37.

Synonyms, types of differences, neutralization

1. Ideographic synonyms. They bear the same idea but are not identical in their referential
content, different shades of meaning or degree. BEAUTIFUL – fine, handsome –
pretty, to ascent – to mount – to climb.

2. Stylistic synonyms. Different in emotive and stylistic sphere.

neutral elevated
child Infant
girl maid
happiness bliss

3. Contextual synonyms. Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades and suppress
other semantic trades; words with different meaning can become synonyms in a certain
context. Ex.: tasteless – dull, Active – curious, Curious – responsive
4. Dialectical synonyms. Ex.: lift – elevator, Queue – line, autumn – fall

6. Relative. Some authors classify group like: like – love – adore, famous- celebrated –
eminent. They denote different degree of the same notion or different shades of meanings
and can be substituted only in some context.

Neutralization?

38. Groups of words similar in denotative meaning (hyponyms, cohyponyms,

Hyponyms are words that are the specific examples of a general word, a ‘superordinate'. They
can be compared with synonyms, which mean the same things, and antonyms, which mean
opposite things. Example: Red, white and blue are all colours. (blue and color, red and color are
hyponyms)

Cohyponyms are words that are hyponyms of the same broader term (that is, a hypernym).
correlation “part – whole”
Antonyms are words that have contrasting, or opposite, meanings. E.g. big – small, light —
dark, easy — hard etc.
Conversives. Converseness is a type of semantic opposition which is based on describing one
and the same situation from different angles, from the point of view of different participants of
the situation and their roles. F.e.: to buy – to sell; to give – to take; left - right.
semantic derivatives, associative groups ?
 39. Groups of words similar in connotative meaning (emotionally coloured/emotionally
neutral vocabulary, thematically groups, terminological systems,
neologisms/archaisms)
Emotionally coloured vocabulary is any speech or utterance expressing emotions (may be
permanent or occasional).
Emotionally neutral vocabulary. Words that express notions but don't say anything about the
state of the speaker.
Thematically groups. the words are associated because the things they name occur together and
are closely connected in reality, e.g. colour terms, military terms.
Terminological systems. Terms are words or word groups used to name a notion, characteristic
of some special field of knowledge, industry or culture. These words (terms) are monosemantic,
have no contextual meaning and are free from emotional coloring, Terms are not separates from
the rest of vocabulary. 
Archaisms are words and phrases that have fallen out of general use but are used for special
effect, normally in literature. These vary in effect from the gently old-fashioned or jocular.
Archaisms are most frequently encountered in poetry, law, science, technology, geography and
ritual writing and speech. A type of archaism is using an older version of you: thou. Thou is the
nominative form; the oblique/objective form is thee (functioning as both accusative and dative),
and the possessive is thy orthine.
Neologism is a newly coined word or term that has emerged into everyday usage. E.g.
cyberspace, freelance, feminist, meme)

40. Homonyms (criteria for identifying, sources, types), paronyms, lexical variants

Homonyms are words identical in sound and spelling, but different in meaning, distribution and,
in many cases, origin.

Sources of homonyms
1) Phonetic changes are words undergo in the course of their historical development. As a result
of such changes, two or more words which were formely pronounced differently may develop
identical sound forms and thus become homonyms. Night and knight (рыцарь), for instance,
were not homonyms in Old English as the initial k in the second word was pronounced, and not
dropped as it is in its modern sound form.
2) Borrowing. In the group of homonyms rite, n (обряд) – to write, v – right, adj. the second
and third words are of native origin whereas rite (обряд) is a Latin borrowing.
3) Word-building also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy, and the most
important type in this respect is conversion. Such pairs of words as comb, n (гребень) – to
comb, v (расчёсывать); to make, v (делать) – make, n (работа) are numerous in the
vocabulary. Homonyms of this type, which are the same in sound and spelling but refer to
different categories of parts of speech, are called lexico-grammatical homonyms.
4). Shortening is a further type of word-building which increases the number of homonyms.
E.g. fan, n in the sense of “an admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer” is a
shortening produced from fanatic. Its homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, n which denotes an
implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air.
5) Words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of homonyms with other words:
e.g. bang, n (a loud, sudden, explosive noise) – bang, n (a fringe of hair combed over the
forehead – чёлка).
 Classifications (types)
Formal:
1. homophones – words identical in sound form but different in spelling // son – sun, sea –
see;
2. homographs – words identical in spelling but different in sound form and meaning //
lead [li:d] ‘guide’ – lead [led] ‘soft, easily melting metal’
Semantic:
1. lexical homonyms - words of the same part of speech, differing in their lexical
meanings: bank – bank, ball – ball; piece – peace, knight – night, air – heir.
2. lexico-grammatical homonyms differ in lexical and part-of-speech meanings, i.e. they
belong to different parts of speech: sea, n. – see, v., red, a. – read, v., mean, a. – mean, v.,
paw, n. – pour, v. etc.
3. grammatical homonyms – word-forms belonging to the same paradigm, differing in
their grammatical meanings: brothers, pl. - brother's, sing. possessive case - brothers', pl.
possess.
Paronyms are words very identical in sound form and spelling but having some differences
in them and different meanings, e.g. loose – lose; farther – further; model – modal; quite –
quiet etc.
Lexical variants. Lexical variants differ from synonyms in that synonyms are different
terms for the same concept, while lexical variants are different word forms for the same
expression. These forms may derive from spelling or grammatical variation or from
abbreviated formats. E.g. Romania / Rumania / Roumania; ground water / ground-water /
groundwater; online / on-line
41. Stylistically marked vocabulary
Stylistically marked words are limited in their use and include formal and informal vocabulary.
Formal vocabulary comprises:
 official vocabulary used in documents, business transactions, diplomacy, etc. E.g. high
contracting parties, hereinafternamed, etc.
 learned words common to all fields of knowledge, e.g. synthesis, analysis, hypothesis,
antithesis, etc.
 words associated with professional communication, special terminology different for
each branch of science or art, e.g. linguistic terms: inflection, euphemism, paradigm,
phoneme, etc.
Informal words are traditionally divided into:
 dialect words used within a certain territory, e.g. Cockney dialect;
 colloquial words
 slang

42. Native words, classification, typical features

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock, as known from the Old
English period. The native words are further subdivided into those of the Indo-European stock
and those of Common Germanic origin. The words of Indo-European origin are mainly terms
of kinship (e.g. father, mother, son), terms from nature (e.g. sun, moon, water, tree), names of
animals and birds, (e.g. bull, cat, wolf), parts of the human body (e.g. arm, eye, foot), most
frequent verbs (e.g. come, sit, stand) and others. A bigger part of the native vocabulary is formed
by words of the Common Germanic stock. These words have parallels in German, Norwegian,
Dutch, Icelandic, etc. The number of semantic groups is bigger than those of Indo-European
origin. Their character is mainly general. E.g.: summer, winter, rain, bridge, house, shop, shirt,
shoe, life, need, to bake, to buy, to learn, to make, to see, and many others. Native words
constitute about 80 % of the 500 most frequent words in English. They may be characterized
by a high lexical and grammatical valency (ability to combine with other words), high frequency
and developed polysemy. They are often monosyllabic, have great wordbuilding power and enter
a number of set expressions.
Most of the native words have undergone great changes in their semantic structure, and as a
result are nowadays polysemantic, e.g. the word finger does not only denote a part of a hand as
in Old English, but also 1) the part of a glove covering one of the fingers, 2) a finger-like part in
various machines, 3) a hand of a clock, 4) an index, 5) a unit of measurement. Highly
polysemantic are the words man, head, hand, go, etc.