish, lookish),

-ed (learned), -able (capable)

Adverb-forming suffixes -ly (coldly, simply)

Verb-forming suffixes -ize/-ise (realize)

Prefixes un- (unhappy), re- (reconstruct), dis-

(disappoint)

Some non-productive affixes

Noun-forming suffixes -th, -hood

Adjective-forming suffixes -ly, -some, -en, -ous

 Verb-forming suffix -en

19. Semi-affixes.
There is a specific group of morphemes whose derivational function does not allow one to refer them
unhesitatingly either to the derivational affixes or bases. In words like half-done, half-broken, half-
eaten andill-fed, ill-housed, ill-dressed the ICshalf- andill- are given in linguistic literature different
interpretations: they are described both as bases and as derivational prefixes. The comparison of
these ICs with the phonetically identical stems in independent wordsill andhalf as used in such
phrases asto speak ill of smb, half an hour ago makes it obvious that in words likeill-fed, ill-
mannered, half-done the ICsill- andhalf- are losing both their semantic and structural identity with
the stems of the independent words. They are all marked by a different distributional meaning which
is clearly revealed through the difference of their collocability as compared with the collocability of
the stems of the independently functioning words. As to their lexical meaning they have become
more indicative of a generalising meaning of incompleteness and poor quality than the individual
meaning proper to the stems of independent words and thus they function more as affixational
morphemes similar to the prefixesout-, over-, under-, semi-, mis- regularly forming whole classes
of words. Besides, the high frequency of these morphemes in the above-mentioned generalised
meaning in combination with the numerous bases built on past participles indicates their closer ties
with derivational affixes than bases. Yet these morphemes retain certain lexical ties with the root-
morphemes in the stems of independent words and that is why are felt as occupying an intermediate
position,1as morphemes that are changing their class membership regularly functioning as
derivational prefixes but still retaining certain features of root-morphemes. That is why they are
sometimes referred to as semi-affixes. To this group we should also refer well- andself- (well-fed,
well-done, self-made), -man in words likepostman, cabman, chairman, -lookingin words
likeforeign-looking, alive-looking, strange-looking, etc.

21.Conversion

Conversion is sometimes referred to as an affixless way of word-building or even affixless

derivation. Saying that, however, is saying very little because there are other types of word-
building in which new words are also formed without affixes (most compounds, con-tracted
words, sound-imitation words, etc.).

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. The new word has a meaning which differs from that of the original one though
it can more or less be easily associated with it. It has also a new paradigm peculiar to its new
category as a part of speech.

nurse, n.

to nurse, v

Substantive paradigm

-s, pl.

-'s, poss. c., Verbal

sg. paradigm

-s', poss. c., pl

-s, 3rd p. sg. -ed, past in-def., past part.

-ing,- pres. part., gerund

The question of conversion has, for a long time, been a controver-sial one in several aspects.
The very essence of this process has been treated by a number of scholars (e. g. H. Sweet),
not as a word-building act, but as a mere functional change. From this point of view the word
hand in Hand me that book is not a verb, but a noun used in a verbal syntactical function, that
is, hand (me) and hands (in She has small hands) are not two different words but one. Hence,
the сазе cannot be treated as one of word-formation for no new word appears.

According to this functional approach, conversion may be re-garded as a specific feature of

the English categories of parts of speech, which are supposed to be able to break through the
rigid bor-derlines dividing one category from another thus enriching the pro-cess of
communication not by the creation of new words but through the sheer flexibility of the
syntactic structures.

Nowadays this theory finds increasingly fewer supporters, and conversion is universally
accepted as one of the major ways of en-riching English vocabulary with new words. One of
the major argu-ments 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 shift in lexical mean-ing. E. g. both in yellow leaves and in The leaves were
turning yellow the adjective denotes colour. Yet, in The leaves yellowed the con-verted unit
no longer denotes colour, but the process of changing col-our, so that there is an essential
change in meaning.

The change of meaning is even more obvious in such pairs as hand > to hand, face > to face,
to go > a go, to make > a make, etc.

The other argument is the regularity and completeness with which converted units develop a
paradigm of their new category of part of speech. As soon as it has crossed the category
borderline, the new word automatically acquires all the properties of the new category, so
that if it has entered the verb category, it is now regularly used in all the forms of tense and it
also develops the forms of the participle and the gerund. Such regu-larity can hardly be
regarded as indicating a mere functional change which might be expected to bear more
occasional characteristics. The completeness of the paradigms in new conversion formations
seems to be a decisive argument proving that here we are dealing with new words and not
with mere functional variants. The data of the more reputable modern English dictionaries
confirm this point of view: they all present converted pairs as homonyms, i. e. as two words,
thus supporting the thesis that conversion is a word-building process.

Conversion is not only a highly productive but also a particularly English way of word-
building. Its immense productivity is considerably encouraged by certain features of the
English language in its modern stage of development. The analytical structure of Modern
English greatly facilitates processes of making words of one category of parts of speech from
words of another. So does the simplicity of paradigms of English parts of speech. A great
number of one-syllable words is another factor in favour of conversion, for such words are
naturally more mobile and flexible than polysyllables.

Conversion is a convenient and "easy" way of enriching the vocabulary with new words. It is
certainly an advantage to have two (or more) words where there was one, all of them fixed
on the same structural and semantic base.

The high productivity of conversion finds its reflection in speech where numerous occasional
cases of conversion can be found, which are not registered by dictionaries and which occur
momentarily, through the immediate need of the situa-tion. "If anybody oranges me again
tonight, I'll knock his face off, says the annoyed hero of a story by O'Henry when a shop-
assistant offers him oranges (for the tenth time in one night) instead of peach-es for which he
is looking ("Little Speck in Garnered Fruit"). One is not likely to find the verb to orange in
any dictionary, but in this sit-uation it answers the need for brevity, expressiveness and
humour.

The very first example, which opens the section on conversion in this chapter (the book is a
splendid read), though taken from a book-review, is a nonce-word, which may be used by
reviewers now and then or in informal verbal communication, but has not yet found its way
into the universally acknowledged English vocabulary.

Such examples as these show that conversion is a vital and de-veloping process that
penetrates contemporary speech as well. Sub-consciously every English speaker realises the
immense potentiality of making a word into another part of speech when the need arises.

22. Compounding

Compounding or word-composition is one of the productive means of word-formation in

Modern English. Compounds are words that are made up of two immediate constituents
which are both derivative bases.

Derivative bases in compounds can have different degrees of complexity:

1. both bases are simple (weekend, girlfriend).

2. one base is simple, the other is derivative (a shoemaker).

3. one base is compound and the other is either simple or derivative (fancy-dress ->
fancydress-ball, маскарад; fancydress-maker).

Classification of compounds.

1) According to the type of word-formation:

a. compounds proper – are words made up of two derivative bases (red-current, girlfriend)

b. derivational compounds – are words formed by affixation or conversion from a compound

derivational base (blue-eyed, a breakdown)
c. pseudo-compounds - The constituent members of compound words of this subgroup are in
most cases unique, carry very vague or no lexical meaning of their own, are not found as
stems of independently

functioning words. They are motivated mainly through the rhythmic doubling of fanciful
sound-clusters. (loudmouth).

2) Semantic

a. subordinate (подчинительные) – words where one of the derivative bases is the

grammatical and semantical center of the word, as a rule – the 2 one – a head member. It
expresses the general meaning of the word, and the first one specifies it (girlfriend)

b. coordinate (сочинительные) – words where both components are equally IMPORTANT:

- reduplicated – formed by repeating the base (fifty-fifty)

- rhyming (walkie-talkie, willy-nilly)

- additive – denote an object or a person that is two things at a time (Anglo-Saxon, an actor-
manager)

Meaning in compounds.

The lexical meaning of compounds is determined by the lexical meanings of its bases and the
structural meaning of its distributional pattern.

The distributional pattern shows the ORDER and arrangement of the bases. Two compounds
that have the same bases but different distributional patterns will have different meanings (a
finger-ring, a ring-finger). As a rule a second base determines the part of speech meaning of
the compound.

The lexical meaning of a compound doesn't coincide with the combined meanings of its
bases. There is always some additional semantic element that reflects among objects and
phenomena in the outer world. Semantic relations between the compounds can be described
as certain types:

- spacial (пространственный) – a garden-party, a finger-ring, a nose-ring

- functional – a key-hole, a dollhouse / a babysitter, a bodyguard

- resemblance (сходство) - snow-white

- producing a similar effect or acting in a typical way – a rattle-snake (гремучая змея)

If the meaning of the compound and the semantic relations between the bases are clear then
the compound is motivated (red-current – красная смородина).

If the meaning of the compound and the semantic relations between the bases are not clear
then the compound is non-motivated (redneck – рабочий).
 Criteria of distinguishing between compounds and free-word combinations.

Compounds are inseparable lexical units that are presented in dictionaries in SPECIAL
entries and sub-entries. Compounds are reproduced and used in speech as lexical units, they
are not formed in speech like free-word combinations. They are only pronounced as lexical
units (a red rose, a redskin).

Inseparability of compounds has graphical (one word or a hyphen), phonetic (stress),

morphological (only 2 base shows grammatical category) and semantic (grammatical formes
differ from the forms of the motivating words (richer – more oil-richer) criteria.

24. Reduplication

In reduplication new words are made by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as
in bye-bye (coll, for good-bye) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-
pong, chit-chat (this second type is called gradational reduplication).

This type of word-building is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number of
monosyllables. Stylistically speaking, most words made by reduplication represent informal
groups: colloquial-isms and slang. E. g. walkie-talkie ("a portable radio"), riff-raff ("the
worthless or disreputable element of society"; "the dregs of society"), chi-chi (sl. for chic as in a
chi-chi girl).

In a modern novel an angry father accuses his teenager son of doing nothing but dilly-dallying
all over the town.

(dilly-dallying — wasting time, doing nothing, loitering)

Another example of a word made by reduplication may be found in the following quotation from
The Importance of Being Earnest by O. Wilde:

Lady Bracknell. I think it is high time that Mr. Bun-bury made up his mind whether he was
going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd.

(shilly-shallying — irresolution, indecision)

25.Back-Formation (Reversion)

The earliest examples of this type of word-building are the verb to beg that was made from
the French borrowing beggar, to burgle from burglar, to cobble from cobbler. In all these
cases the verb was made from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with
the English suffix -er. The pattern of the type to work — worker was firmly established in
the subconscious of English-speaking peo-ple at the time when these formations appeared,
and it was taken for granted that any noun denoting profession or occupation is certain to
have a corresponding verb of the same root. So, in the case of the verbs to beg, to burgle, to
cobble the process was reversed: instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation (as in
painter from to paint), a verb was produced from a noun by subtraction. That is why this type
of word-building received the name of back-formation or reversion.
 Later examples of back-formation are to butle from butler, to baby-sit from baby-sitter, to
force-land from forced landing, to blood-transfuse from blood-transfuing sorry for
everybody who isn't a girl and who can't come here, I am sure the college you attended when
you were a boy couldn't have been so nice.

My room is up in a tower. There are three other girls on the same floor of the tower — a
Senior who wears spectacles and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet, and two
Freshmen named Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. Sallie has red hair and a turn-
up nose and is quite friendly; Julia comes from one of the first families in New York and
hasn't noticed me yet. They room together and the Senior and I have singles.

Usually Freshmen can't get singles; they are very few, but I got one without even asking. I
suppose the register didn't think it would be right to ask a properly brought up girl to room
with a foundling. You see there are advantages.

26.Other Ways Of Word Building

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: roots (or radicals) and affixes. The latter,
in their turn, fall into prefixes which precede the root in the structure of the word (as in re-read,
mis-pronounce, unwell) and suffixes which follow the root (as in teach-er, cur-able, diet-ate).

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).

Derived words are extremely numerous in the English vocabulary. Successfully competing with
this structural type is the so-called root word which has only a root morpheme in its structure.
This type is widely represented by a great number of words belonging to the orig-inal English
stock or to earlier borrowings (house, room, book, work, port, street, table, etc.), and, in Modern
English, has been greatly en-larged by the type of word-building called conversion (e. g. to hand,
v. formed from the noun hand; to can, v. from can, п.; to pale, v. from pale, adj.; a find, n. from
to find, v.; etc.).

Another wide-spread word-structure is a compound word consist-ing of two or more stems1 (e.
g. dining-room, bluebell, mother-in-law, good-for-nothing). Words of this structural type are
produced by the word-building process called composition.

The somewhat odd-looking words like flu, pram, lab, M. P., V-day, H-bomb are called
shortenings, contractions or curtailed words and are produced by the way of word-building
called shortening (contraction).

The four types (root words, derived words, compounds, shorten-ings) represent the main
structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition the most
productive ways of word-building.

To return to the question posed by the title of this chapter, of how words are made, let us try and
get a more detailed picture of each of the major types of Modern English word-building and,
also, of some minor types.

29.Set-phrases in the English and Ukrainian languages: distinguishing features.

 The first attempt to place the study of set-phrases on a scientific basis was made by the
Russian linguist O.Schachmatov in his BOOK “Syntax”, 1954. Outstanding Ukrainian
linguist O. Potebnya is considered to be the funder of Ukrainian phraseology. Also many
other Ukrainian scientists researched phraseological terminological system, such as
Selivanova, O., Avksent’yev L., Uzhchenko V., Izhakevych, H. The national pecularity of
phraseological units is reveted on all the linguistic levels (phonolgical, grammatical and
lexical). The national pecularity of phraseological units is due to the difference in thinking
and cognition of human beings. Every nation has its own way of creating images. In most
cases phraseological units in different languages, having the same meaning, are different in
inner form and images. E.g. : in English – under smb’s thumb, in Ukrainian – під
черевиком. Ph.u. have three main parameters, features.1. Ph.u. are language units, their
characteristic feature is semantic complexity, i.e. full and partial transference of meaning,
e.g., to burn one’s fingers is used figuratively, it is a metaphor based on the similarity of
action.2. Structural separability and semantic cohesion, e.g., to kick the bucket – to die, Mrs.
Grundy, Tom, Dick, and Harry (перший-ліпший)3. A ph.u. is never formed on a
GENERATIVE pattern of a free word-combination, one cannot predict the formation of a
ph.u. The patterns in phraseology are of some other character; they are patterns of description
(unpredictable). There are some grammatical patterns (noun phrases, verbal phrases), some
semantic patterns (metaphoric formation, metonymic formation).

30.Different approaches to the classification of phraseological units

Classification based on the semantic principle

The considerable contribution made by Russian scholars in phraseological research cannot be

exaggerated. We have already mentioned the great contribution made by Academician V. V.
Vinogradov to this branch of linguistic science.

The classification system of phraseological units devised by this prominent scholar 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. It goes without saying that
semantic characteristics are of immense importance in phraseological units. It is also well known
that in modern research they are often sadly ignored. That is why any attempt at studying the
semantic aspect of phraseological units should be appreciated.

Vinogradov's classification system is founded on the degree of semantic cohesion between the
components of a phraseological unit. 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 semantic
cohesion. Accordingly, Vinogradov classifies phraseological units into three
classes: phraseological combinations, unities and fusions (R. фразеологические сочетания ,
единства и сращения ).

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. [4]

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 guncrew 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); to
lose one's head (~ to be at a loss what to do; to be out of one's mind); to lose one's heart to
smb. (~ to fall in love); to lock the stable door after the horse is stolen (~ to take precautions too
late, when

the mischief is done); to look a gift horse in the mouth (= to examine a present too critically; to
find fault with something one gained without effort); to ride the high horse (~ to behave in a
superior, haughty, overbearing way. The image is that of a person mounted on a horse so high
that he looks down on others); the last drop/straw (the final culminating circumstance that makes
a situation unendurable); a big bug/pot, sl. (a person of importance); a fish out of water (a person
situated uncomfortably outside his usual or proper environment).

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); to set one's cap at smb. (to try and attract a
man; spoken about girls and women. The image, which is now obscure, may have been either
that of a child trying to catch a butterfly with his cap or of a girl putting on a pretty cap so as to
attract a certain person. In Vanity Fair: "Be careful, Joe, that girl is setting her cap at you."); to
leave smb. in the lurch (to abandon a friend when he is in trouble); to show the white feather (to
betray one's cowardice. The allusion was originally to cock fighting. A white feather in a cock's
plumage denoted a bad fighter); to dance attendance on smb.(to try and please or attract smb.; to
show exaggerated attention to smb.).

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 labelled 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

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.

A. Verbal. E. g. to run for one's (dear) life, to get (win) the upper hand, to talk through one's hat,
to make a song and dance about something, to sit pretty (Amer. sl.).

B. Substantive. E. g. dog's life, cat-and-dog life, calf love, white lie, tall order, birds of a feather,
birds of passage, red tape, brown study.

C. Adjectival. E. g. 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, (as) slippery as an eel, (as) thick as thieves, (as) drunk as an owl (sl.), (as) mad as a
hatter/a hare in March.

D. Adverbial. E. g. high and low (as in They searched for him high and low), by hook or by
crook (as in She decided that, by hook or by crook, she must marry him), for love or money (as
in He came to the conclusion that a really good job couldn't be found for love or money), in cold
blood (as in The crime was said to have been committed in cold blood), in the dead of night,
between the devil and the deep sea (in a situation in which danger threatens whatever course of
action

one takes), to the bitter end (as in to fight to the bitter end), by a long chalk (as in It is not the
same thing, by a long chalk).

E. Interjectional. E. g. my God/ by Jove! by George! goodness gracious! good Heavens! sakes
alive! (Amer.)

Professor 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:

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 surprised1 );

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 centres
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),

1 It should be pointed out that most Russian scholars do not regard these as phraseological units;
so this is a controversial point.

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).

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 Koonin, 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 contradicts the leading criterion of a phraseological unit
suggested by Professor Smirnitsky: it should be idiomatic.

Professor Koonin also objects to the inclusion of such word-groups 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 characterised by a transferred meaning. It
is also pointed out that verbs with post-positions (e. g. give up) are included in the classification
but their status as phraseological units is not supported by any convincing argument. [3]

Classification based on the combined structural-semantic principle

The classification system of phraseological units suggested by Professor A. V. Koonin is the

latest out-standing achievement in the Russian theory of phraseology. The classification is based
on the combined structural-semantic principle and it also considers the quotient 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. [1,c.245]

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 meanings according to the kind of relations between the constituents and to either full
or partial transference of meaning.

31. Ways of forming phraseologisms

A.V. Koonin classified phraseological units according to the way they are formed. He
pointed out primary and secondary ways of forming phraseological units.

Primary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a unit is formed on the basis of
a free word-group :

a) Most productive in Modern English is the formation of phraseological units by means of

transferring the meaning of terminological word-groups, e.g. in cosmic technique we can
point out the following phrases: «launching pad» in its terminological meaning is «стартовая
площадка» , in its transferred meaning - «отправной пункт», «to link up» - «cстыковаться,
стыковать космические корабли» in its transformed meaning it means -«знакомиться»;

b) a large group of phraseological units was formed from free word groups by transforming
their meaning, e.g. «granny farm» - «пансионат для престарелых», «Troyan horse» -
«компьютерная программа, преднамеренно составленная для повреждения
компьютера»;

c) phraseological units can be formed by means of alliteration , e.g. «a sad sack» -

«несчастный случай», «culture vulture» - «человек, интересующийся искусством»,
«fudge and nudge» - «уклончивость».

d) they can be formed by means of expressiveness, especially it is characteristic for forming

interjections, e.g. «My aunt!», « Hear, hear !» etc

e) they can be formed by means of distorting a word group, e.g. «odds and ends» was formed
from «odd ends»,

f) they can be formed by using archaisms, e.g. «in brown study» means «in gloomy
meditation» where both components preserve their archaic meanings,

g) they can be formed by using a sentence in a different sphere of life, e.g. «that cock won’t
fight» can be used as a free word-group when it is used in sports (cock fighting ), it becomes
a phraseological unit when it is used in everyday life, because it is used metaphorically,

h) they can be formed when we use some unreal image, e.g. «to have butterflies in the
stomach» - «испытывать волнение», «to have green fingers» - »преуспевать как садовод-
любитель» etc.
 i) they can be formed by using expressions of writers or politicians in everyday life, e.g.
«corridors of power» (Snow), «American dream» (Alby) «locust years» (Churchil) , «the
winds of change» (Mc Millan).

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, e.g. «to vote with one’s feet» was converted into «vote with one’s feet»;

b) changing the grammar form, e.g. «Make hay while the sun shines» is transferred into a
verbal phrase - «to make hay while the sun shines»;

c) analogy, e.g. «Curiosity killed the cat» was transferred into «Care killed the cat»;

d) contrast, e.g. «cold surgery» - «a planned before operation» was formed by contrasting it
with «acute surgery», «thin cat» - «a poor person» was formed by contrasting it with «fat
cat»;

e) shortening of proverbs or sayings e.g. from the proverb «You can’t make a silk purse out
of a sow’s EAR» by means of clipping the middle of it the phraseological unit «to make a
sow’s ear» was formed with the meaning «ошибаться».

f) borrowing phraseological units from other languages, either as translation loans, e.g. «
living space» (German), « to take the bull by the horns» ( Latin) or by means of phonetic
borrowings «meche blanche» (French), «corpse d’elite» (French), «sotto voce» (Italian) etc.

Phonetic borrowings among phraseological units refer to the bookish style and are not used
very often.

33.Definition of meaning

There are different approaches to define the meaning of the word.

Referential Approach distinguishes between the three closely connected

components with meaning, that is 1) the sound-form of the linguistic sign, 2) the
concept underlying this sound form and 3) the referent, i.e. the part or aspect of
reality to which the linguistic sign refers.

All major works on semantic theory have so far been based on referential
concepts of meaning. The best known referential model of meaning is the so-
called "basic triangle".

The sound-form of the linguistic sign [d/\v] is connected with our concept of
a bird which it denotes and through it with the referent, i.e. the actual bird. The
diagram implies that the meaning is a correlation between the sound-form of a
word, the underlying concept and the concrete object it denotes.
 The question arise: in what way does the meaning correlate with each
element of the triangle and in what relation does meaning stand to each of them?

1. It is easily observed that the sound form of the word is not identical
with its meaning. There is no inherent connection between the sound cluster
[d/\v] and the meaning of the word dove. The connection is conventional and
arbitrary. It can be easily proved by comparing the sound forms of different
languages conveying one and the same meaning: dove, голубь, … The words have
different sound forms but express the same meaning.
2. The meaning and concept. The meaning of the word though closely
connected with the underlying concept is not identical. Concept is a category of
human cognition. Concept is the thought of an object that singles out its essential
features. Concepts are the result of abstraction and generalization. Thus they are
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. Compare: “a building for human habituation” – HOUSE,
ДОМ; “fixed residence of family or household” – HOME, ДОМ. These examples
show that the concepts expressed by one and the same word in one language can
be expressed by two different words in the other language.
3. Distinguishing meaning from the referent is of the utmost
importance. Firstly, meaning is linguistic, whereas the referent is beyond the
scope of language. One and the same object can be denoted by more than one
word of a different meaning, e.g., the referent “CAT” be denoted by the words
“cat”, “animal”, “Tom”, “this”, “pet”, etc. All these words have the same referent
but different meanings. Besides, there are words that have distinct meaning but
do not refer to any existing thing, e.g., mermaid – an imagery sea creature that
has the upper body of a woman and a fish tail.
The conclusion is obvious – meaning is not to be identical with any of the
three points of the triangle, but closely connected with them.

Functional approach.

In recent years a new and entirely different approach to meaning, known as

the functional approach, has begun to take shape in linguistics and especially in
structural linguistics. The functional approach maintains that the meaning of a
linguistic unit can be studied only through its relation to other linguistic units. In a
very simplified form this view may be illustrated by the following: we know, for
instance, that the meaning of the two words move and movement is different
because they function in speech differently. Comparing the contexts in which we
find these words we cannot fail to observe that they occupy different positions in
relation to other words. (To) move, e.g., can be followed by a noun (move the
chair), preceded by a pronoun (we move), etc. The position occupied by the word
movement is different: it may be followed by a preposition (movement of smth),
preceded by an adjective (slow movement), and so on. As the distribution of the
two words is different, we are entitled to the conclusion that not only they do
belong to different classes of words, but that their meanings are different, too.

The same is true of different meanings of one and the same word. Analyzing
the function of a word in linguistic contexts and comparing these contexts, we
conclude that meanings are different (or the same) and this fact can be proved by
an objective investigation of linguistic data. For example, we can observe the
difference of the meanings of the word take if we examine its functions in
different linguistic contexts, take the tram (the taxi, the cab, etc.) as opposed to
to take to somebody.

The functional approach is sometimes described as contextual as it is based on

the analysis of various contexts. That is the context that determines which of the
possible meanings of a polysemantic word is used
34.Meaning and Context

In the beginning of the paragraph entitled "Polysemy" we dis-cussed the advantages and
disadvantages of this linguistic phenom-enon. One of the most important "drawbacks" of
polysemantic words is that there is sometimes a chance of misunderstanding when a word is used
in a certain meaning but accepted by a listener or reader in another. It is only natural that such
cases provide stuff of which jokes are made, such as the ones that follow:

Customer. I would like a book, please. Bookseller. Something light? Customer. That doesn't
matter. I have my car with me.

In this conversation the customer is honestly misled by the poly-semy of the adjective light
taking it in the literal sense whereas the bookseller uses the word in its figurative meaning "not
serious; enter-taining".

In the following joke one of the speakers pretends to misunder-stand his interlocutor basing his
angry retort on the polysemy of the noun kick:

The critic started to leave in the middle of the second act of the play.

"Don't go," said the manager. "I promise there's a terrific kick in the next act."

"Fine," was the retort, "give it to the author."-1

Generally speaking, it is common knowledge that context is a powerful preventative against any
misunderstanding of meanings. For instance, the adjective dull, if used out of context, would
mean different things to different people or nothing at all. It is only in com-bination with other
words that it reveals its actual meaning: a dull pupil, a dull play, a dull razor-blade, dull weather,
etc. Sometimes, however, such a minimum context fails to reveal the meaning of the word, and it
may be correctly interpreted only through what Professor N. Amosova termed a second-degree
context [1], as in the following example: The man was large, but his wife was even fatter. The
word fatter here serves as a kind of indicator pointing that large describes a stout man and not a
big one.

Current research in semantics is largely based on the assumption that one of the more promising
methods of investigating the seman-tic structure of a word is by studying the word's linear
relationships with other words in typical contexts, i. e. its combinability or colloca-bility.

Scholars have established that the semantics of words character-ised by common occurrences (i.
e. words which regularly appear in common contexts) are correlated and, therefore, one of the
words within such a pair can be studied through the other.

Thus, if one intends to investigate the semantic structure of an adjective, one would best consider
the adjective in its most typical syntactical patterns A + N -adjective + noun) and N + l + A
(noun + link verb +

kick. n. -- 1 thrill, pleasurable excitement (inform.); 2. a blow with the foot adjective) and make
a thorough study of the meanings of nouns with which the adjective is frequently used.

For instance, a study of typical contexts of the adjective bright in the first pattern will give us the
following sets: a) bright colour (flow-er, dress, silk, etc.). b) bright metal (gold, jewels, armour,
etc.), c) bright student (pupil, boy, fellow, etc.), d) bright face (smile, eyes, etc.) and some others.
These sets will lead us to singling out the meanings of the adjective related to each set of
combinations: a) intensive in colour, b) shining, c) capable, d) gay, etc.

For a transitive verb, on the other hand, the recommended pat-tern would be V + N (verb + direct
object expressed by a noun). If, for instance, our object of investigation are the verbs to produce,
to create, to compose, the correct procedure would be to consider the semantics of the nouns that
are used in the pattern with each of these verbs: what is it that is produced? created? composed?

There is an interesting hypothesis that the semantics of words regularly used in common contexts
(e. g. bright colours, to build a house, to create a work of art, etc.) are so intimately correlated
that each of them casts, as it were, a kind of permanent reflection on the meaning of its
neighbour. If the verb to compose is frequently used with the object music, isn't it natural to
expect that certain musical associations linger in the meaning of the verb to compose?

Note, also, how closely the negative evaluative connotation of the adjective notorious is linked
with the negative connotation of the nouns with which it is regularly associated: a notorious
criminal, thief, gangster, gambler, gossip, liar, miser, etc.

All this leads us to the conclusion that context is a good and relia-ble key to the meaning of the
word. Yet, even the jokes given above show how misleading this key can prove in some cases.
And here we are faced with two dangers. The first is that of sheer misunderstanding, when the
speaker means one thing and the listener takes the word in its other meaning.

The second danger has nothing to do with the process of commu-nication but with research work
in the field of semantics. A common error with the inexperienced research worker is to see a
different meaning in every new set of combinations. Here is a puzzling ques-tion to illustrate
what we mean. Cf.: an angry man, an angry letter. Is the adjective angry used in the same
meaning in both these contexts or in two different meanings? Some people will say "two" and
argue that, on the one hand, the combinability is different (man — name of person; letter —
name of object) and, on the other hand, a letter cannot experience anger. True, it cannot; but it
can very well convey the anger of the person who wrote it. As to the combinability, the main
point is that a word can realise the same meaning in different sets of combinability. For instance,
in the pairs merry children, merry laughter, merry faces, merry songs the adjective merry
conveys the same concept of high spirits whether they are directly experienced by the children
(in the first phrase) or indirectly expressed through the merry faces, the laughter and the songs of
the other word groups.

The task of distinguishing between the different meanings of a word and the different variations
of combinability (or, in a tradition-al terminology, different usages of the word) is actually a
question of singling out the different denotations within the semantic structure of the word.

Cf.: 1) a sad woman,

2) a sad voice,

3) a sad story,

4) a sad scoundrel (= an incorrigible scoundrel)

5) a sad night (= a dark, black night, arch, poet.)

35.Causes of Development of New Meanings

The first group of causes is traditionally termed historical or ex-tra-linguistic.

Different kinds of changes in a nation's social life, in its culture, knowledge, technology,
arts lead to gaps appearing in the vocabulary which beg to be filled. Newly creat-ed
objects, new concepts and phenomena must be named. We al-ready know of two ways
for providing new names for newly created concepts: making new words (word-building)
and borrowing foreign ones. One more way of filling such vocabulary gaps is by
applying some old word to a new object or notion.
When the first textile factories appeared in England, the old word mill was applied to
these early industrial enterprises. In this way, mill (a Latin borrowing of the first century
В. С.) added a new meaning to its former meaning "a building in which corn is ground
into flour". The new meaning was "textile factory".
A similar case is the word carriage which had (and still has) the meaning "a vehicle
drawn by horses", but, with the first appearance of railways in England, it received a new
meaning, that of "a railway car". -
The history of English nouns describing different parts of a thea-tre may also serve as a
good illustration of how well-established words can be used to denote newly-created
objects and phenomena. The words stalls, box, pit, circle had existed for a long time
before the first theatres appeared in England. With their appearance, the gaps in the
vocabulary were easily filled by these widely used words which, as a result, developed
new meanings.1
 New meanings can also be developed due to linguistic factors (the second group of
causes).
Linguistically speaking, the development of new meanings, and also a complete change
of meaning, may
1 It is of some interest to note that the Russian language found a different way of filling
the same gap: in Russian, all the parts of the theatre are named by borrowed words:
партер, ложа, амфитеатр, бельэтаж.
be caused through the influence of other words, mostly of syno-nyms.1
Let us consider the following examples.
The Old English verb steorfan meant "to perish". When the verb to die was borrowed
from the Scandinavian, these two synonyms, which were very close in their meaning,
collided, and, as a result, to starve gradually changed into its present meaning: "to die (or
suffer) from hunger".
The history of the noun deer is essentially the same. In Old Eng-lish (О. Е. deor) it had a
general meaning denoting any beast. In that meaning it collided with the borrowed word
animal and changed its meaning to the modern one ("a certain kind of beast", R. олень).
The noun knave (О. Е. knafa) suffered an even more striking change of meaning as a
result of collision with its synonym boy. Now it has a pronounced negative evaluative
connotation and means "swindler, scoundrel".

36.The process of development and change of meaning

The second question we must answer in this chapter is how new meanings develop. To find
the answer to this question we must inves-tigate the inner mechanism of this process, or at
least its essential features. Let us examine the examples given above from a new an-gle, from
within, so to speak.

1 Most scholars distinguish between the terms development of meaning (when a new
meaning and the one on the basis of which it is formed coexist in the semantic structure of
the word, as in mill, car-riage, etc.) and change of meaning (when the old meaning is com-
pletely replaced by the new one, as in the noun meat which in Old English had the general
meaning of "food" but in Modern English is no longer used in that sense and has instead
developed the meaning "flesh of animals used as a food product").

Why was it that the word mill — and not some other word — was selected to denote the first
textile factories? There must have been some connection between the former sense of mill
and the new phe-nomenon to which it was applied. And there was apparently such a
connection. Mills which produced flour, were mainly driven by water. The textile factories
also firstly used water power. So, in general terms, the meanings of mill, both the old and the
new one, could be defined as "an establishment using water power to produce certain goods".
Thus, the first textile factories were easily associated with mills producing flour, and the new
meaning of mill appeared due to this association. In actual fact, all cases of development or
change of meaning are based on some association. In the history of the word carriage, the
new travelling conveyance was also naturally associat-ed in people's minds with the old one:
horse-drawn vehicle > part of a railway train. Both these objects were related to the idea of
travelling. The job of both, the horse-drawn carriage and the railway carriage, is the same: to
carry passengers on a journey. So the association was logically well-founded.
 Stalls and box formed their meanings in which they denoted parts of the theatre on the basis
of a different type of association. The meaning of the word box "a small separate enclosure
forming a part of the theatre" developed on the basis of its former meaning "a rec-tangular
container used for packing or storing things". The two ob-jects became associated in the
speakers' minds because boxes in the earliest English theatres really resembled packing
cases. They were enclosed on all sides and heavily curtained even on the side facing the
audience so as to conceal the privileged spectators occupying them from curious or insolent
stares.

The association on which the theatrical meaning of stalls was based is even more curious.
The original meaning was "compart-ments in stables or sheds for the accommodation of
animals (e. g. cows, horses, etc.)". There does not seem to be much in common between the
privileged and expensive part of a theatre and stables intended for cows and horses, unless
we take into consideration the fact that theatres in olden times greatly differed from what
they are now. What is now known as the stalls was, at that time, standing space divided by
barriers into sections so as to prevent the enthusiastic crowd from knocking one other down
and hurting themselves. So, there must have been a certain outward resemblance between
theatre stalls and cattle stalls. It is also possible that the word was first used humorously or
satirically in this new sense.

The process of development of a new meaning (or a change of meaning) is traditionally

termed transference.

Some scholars mistakenly use the term "transference of meaning" which is a serious mistake.
It is very important to note that in any case of semantic change it is not the meaning but the
word that is being transferred from one referent onto another (e. g. from a horse-drawn
vehicle onto a railway car). The result of such a transference is the appearance of a new
meaning.

Two types of transference are distinguishable depending on the two types of logical
associations underlying the semantic process.

40. The So-called "Degeneration" ("Degradation") and "Elevation" of Meaning

I. "Degeneration" of meaning.

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 developed a
negative evaluative connotation which was absent in the first meaning.
Such a readjustment in the connotative structure accompanying the process of transference can be
sometimes observed in other parts of speech, and not only in nouns.

E. g. Silly: | happy | > | foolish |

II. "Elevation" of meaning.

Fond: | foolish] > | loving, affectionate |

Nice: | foolish] > | fine, good |

In these two cases the situation is reversed: the first meaning has a negative evaluative connotation, and
the second meaning has not. It is difficult to see what is actually "elevated" here. Certainly, not the
meaning of the word. Here are two more examples.

Tory: | brigand, highwayman | > | member of the Tories |

Knight: | manservant | > |"noble, courageous man]

In the case of Tory, the first meaning has a pronounced negative connotation which is absent in the
second meaning. But why call it "elevation"? Semantically speaking, the first meaning is just as good as
the second, and the difference lies only in the connotative structure.

The case of knight, if treated linguistically, is quite opposite to that of Tory: the second meaning
acquired a positive evaluative connotation that was absent in the first meaning. So, here, once more, we
are faced with a mere readjustment of the connotative components of the word.

There are also some traditional examples of "elevation" in which even this readjustment cannot be
traced.

In these three words the second meaning developed due to the process of transference based on
contiguity. Lord and lady are also examples of narrowing of meaning if we compare the range of the
original and of the resultant meanings. No connotations of evaluation can be observed in either of the
meanings. The fact that in all these three cases the original meaning denoted a humble ordinary person
and the second denotes a person of high rank is absolutely extralinguistic.

All that has been said and the examples that have been given show that the terms "degradation" and
"elevation" of meaning are imprecise and do not seem to be an objective reflection of the semantic
phenomena they describe.

It would be more credible to state that some cases of transference based on contiguity may result in
development or loss of evaluative connotations.
Polysemy

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 towhich polysemy has
developed in the language. Sometimes people who are not very well informed in linguistic matters claim
that a language is lacking in words if the need arises for the same word to be applied to several different
phenomena. In actual fact, it is exactly the opposite: 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 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.

The system of meanings of any polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries, as
more and more new meanings are either added to old ones, or oust some of them (see Ch. 8). So the
complicated processes of polysemy development involve both the appearance of new meanings and the
loss of old ones. Yet, the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is
to increase the total number of its meanings and in this way to provide for a quantitative and qualitative
growth of the language's expressive resources.

42. Homonymy

Homonymy is the relation between words with identical forms but different meanings—that is, the
condition of being homonyms. A stock example is the word bank as it appears in "river bank" and
"savings bank."

Homonyms are illustrated from the various meanings of the word bear (= animal, carry) or ear (of body,
of corn). In these examples, the identity covers both the spoken and written forms, but it is possible to
have partial  homonymy (or heteronymy), where the identity is within a single medium, as
in homophony and homography. When there is ambiguity between homonyms (whether non-deliberate
or contrived, as in riddles and puns), a homonymic clash or conflict is said to have occurred."

"The reason that there is confusion and a lack of clarity over homonym is that it is closely related to two
other words, homograph and homophone. I shall, therefore, define these words first.
 

1. A homograph is a word that is spelt identically to another word but none the less has a different
meaning and probably a different origin. You will doubtless be annoyed if you tear your trousers
while climbing over a fence. Indeed, you may be so upset that you shed a tear. As you can see,
'tear' and 'tear' are spelt identically, but they are pronounced differently and have entirely
different meanings. They are good examples of a homograph. Many homographs are not even
pronounced differently. Thus the word 'hide' sounds exactly the same whether you are talking
about the skin of an animal, a measure of land or the verb meaning to conceal or keep out of
sight.
 2. A homophone is a word that sounds exactly like another word, but has a different meaning and
a different spelling. If you stand on the stair and stare at the picture, you have a good example
of a couple of homophones. . . .

It is possible for a word to be a homograph or a homophone. However, whatever the word may be, it is
also, by definition, a homonym. In other words, homonym is a conceptual word that embraces both
homographs and homophones. . . . 

43. Synonymy

A synonym – is a word of similar or identical meaning to one or more words in the same language. All
languages contain synonyms but in English they exist in superabundance.

They’re no two absolutely identical words because connotations, ways of usage, frequency of an
occurrence are different.

Senses of synonyms are identical in respect of central semantic trades but differ in respect of minor
semantic trades.

Classification:

1. Total synonyms

 an extremely rare occurence

 Ulman: “a luxury that language can hardly afford.”

 M. Breal spoke about a law of distribution in the language (words should be synonyms, were
synonyms in the past usually acquire different meanings and are no longer interchangeable).

 Ex.: бегемот – гиппопотам

2. Ideographic synonyms.

 They bear the same idea but not identical in their referential content.

 Ex.: to ascent – to mount – to climb

 To happen – to occur – to befall – to chance

 Look – appearance – complexion – countenance

3. Dialectical synonyms.

 Ex.: lift – elevator

 Queue – line

 Autumn – fall 

4. Contextual synonyms.

 Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades & suppress other semantic trades; words
with different meaning can become synonyms in a certain context.
  Ex.: tasteless – dull

 Active – curious

 Curious – responsive

 Synonyms can reflect social conventions.

 Ex.:

clever bright brainy intelligent Dever-clever

Only speaking
Is not used by the
about younger Positive Stylistically
neutral higher educated
people by older connotation remarked
people
people

5. Stylistic synonyms.

 Belong to different styles.

child Infant Kid

neutral elevated colloquial

To die To kick the bucket

Synonymic condensation is typical of the English language.

It refers to situations when writers or speakers bring together several words with one & the same
meaning to add more conviction, to description more vivid.

Ex.:

 Safe & sound

 Lord & master

 First & foremost

 Safe & secure

 Stress & strain

 By force & violence 

It is deeply rooted in the history of English language

It was customary to use French borrowings together with their native synonyms. They are very often
characterized by alliteration, rhymes, idioms, etc.

43. Antonymy

Antonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style, expressing contrary or
contradictory notions.
V.N. Comissarov classified antonyms into two groups: absolute (root) antonyms (late - early) and
derivational antonyms (to please – to displease, honest - dishonest). Absolute antonyms have different
roots and derivational antonyms have the same roots but different affixes. In most cases negative
prefixes form antonyms (un-, dis- non-). Sometimes they are formed by means of antonymous suffixes:
-ful and –less (painful - painless).

The difference between derivational and root antonyms is also in their semantics. Derivational
antonyms express contradictory notions, one of them excludes the other: active-inactive. Absolute
antonyms express contrary notions. If some notions can be arranged in a group of more than two
members, the most distant members of the group will be absolute antonyms: ugly, plain, good-looking,
pretty, beautiful, the antonyms are ugly and beautiful.

Not every word in a language can have antonyms. This type of opposition can be met in qualitative
adjectives and their derivatives: beautiful-ugly, to beautify-to uglify. It can be also met in words denoting
feelings and states: to respect-to scorn, respectful-scornful and in words denoting direction in space and
time: here-there, up-down, before-after.

If a word is polysemantic, it can have several antonyms, e.g. the word bright has the antonyms dim,
dull, sad.

44. Euphemism

A source of synonymy also well worthy of note is the so-called euphemism in which by a shift of
meaning a word of more or less ‘pleasant or at least inoffensive connotation becomes synonymous to
one that is harsh, obscene, indelicate or otherwise unpleasant. The euphemistic expression merry  fully
coincides in denotation with the word drunk  it substitutes, but the connotations of the latter fade out
and so the utterance on the whole is milder, less offensive. The effect is achieved, because the
periphrastic expression is not so harsh, sometimes jocular and usually motivated according to some
secondary feature of the notion: naked  : : in one’s birthday suit] pregnant  : : in the family way.  Very
often a learned word which sounds less familiar is therefore less offensive, as
in drunkenness  : : intoxication; sweat  : : perspiration.

Euphemisms can also be treated within the synchronic approach, because both expressions, the
euphemistic and the direct one, co-exist in the language and form a synonymic opposition. Not only
English but other modern languages as well have a definite set of notions attracting euphemistic
circumlocutions. These are notions of death, madness, stupidity, drunkenness, certain physiological
processes, crimes and so on. For example: die : : be no more  : : be gone :  : lose one’s life : : breathe
one’s last : : join the silent majority  : : go the way of alt flesh  : : pass away  : : be gathered to one’s
fathers.

47. Colloquial Words

The colloquial layer of vocabulary can be divided into the following groups: literary colloquial words,
slang, vulgar words, dialectal words.

Literary Colloquial Words

         This group is the nearest to the neutral layer of vocabulary. There is nothing ethically improper in
their stylistic colouring, except that they cannot be used in formal speech. This group of words is
numerous and includes various subgroups.
         a) Colloquial words proper are colloquial synonyms of neutral words – chap, guy (fellow), kid
(child), molly-coddle (effeminate man or boy).

         b) Diminutives of neutral words – daddy, sonny, piggy, pussy. Diminutives of proper names –

Bobby, Becky, etc.

         с) Phonetic variants of neutral words – feller, baccy (tobacco). Phonetic contractions of auxiliary

and modal verbs also belong to this layer – haven’t, mustn’t, can’t.

         d) Words whose primary meaning refers to neutral layer while their figurative meaning refers them
to colloquial layer: pretty (rather), terrific (fine), cool (great), spoon (person with low mentality) – like in
Ukrainian (баклан, чайник); hedgehog (not an animal, but unmanageable person).

         e) Typical for colloquial layer is the wide use of intensifiers which have partially or completely lost
their primary meaning – awfully, terribly, million, hundred. These words are used for emphatic purpose:

                   I am terribly glad to see you.

                   I’ve got a hundred things I want to ask.

         f) Most interjections belong to the colloquial group: Jee! Er? Wow!

         g) Фрази kind of (kinda), sort of are often used to reduce the categorical character of
utterance:  You’ll be sort of working for me now (Hellman).

Colloquial speech is characterized by the wide use of polysemantic words, such as verbs do, have, get.

         I got flu last month. I did not get what you said. 

48. Slang

The Oxford English dictionary defines slang as “language of highly colloquial style considered as below
the level of standard educated speech and consisting either of new words or current words employed in
some special sense”.

  According to the types of creating slang four devices can be singled out: 1) lexical-semantical; 2) lexical-
morphological; 3) borrowings; 4) new formations.

1.     It can be metonymic or metaphoric word (s): chicken (colonel), zebra (helicopter); amelioration of
the meaning – killer (excellent thing), liberate (rob), wolf (seducer – спокусник), or degradation of the
meaning.

2.     It can be created by affixation (nogoodnik, biggie), abbreviation – exes (expenses), P.G. (pregnant),
G. I., telescopy – kidvid (kid’s video).

3.     Borrowings – gelt, shekels (money), dona (woman, sweetheart).

4.     New formations, e.g. rhymed slang – ham and beef (chief), dog and bone (phone)

49. Dialect Words

Dialectal words – those words which in the process of integration of the English national language
remain beyond its literary boundaries and their usage is generally confined to a definite locality. When
these words are used in emotive prose they are meant to characterize the speaker as a person of a
certain local origin, breeding and education. Some dialectal words have become familiar in a good and
standard colloquial English and are universally accepted. e.g. lass (Scottish)– beloved girl; lad – young
man; daft – silly mind; fash – trouble; cutty – naughty girl; tittie – sister; hinny – honey; Australian:
brekky – breakfast, mossie – mosquito, Oz – Australia, Pommie – a Britisher, postie – postman. Among
other dialects used for stylistic purposes in literature one should mention Southern dialect
(Somersetshire, in particular). It has a phonetic peculiarity: initial [s] and [f] are voiced and written in the
direct speech as [z] and [v]: e.g. folk – volk, found – vound, see – zee, sinking – zinking. Dialectal words
are only to be found in the style of emotive prose and very rarely in other styles. The unifying tendency
of the literary language is so strong that dialects are doomed to vanish except those which are met in
fiction. Some writers make an unrestrained use of dialects in the effort to color both the narration and
the speech of characters thus making the reading and comprehending difficult. Others - use dialectisms
sparingly, introducing only words understandable to the average intelligent reader.