English lexicology

Blending is either viewed as a separate type of word-building, or as a variety of composition or shortening. It plays an important role in building neologisms in the sphere of advertising, mass media, colloqual speech, trade and marketing: Adidas<Adi+Dassler (îñíîâàòåëü êîìïàíèè), slimnastics<slim+gymnastics, pollutician<pollution+politician, cottonopolis (Ìàí÷åñòåð êàê öåíòð õëîï÷àòîáóìàæíîé ïðîìûøëåííîñòè), Ameringlish<American English, swacket<sweater+jacket, etc.

Sound imitation (Onomatopoeia) is a way of word-formation which consists in imitating the sounds made by animals, birds, insects, men and different objects: bang, giggle, quack. Some scholars suggest that sounds have a certain meaning of their own: the sound [l] in glide, slide, slip conveys the nature of smooth, easy movement over a slippery surface. The sound of the verbs to rush, to dash, to flash reflects the brevity and energetic nature of these actions, but the theory has not been yet fully developed.

Reduplication (Repetition) consists in a complete or partial repetition of the stem or of the whole word (bye-bye), often with a variation of the root vowel or consonant (ping-pong)

These words are always colloqual or slang, among them there many nursery words. There exist three types of such words: 1) the words in which the same stem is repeated without any changes (pretty-pretty, goody-goody, never-never (óòîïèÿ); 2) words with a vowel variation (chit-chat (ñïëåòíè), ping-pong, tip-top); 3) words with pseudomorphemes (rhyme combinations) (lovey-dovey, walkie-talkie, willy-nilly); the parts of such words don't exist as separate words.

Ellipsis is the omission of a word or words considered essential for grammatical completeness but not for the conveyance of the intended lexical meaning: pub<public house,daily<daily newspaper, sale<cutprice sale, taxi<taximotor cab (ellipsis+apocopy in the last word).

Non-productive ways of word-building are sound interchange and distinctive stress which are regarded as a means of word-building only diachronically because in Mod. English not a single word is formed by changing the root sound or by shifting the place of stress.

Sound interchange implies vowel-interchange (to sing - song, to live - live) and consonant-interchange (use - to use [z], advice - to advise). Consonant interchange may be combined with vowel interchange: bath - to bathe. Sound interchange only serves to distinguish one long-established word from another.

Distinctive stress is found in groups like `present - pres`ent, `conduct - con`duct, `abstract - abstr'act, etc. These words were French borrowings with the original stress on the last syllable. Verbs retained it, while in nouns and adjectives it was shifted. The place of stress helps to distinguish verbs and nouns or pronouns in speech.



14. Semasiology

Semasiology is concerned with the meaning of words, studies the types of meaning the change of meaning, the semantic structure of words, semantic groupings, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms etc.

So the term “meaning” is a subject of discussion among the linguists. There are two main approaches to the study of the meaning of a word.

1) referential approach,

2) functional approach.

The referential approach treats the meaning of a word as a relation between the object (the referent), notion and its name (the word). The sound form of the word (ex. “dove”) is connected with our concept of the bird which it denotes and through it with the referent. Treating the meaning of a word by the referential approach is not quite clear. This point of view can hardly be accepted because meaning is not identical with the referent, there are words which do not denote a referent, ex. angel [eind3il] Besides one and the same referent may be denoted by different words.

The functional approach treats the meaning as the relation of one word to another. By this approach the meaning can be studied only through context, through its relation to other words. Ex. to take the tram (a taxi), to take off, to take care of, to take ill, to take a degree, to take cold, to take it easy, to take it easy, to take on, to take place, to take tea, to take a bath, to take five minutes, to take notice, to take part in, to take a book, etc.

15. Types of meaning

There are two main types of meaning:

1) the grammatical meaning, 2. the lexical meaning.

The grammatical meaning is the formal meaning of a word. It is defined as the meaning belonging to the lexico-grammatical classes and grammatical categories. It is expressed by the word's form. Every word belongs to a definite part of speech and every part of speech has a certain grammatical categories. Ex. verbs have tense, voice, mood, person etc. Nouns have the categories of case, number etc. Ex. the words “asked”, “thought”, “talked”, “took, ran” have the grammatical meaning of tense. The grammatical meaning unites words into big groups such as parts of speech.

The lexical meaning is the material meaning of a word. This is a meaning which gives the concept of a word. By the lexical meaning the word expresses the basic properties of the thing the word denotes.

The lexical meaning of a word falls into two:

1) the denotational meaning, 2) the connotational meaning.

Denotational meaning makes communication possible because words denote things, concepts, they name them. Ex. the denotational meaning of the word “table” is a piece of furniture consisting of a flat top with four supports (called legs).

The connotational meaning is a meaning which has a stylistic shade. It serves to express all sorts of emotions, expressiveness. Connotation may be shortly defined as emotional and evaluative component of the lexical meaning, Comparing the meanings of English words “well-known”, “famous”, “notorious” we see that all these words express the denotational meaning “widely known”. But the word “famous” has a positive evaluative meaning and “notorious has a negative evaluation. So, the words “well-known”, “famous”, “notorious” differ in their emotional colouring and evaluation.

Connotational meaning consists of such constituents as: emotion, evaluation and intensity (intensifying connotation). The word takes the emotional connotation in contexts corresponding to emotional situations. The denotational meaning is associated with emotions (ex. He besought a favour of the judge: Here the word “beseech” means “to ask eagerly and also anxiously”). Evaluative connotation denotes approval or disapproval relations to the thing or phenomena, Ex. colt a young male horse used for a young inexperienced person; pup- a young dog used for a person. These words have negative evaluation.

But in English we have words which have positive evaluation (ex. bunny - êðîëèê, bunting-ëàïî÷êà.

Intensifying conntation is the reinforcement of the sign: it indicates the special importance of the thing expressed. Ex. awfully glad, terribly important.

The connotational meaning may be expressed also either in the emotive charge or in stylistic reference.

Ex. “aunt” and “auntie”. These words have the same denotational meaning but the word “aunt” has no emotive charge but “auntie” has it.

Stylistically words can be subdivided into literary, neutral and colloquial layers. Neutral words are words of general use. Ex. the words “to begin” (íà÷èíàòü) and “to commence”(íà÷èíàòü) “dad” and “ father” have the same denotational meanings but “to begin” and “father” are stylistically neutral words, whereas “dad” is a colloquial word and “ to commence” stylistically is a literary word.

Besides the lexical and grammatical meanings we can observe differential, functional and distributional meanings of a word. Differential meaning is the semantic component that serves to distinguish one word from other in words containing the same (dentical) morphemes.

Ex. “note-book”. The morpheme “note” serves to distinguish the word from

other words: exercise-book, copy-book or: bookshelf, bookcase.

The functional meaning may be seen in derivational morphemes. If we see the words with the suffixes -ment, -er, -ity, -or, we say that they are nouns.

Eg. establishment, plurality, teacher, translator, sailor.

If -ful, -less, -able, -al etc. are present in words we say adjectives.

Ex. helpful, handless, guiltless, readable, national, writable, operational, openable, proposal.

The distributional meaning is found in all words having more than one morpheme. It is found in the arrangement and order of morphemes making up the word.

Ex. “teacher” but not*erteach.

“boyisness” but not *nessboyish.

Different types of the lexical meaning of one and the same word are considered its lexico-semantic variants. Lexico-semantic variants in their correlations and interconnection form the semantic structure of the word. In the semantic structure of the word there is a special information on the members and the conditions of communication. The intercourse and personal contacts in real situations may reveal the pragmatic aspect of the lexical meaning of the word.

Ex. “Hallo” is used in unofficial situations giving a signal at the same time to the friendly relations of the members of the communication.

16. Word meaning and motivation

The meaning of a word may be realized by its structure. A direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning is called the motivation of a word.

Motivation may be morphological, phonetical and semantic.

The relationship between morphemic structure and meaning is called morphological motivation. From this point of view the words may be motivated and non-motivated. Ex. sing, tell, eat, open, read, go are non-motivated words because each of them have simple stem and morpheme. If we can see a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning we say that this word is motivated.

So in most cases the derived and compound words are motivated and simple words are non-motivated. Ex. eatable, readable, reader, doll-faced, singer are motivated but eat, read doll, sing are non-motivated: ring, finger are non-motivated but finger-ring is motivated. The words may be partially motivated. Ex. “cranberry” is partially motivated because the morpheme “cran” has no meaning.

If we see the connection between the phonetic structure of a word and its meaning we say that the word is phonetically motivated. Ex. cuckoo, boom, cock-a doodle-doo, bow-wow, mew-mew, etc.

When the meaning of a word is metaphorically extended or when a word is used as a metaphorically extension of the central meaning we say the word is semantically motivated.

Ex. “He is my mother”. Here “mother” is used metaphorically, the whole sentence means that “ he looks after me like my mother”. So the word “mother” is semantically motivated. “He is a fox”. (“He is cunny”), fox is semantically motivated.

We must differ two approaches to the study of motivation;

1) Diachronic, 2)synchronic.

Ex. the word “essex”, “norfolk”, “sutton” were non-motivated in old English. But “East-Saxon”, “North-Folk”, “South Town” in Modern English are motivated.

17. Different types of semantic change

The meaning of a word is a changable category. The causes of semantic changes may be either linguistic or extra -linguistic. Extra-linguistic causes are different changes in the life of the people speaking the language, the coming into existence of new notions and objects, changes in economic and social life, changes of ideas and etc.

Ex. the word “mill” originally meant ðó÷íàÿ ìåëüíèöà. The development of industry gave use to the meaning “mill” ïðåäïðèÿòèå, çàâîä. Ex. a cooton mill, a steel mill. The word “atom” meant indivisible substance. Now the scientists discovered that atom can be divided and this change our concept of atomic indivisibility.

A change in the meaning may be brought about by different linguistic developments in the lexical system as a whole. The word may change its meaning by the shortening of a word group. Ex. The old meaning of the verb “to starve” was “to die” and it was often used in the word group “to starve of hanger”. The modern meaning of the verb “to starve” is the result of the shortening of the word group, “to starve of hanger”.

The meaning of the word “weekly” a newspaper published weekly is the shortened form of the word group “weekly newspaper”, “a musical” is the shortened form of the word group “ a musical comedy” etc.

The appearance of a new word which is synonymous to the word already existing in the language may cause a change in the meaning of words. Ex. the old meaning of the word “deer” was an animal. It was used for all kinds of animals. When the Latin word “animal” came into the English language the meaning of the word “deer” was changed. Now it is used to name only one kind of animal (deer - îëåíü, áóãà).

The words may change their meaning when they are used transferently, i. e. metaphorically or metonymically. A metaphor is a shift of meanings caused by the likeness (similarity of some property of two object). Metaphor is based on the similarities of objects.

Ex. the words “warm” and “cold” may be used to denote the certain qualities of human voices because of some kind of similarity between these qualities and warm and cold temperature.

Ex. warm voice warm temperature

cold voice cold temperature.

The similarity may be based on several shapes.

1) similarity of form. Ex. eye of a needle, a head of a pin;

2) similarity of function. Ex. the head of the state, the head of the demonstration;

3) similarity of position. Ex. the foot of the mountain, a foot of the page, the top of the table, the leg of the table.

The usage of proper names for common nouns may cause a metaphor too. Some scientists use widely some characters. Ex. He is a pushkin of our days (he is a very strong poet). She is a tursunov (she is a very good cotton picker).

Sometimes the names of animals are used to denote the human qualities.

Ex. She is a fox (she is very cunny). She is a parrot (She is talkative).

We must differ a metaphor from a simile. In simile we use before the words “as” and “like”. Ex. She is a monkey (metaphor). She is like a monkey (similar).

Metonymy is a shift of meaning or a change caused by a close, stable, constant connection between two or more objects. Metonymy should not be mixed up with a metaphor. In metonymy a part is used instead of the whole but metaphor is based on the likeness. Ex. She has a fox on ( metonomy). It means she wears furcoat made out of the fur of a fox. “Black shirt” was given for fascists in Italy because the fascists wore black shirts, “red-coat” means British soldiers because they wore red uniforms. The kittle is boiling (water is boiling).

Sometimes names of human organs may be used metonymically.

Ex. Will you lend me your ear? (listen to me). He has a good hand. (He has a good handwriting.)

The name of a person can be used to denote a thing connected with that person. Ex. Do you know Byron? We mean his poems not himself. Ex. I like Pushkin means I like his works.

Geographical names are also used metonymically.

Ex. boston-a name of town- materials. Champaine - a province in France.

The result of semantic change can be observed in:

1) restriction (or narrowing) of meaning. Restriction of meaning is the capacity of a word to narrow its meaning in the course of historical development;

2) extension (or widening) of meaning. It is the expansion of polymemy in the course of its historical development, i. e. it is the widening of meaning. Ex. The word “fowl” meant in old

English “any bird” but in modern English it denotes “a domestic hen or cock; old meaning of “affection” was any feeling, new meaning is a feeling of love. The word “juke” originally meant sailor's word meaning “old rope”. Now it means “rubbish useless stuff”. This is an example of extension of meaning. The word “meat” originally meant “food” now it means one special type of food. This is an example of narrowing of meaning.

As a result of change of meaning o word may get a new meaning which will be broader or more generalized than the old one. Ex. season. The old meaning of the word “season” was “spring”. The new meaning is any part of the year. Here is another example. The old meaning of “to bootleg” was to sell alcoholic drinks illegally” New meaning is “ to sell anything illegally”.

The meaning of a word may become ameliorated as a result of semantic change. Ex. the old meaning of the word “nice” was “foolish”, now it means “good”, “fine”. The old meaning of “marshal” was a servant who looked after horses. New meaning is a high military rank (ìàðøàë).

The meaning of a word may become deteriorated as a result of semantic change. Ex. the old meaning of “villain” was “farm labourer”, new meaning is çëîäåé, íåãîäÿé (æàðàìàñ).The old meaning of “knive” was - ìàëü÷èê, new meaning is “ìîøåííèê”.

18. Meaning and polysemy

Meaning is one of the most difficult problems in the theory of language and it has been the topic of interminable discussions. There is no universally accepted definition of meaning. All the linguists agree that word-meaning is not homogeneous but it is made up of various components.

Polysemy may be analyzed from two ways: diachronically and synchronically. If polysemy is analyzed diachronically it is understood as the development of the semantic structure of the word or we establish how the meaning of the word has changed whether it has got new meanings in the course of the development of the language. From the historical point of view one of the meanings of the word will be primary meaning; that is such a meaning of a word which was first registered. All other meanings are secondary meanings. The term secondary meaning shows that the meaning appeared in the language after the primary meaning was already established.

Synchronically polysemy is understood as the coexistence of various meanings of the word at a certain historical period of the development of English.

The majority of English words have more than one meaning, so they are polysemantic. Words that are used most often have the greatest number of meanings: do, go, see, etc. Various meanings of the word represent lexico-semantical variants of the word (LSVs) and constitute its semantic structure. One of the meanings in the semantic structure of the word is primary, the others are secondary. For example, the word table has the primary meaning “a piece of furniture” and a number of secondary meanings: “a supply of food”, “an act of assembling to eat”, “a group of people assembled at a table”, etc. Meanings can also be direct and figurative, concrete and abstract, central and peripheral, general and special.

There are two main types of the organization of the semantic structure of a polysemantic word: the radial and the chain one.

Radial polysemy is observed when all the secondary meanings of the word are connected with the primary meaning and motivated by it, as the meanings of the world field, for example («ïîëå» > «ïðîñòðàíñòâî», «ó÷àñòîê», «ìåñòî ñðàæåíèÿ», ìåñòîðîæäåíèå», «ñôåðà äåÿòåëüíîñòè»).

An example of chain polysemy is the word bleak: «íåçàùèùåííûé îò âåòðà» (bleak hillside) >«õîëîäíûé, ñóðîâûé» (bleak wind) > «óíûëûé, ïå÷àëüíûé, ìðà÷íûé» (bleak prospects).

As a rule both the types of polysemy are combined: glass («ñòåêëî»> «ñòåêëÿííàÿ ïîñóäà» > «ñòàêàí» > «ñòàêàí êàê ìåðà åìêîñòè»; «ñòåêëî» > «ïàðíèêîâàÿ ðàìà» > «ïàðíèê»; «ñòåêëî» > «çåðêàëî»; «ñòåêëî» > «ëèíçà» > «ìèêðîñêîï»).



19. Homonymy. Sources of homonymy. Classification of homonyms

Homonymy means different lexical meaning with the same form. It is a sense relation that occurs with items which share the form (have the same form) but have different sense (meaning) that are not related to each other, they are totally different and distinct in meaning.

Homonyms must be studied diachronically and synchronically. Diachronically we study the origin of homonyms, yhe sources of homonyms, the time of their appearance in the language. Synchronically we analyse the present pecularities of homonyms, their classification etc.

The Origin of Homonymy

89 % of the homonyms are monosyllabic lexemes, the origin of which is due to the monosyllabic analytic nature of English vocabulary (short words developed different meaning).

There are two main sources of homonymy:

1. Convergent nature of the homonymy where two words that have the
same form, e.g. OE gesund - healthy - sound (safe and sound).

OE sund - swimming - sound (straits)

Lat. Sonus - sound (sense detected by the ears).

This shows that three distinct forms ended up in one form.

2. Divergent nature of homonvmy occurs when the words have one
common etymological source but during the course of time their meaning split
or diverged. E.g.; pupil - a young student,.pupil - part of the eye. What hap
pened with this word is that the forms survived but there was semantic disinte
gration.

Patterned Homonymy

Lexical items that are the same in form share the same elements of meaning but belong to different speech class and they are patterned hornonyms. Usually they have different grammatical categories, e.g. act could be a noun or a verb. In the sentence “I think that this could be good” that is a conjunction while in “That man over there” that is a demonstrative.

Partial homonyms

These are items with a different meaning but in one of their word forms they share the form and can be homonyms. E.g. axis (singular) - axes (plural); axe (s) - axes (p). These two function as homonyms only in their plural form. E.g. but (conj.), butt - end of a cigarette. Used as verbs these two can be in sentences such as : Don't but me or He butted me all the time and He butted his cigarettes fended them/ The last two examples are partial homonyms.

Homophony

Homophons as a case of homonymy, i.e. different forms have different meaning and are pronounced identically. E.g. buy, by and bye; night - knight or you to -you too.

Homography

Homographs have the same spelling but different pronunciation, e.g. tear (n) - tear (v); lead (n) - lead (v).

20. Synonyms and antonyms

Synonyms are traditionally defined as words of the same part of speech with identical or partially identical denotational meanings: to kill-slay-waste. The word which has a wide meaning, is stylistically neutral and simple semantically is the dominant synonym of the set. A polysemantic word may enter several synonymic sets.

Synonyms are classified on various grounds.

According to the degree of equivalence synonyms are classified into full (absolute) and partial (relative). Absolute synonyms are rare and are represented by terms mainly: semasiology - semantics, scarlet fever - scarlatina.

The majority of synonyms are semantic, or ideographic ones: there is a certain difference in their meaning which lies in the notion or emotion expressed. Ideographic synonyms may be very close in meaning (but not totally interchangeable) (to sparkle (with joy) ñâåðêàòü, èñêðèòüñÿ - to glitter (with anger) ñâåðêàòü, áëåñòåòü), or different in meaning considerably (journey - voyage - trip). They often differ in the degree of the quality expressed (want, desire, long for) or their evaluative connotations (loving, devoted - doting (áåçóìíî ëþáÿùèé; ñëåïî îáîæàþùèé)).

Words with identical or partially identical denotational meaning may differ in their stylistic colouring. Such words are called stylistic synonyms: maid - girl, talkative - loquacious. The difference in stylistic colouring is often accompanied by a difference in emotional colouring and evaluation: visage - face - phiz - snout (ìîðäà, ðûëî æèâîòíîãî) - mug.

Words which coincide in meaning only in a certain context are called contextual synonyms: buy - get (I'll go to a shop and get some bread).

According to their origin synonyms are divided into those belonging to the native element (fast-swift) and those arising through the adoption of words from dialects, variants of the language or foreign languages (girl - lass (Scottish), radio (AmE) - wireless, begin - commence (Fr.)). Synonyms also appear due to the figurative usage of words (moon-gazer - dreamer), use of vulgarisms, slang or euphemisms (bottom, rear, buttocks - arse; girl - broad (Am. slang: Beautiful broads run after me and I can't resist them); sweat - perspiration, drunk - intoxicated).

Antonyms are lexical units of opposite meaning. Antonyms form pairs; polysemantic words form several pairs of antonyms: dull - interesting; dull (of a blade) - sharp, dull (of a pain) - acute, etc. Words with concrete meaning don't have antonyms.

Structurally antonyms are divided into root and affixational ones: good - bad, happy - unhappy. There also exist phraseological antonyms: big fish - small fry. Semantically antonyms may be classified into 1) contrary (êîíòðàðíûå), 2) contradictory (êîíòðàäèêòîðíûå) 3) conversive (êîíâåðñèâíûå) 4) antonyms of opposite direction (âåêòîðíî-ðàçíîíàïðàâëåííûå).

Contrary antonyms admit some intermediary member between them; thus between cold and hot there are cool and warm.

Contradictory antonyms have no intermediary member betwwen them and are mutually exclusuve: to use “not” before one of them is to make it semantically equivalent to the other: not alive - dead.

Conversive antonyms are words denoting the same situation viewed from different angles, from the point of view of different participants: buy - sell, give - receive.

Antonyms of opposite direction may be illustrated by such examples as: East-West, know-forget, left-right, etc.

The vocabulary does not remain the same, but changes constantly. New notions appear and require new words to name them. On the other hand, some notions and things become outdated and the words denoting them drop out of the language, but the increase, as a rule, more than makes up for the leak-out.

21. Sources of synonymy

Synonyms are one of the language's most important expressive means. They are the basis of language culture. To speak correctly and well one must know a lot of synonyms and differences between them.

To define the character of the synonymic relations between the words it is necessary to analyse all the meanings and occurrences of the words. It can be done with the help of contextual, componental and contrastive analyses.

Sources of Synonymy

Wide synonymity in English is due to a great number of borrowings^

Quite a number of words in a synonymic set are usually of Latin or French origin.

fair (native) - beautiful (Fr.)

begin (native) - commence (Fr.) - initiate (L.).



22. Classification of synonyms

Acad. V.V. Vinogradov established the following classification of synonyms: ideographic, stylistic, ideographic-stylistic, contextual, absolute (total).

Ideographic synonyms are words conveying the same notion but differing in shades of meaning or emotions expressed: a piece - a lump - a slice; to tremble - to shiver - to shudder; anger - fury; to like - to admire - to love.

Stylistic synonyms are words conveying the same notion but different in stylistic characteristics:

to begin - to start - to commence;

sky - heaven (poetic);

to see - to behold (archaic);

horse - steed (poetic);

to try - to endeavour (bookish).

Stylistic colouring may also be accompanied by a difference in emotional colouring or some other shades of meaning:

to say - to pronounce;

head - onion;

money - cabbage;

face - puss.

Such synonyms are called ideographic-stylistic.

Contextual synonyms are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions. Thus, the words bear, stand, suffer are synonyms only when used in the negative form: can't stand it - can't suffer it - can't bear it. Otherwise, all these verbs are semantically different.

Absolute (total) synonyms are words coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics. Absolute synonyms are usually technical and scientific terms, they are rare in the vocabulary and temporary. The vocabulary system tends to reject one of the absolute synonyms or to develop differentiation of characteristics in one or both (or all) of them: noun -substantive; flection - ending; oculist - eye-specialist.

23. The main problems of lexicography

The ultimate goal of lexicography is the art of making dictionaries. Lexicology deals with words, forms and structure, lexical meaning, usage and diachronic analysis (origin and development). Lexicography is applied knowledge of lexicology. There is a constant give and take reciprocal relationship between lexicology and lexicography. They both strive for completeness and systematization. The only distinction is that lexicography is exhaustive in listing and describing all the existing words, i.e. the lexical units in a language, which is not the case with lexicology that only chooses examples to provide rules and principles.

Problems in Lexicography

1. Selection of head words - selection of the items included in the dictionary is done according to the type and size (general, pocket dictionary).

2. Arrangement of lexical entries -- the way the items are arranged, e.g. each other, where these two words should be listed under E or O.or they

should be separated, e.g. department store under D or S. Whatever op-tion is implied there has to be used only one principle.

3.. Problem of homonymy and polysemy, e.g. pupil and pupil' - whether they have different entries in the dictionary;

4. Whether to list all the compounds of a word, all the derivatives possible; whether to list the obsolete words, the archaic words or slang words.

5. Definition of meaning - there are two types of dictionaries:

a. linguistic type - the interpretation is given in metalinguistic way; use of language is to describe language (sense);

b. encyclopedic type - using geographical and historical data to define the words - (reference).

24. Variants and dialects of English

For historical and economic reasons the English language has spread over vast territories. It is the national language of the UK, the USA, Australia, New Zeeland and some provinces of Canada. Besides, it used to be a state language in the former colonies of the British Empire: in Asia, Africa, or in countries which fell under US domination in Central and South America.

The key terms in studying the territorial varieties of the English language are: Standard English, variants, dialects.

Standard English is the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people.

Local dialects are varieties of the English Language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form.

Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants.

In GB there are two variants: Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Nothern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group contains several (up to ten) dialects.

Among the regional varieties beyond the borders of GB American English is the most important, as it has its own literary standards, i.e. its own generally accepted norms of speaking and writing. American English can not be called a dialect since it has a literary normalized form called Standard American, while a dialect has no literary form.

Canadian, Australian and Indian English can also be considered regional varieties of English with their own peculiarities.

The differences between British English (BE) and American English (AmE) are observed in the vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and spelling.

There is a number of differences between British and American lexicons. There exist words which belong only to American vocabulary and constitute its specific feature. These words are called Americanisms (the term was introduced by Sir John Witherspoon, rector of Princeton University).

Among Americanisms the following major groups of words are distinguished: historical Americanisms, proper Americanisms and borrowings.

The examples of historical Americanisms are the words: fall (autumn), to guess (in the meaning “to think”), sick (in the meaning “ill, unwell”). In BE their meanings have changed, while in AmE these words still retain their old meanings.

Proper Americanisms are words that are specifically American. They denote American realia, objects of American flora and fauna: ^ Congress, House of Representatives, District Attorney, forty-niner (çîëîòîèñêàòåëü 1949 ãîäà), prairie scooner (ôóðãîí ïåðåñåëåíöåâ), jump a claim (çàõâàòèòü ÷óæîé ó÷àñòîê), drugstore, blue-grass, catbird (àìåðèêàíñêèé ïåðåñìåøíèê), bullfrog, etc. They are also names of objects which are called differently in the US and in GB: store - shop, baggage - luggage, subway - underground, railroad - railway, gasoline - petrol, department - faculty, etc.

AmE is rich in specifically American borrowings which reflect the historical contacts of the Americans with other nations on the American continent. Among such borrowings are Spanish borrowings (ranch, sombrero, canyon, tornado), Afro-American borrowings (banjo), German borrowings (lager beer and black beer, frankfurter) and especially Indian borrowings (the words wigwam, canoe, mocassin, tomahauk, racoon, skunk, names of places, rivers, lakes and states: Mississippi, Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky.

The differences between Canadian and BE are concerned mainly with intonation. As for the vocabulary, some words do not differ from their British counterparts while others are the same as in AmE: to guess (“to think”), rooster (“cock”), sidewalk (“pavemant”), store (“shop”).

Australian English, too, differs from BE mainly in phonetics: the pronunciation is characterized by the nasal twang (is nasalized), like that of Americans, by indistinct pronunciation of the consonants p,b,w, n (the so-called American lip-laziness), Australian speech is somewhat slow, lengthy and monotonous. In the vocabulary there is a number of typically local words like coala, dingo, bandicoot (ñóì÷àòàÿ êðûñà) and various placenames borrowed from the native inhabitants.

Indian English differs from BE in pronunciation (take - [tek], young - [o], etc.) and vocabulary. It contains a great number of words taken from the native language: curry, bandana, khaki, sari, sahib, bundgalow, etc. Some of them have become international.

The mass media, constant international contacts facilitate the levelling of differences between variants and dialects of the English language.

25. General etymological survey of the English vocabulary

Etymologically the vocabulary of the English language consists of two groups- the native words and the borrowed words.

The etymological linguistic analysis showed that the borrowed stock of words is larger than the native stock of words. In fact native words comprise only 30% of the total number of words in the English vocabulary. A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock, which belongs to Anglo-Saxon origin.

To the native words we include words from Common Germanic language and from Indo-European stock. Borrowed words are words taken over from other languages. Many linguists consider foreign influence plays the most important role in the history of the English language. But the grammar and phonetic system are very stable (unchangeable) and are not often influenced by other languages. Besides when we speak about the role of native and borrowed words in the English language we must not take into consideration only the number of them but their semantic, stylistic character, their wordbuilding ability, frequency value, collocability (valency) and the productivity of their wordbuilding patterns. If we approach to the study of the role of native borrowed words from this point of view we see, though the native words are not numerous they play an important role in the English language. They have high frequency value, great word-forming power, wide collocability, many meanings and they are stylistically neutral. Almost all words of native origin belong to very important semantic groups. They include most of the auxiliary and model verbs: shall, will, should, must, can, may; pronouns: I, he, my, your, his, who, whose; prepositions: in, out, on, under, for, of; numerals: one two three, four, five, six, etc; conjunctions: and, but, till, as etc; words denoting parts of body: head, hand, arm, back, foot, eye etc; members of a family: father, mother, brother, son, wife; natural phenomena and planets: snow, rain, wind, sun, moon, animals: horse, cow, sheep, cat; common actions: do, make, go, come, hear, see, eat, speak, talk etc. All these words are very frequent words, we use them every day in our speech. Many words of native origin possess large clusters of derived and compound words in the present-day language.

Ex. help - helper, helpful, helpfully, helpfulness, helping, helpingly, helpable, helpably, helped, unhelpable etc.

Such affixes of native origin as er, -ness, -ish, -ed, un, -mis, -dom, -hood, -ly, -over, -out, -under, - are of native origin.

We see that the role of native words in the language is great. Many authors use native words more than foreign ones. Thus Shekespear used 90% native words and 10% foreign words. Swift used 75% native words.

Borrowed words have been called “the milestones of philology” - said O. Jeperson - because they permit us (show us ) to fix approximatively the dates of linguistic changes. They show us the course of civilization and give us information of the nations”.

The well-known linguist Shuchard said “No language is entierly pure”, that all the languages are mixed. Borrowed words enter the language as a result of influence of two main causes or factors; linguistic and extra-linguistic. Economic, cultural, industrial, political relations of speakers of the language with other countries refer to extra-linguistic factors. The historical development of England also influenced the language. Due to the great influence of the Roman civilization Latin was for a long time used in England as the language of learning and religion. Old Norse of the Scandinavian tribes was the language of the conquerors (9- 10- 11 centruries). French (Norman dialect) was the language of the other conquerors who brought with them a lot new notions of a higher social system, developed fuedalizm. It was the language of upper classes, of official documents and school (11-14cent). These factors are extra-linguistic ones.

The absence of equivalent words in the language to express new subjects or a phenomena makes people to borrow words. Ex. the words football, volleyball, michman in Russian; to economize the linguistic means, i.e. to use a foreign word instead of a long native expressions and others are called linguistic causes.

The closer the two interacting languages are in structure the easier it is for words of one language to penetrate into the other. The fact that Scandinavian borrowings have penetrated into such grammatical classes as prepositions and pronouns (they, them, their, both, same, till) can only be attributed to a similarity in the structure of the two languages.

Borrowings enter the language in two ways: though oral speech (by immediate contact between the people) and though written speech (by indirect contact though books). Words borrowed orally (inch, mill, street, map)are usually short and they undergo more change in the act of adopter. Written borrowings (communque, bellas - letters naivete, psychology, pagoda etc) are often rather long and they are unknown to many people, speaking English.

26. Neologisms and occasional words

The vocabulary does not remain the same, but changes constantly. New notions come into being, requiring new words to name them. On the other hand, some notions and things become outdated and the words that denote them drop out of the language. Sometimes a new name is introduced for a thing or notion that continues to exist, and the older name ceases to be used. The number of words in a language is therefore not constant.

New words and expressions, or neologisms, are created for new things irrespective of their scale of importance. They may be very important, e.g. People 's Republic, nuclear war, or quite insignificant and short-lived, e.g. pony-tail (a hair-do), jitterbag (one who loves to dance to jazz-music), jitter (conversion) - a nervous man.

Thus, a neologism is any word or word-equivalent formed according to the productive structural patterns or borrowed from another language and felt by the speakers as something new.

The intense development of science and industry introduced an immense number of new words and changed the meanings of old ones: computer, nuclear fission - ðàñùåïëåíèå, feedback - îáðàòíàÿ ñâÿçü (ðàäèî), penicillin, tape-recorder, supermarket, sputnik, lunokhod, cosmic-ship, cosmodrome, etc.

Kinds of Neologisms

The intense development of science and industry, changes in economy, social and political life introduced a great number of new words, denoting new notions in these fields. Prof. I.R.Galperin called such neologisms terminological neologisms; they differ from the neologisms having a great emotional-stylistic colouring. They are called by I.R. Galperin stylistic neologisms. Both types of neologisms have different stylistic functions and are used with different aims.

Terminological neologisms referring to the bookish vocabulary, as a rule, in the course of time become part of the language system and they become an important source of replenishment of the vocabulary of the language. Gradually they penetrate into the common literary colloquial vocabulary and become widely used by the majority of the people. Here we can mention, e.g., neologisms connected with space researches. The people have a great interest in this problem. Besides, radio, TV, press play a great role in it. Here are some neologisms of this sphere: space, docking, cosmonaut, cosmic food, carrier-rocket, cosmonaut, cosmic-ship, orbital laboratory, manned rocket, etc.

Many new words and word-phrases, referring to science and technic, are formed in English as well as in other languages from the Latin and Greek root-morphemes available in the language, and they are international words, e.g.: isotope, isotron, cyclotron, supersonic plane.

As it was said, some neologisms are created to express greater emotional and stylistic shades of the existing notions, when it is necessary a) to underline some extra features of the phenomenon, or b) to express one's attitude to the facts of reality, and the old words are not precise and expressive enough, e.g.: êîñìîïëàâàíèå, òðîèðîâàíèå.

When the first Soviet sputniks were launched, the Russian suffix -UK appeared in English, in the words denoting rockets, with one which failed to launch, e.g.: kaputnik, flopnik, stay-putnik. Later on this suffix appeared in occasionalisms, e.g.: knowhownik - ñïåöèàëèñò, óìåëåö, nofoodnik, re-fusenik (÷åëîâåê, êîòîðîìó îòêàçàëè â ïîëó÷åíèè âèçû).

Neologisms of this type (the main function of which is to show some extra features of the phenomenon) are met mainly in press, in newspaper style, i.e. in the style which immediately reflects all the events in the country and the world. Such neologisms often penetrate into other languages as cliche (êàëüêè) either in their national form, or translated. E.g. in English we have from Chinese: a great leap; in German from English - die Teenagers. They are formed for use at the moment of speech.

In fiction the main function of neologisms is the function of expressing the author's attitude to the facts of reality, that's why the greater part of the writers' neologisms are characterised by a great emotional meaning, the greater part of them do not live long. They are occasionalisms.

Ways of Word-Forming of Neologisms

Formation of neologisms with the help of affixation Here one must mention two important factors: enlarging of the role of prefixation and of the productivity of some prefixes and suffixes which were not such before.

Neologisms formed by prefixation federation - ïðåêðàùàòü íîðìèðîâàíèå (îòìåíèòü êàðòî÷íóþ ñèñòåìó); decontaminate - îáåççàðàæèâàòü; de-icer - àíòèîáëåäåíèòåëü; de-froster -àíòèîáëåäåíèòåëü; de-requisition - âîçâðàò.

Neologisms formed by suffixation:

-ize

villagize, finalize - ñäåëàòü îêîí÷àòåëüíûì;

-åå

doctee - ïàöèåíò, teachee - ó÷åíèê, ñòóäåíò; examinee - ýêçàìåíóåìûé; amputee, interrogatee, electee, askee, interviewee, autobiographee.

Compounding remains to be productive in forming both terminological and stylistic neologisms. Usually it is a mere combination of free forms: barfly - a frequent visitor of bars; bottom-dollar - ïîñëåäíÿÿ êîïåéêà; blood-transfusion; a frogman - âîäîëàç; jobhunting; slot-machine; backroom boys (men, engaged in secret research); paperback books - êíèæêè â îáëîæêå; aerolift - ïåðåáðîñêà, äîñòàâêà ïî âîçäóõó; wall-flower - a girl who stands near the wall as she is not invited to dance; blood-money - ïðåìèÿ, âûäàâàåìàÿ çà óíè÷òîæåíèå ñàìîëåòà ïðîòèâíèêà; gold-digger - æåíùèíà, ñòðåìÿùàÿñÿ íàéòè áîãàòîãî ïîêðîâèòåëÿ; baby-sitter, TV baby-sitter; blooddo-nors - ñëàáîðàçâèòûå ñòðàíû, îòêóäà âûêà÷èâàþò âñå, ÷òî ìîæíî; ghostwriter - ëèöî, ñî÷èíÿþùåå ðå÷è è ñòàòüè çà âèäíûõ äåÿòåëåé.

Shortening, e.g.: ad, adverts - advertisement; coke - coca-cola; telist - telegraphist; co-ed - co-education; sput - sputnik; prefab - prefabricated (thing).

Blending is not a very productive type of forming neologisms. The examples are the following:

transeiver - transmitter + receiver; sportcast - sport + broadcast; popcert - popular + concert; yarden - yard + garden; musicomedy - musical comedy;

Conversion is widely used to form neologisms, not only simple words, but manysyliable words and even word-combinations: to garage - ïîñòàâèòü â ãàðàæ, to pinpoint - òî÷íî óêàçàòü ìåñòîíàõîæäåíèå, to featherbed - îãðàäèòü îò ýêîíîìè÷åñêèõ çàòðóäíåíèé, to crash-land - ðàçáèòüñÿ ïðè ïîñàäêå, to force-land - ñîâåðøèòü âûíóæäåííóþ ïîñàäêó, to belly-land - ïðèçåìëèòüñÿ áåç øàññè, a knowhow - òåõíè÷åñêèå çíàíèÿ, the under-eighteens - ïîäðîñòêè, the over-forties - ëþäè ñâûøå 40, a hand-out - îôèöèàëüíîå çàÿâëåíèå, à must - íåîáõîäèìîñòü, to baby-girl - ðîäèòü äåâî÷êó.

Change of meaning, e.g.: angel - ÷åëîâåê, îêàçûâàþùèé ìàòåðèàëüíóþ ïîääåðæêó, climate -ñëîæèâøàÿñÿ (ïîëèòè÷åñêàÿ) îáñòàíîâêà, coach - íàòàñêèâàòü; umbrella -1. ïðèêðûòèå ñàìîëåòà; 2. ïîëèòè÷åñêàÿ çàùèòà; floor - ñàìûé íèçêèé óðîâåíü öåí; to pase the baby - ñïèõíóòü êàêîå-ëèáî äåëî íà äðóãîãî; leftest - ëåâûé (â ïîëèòèêå); to men - êîìïëåêòîâàòü ëþäüìè; ceiling -ìàêñèìàëüíàÿ öåíà; headache - ïðåäìåò èëè îáñòîÿòåëüñòâî, ðàçäðàæàþùåå èëè ïðè÷èíÿþùåå íåïðèÿòíîñòè.

Borrowings, e.g.: sputnik, lunnik, lunokhod; glassnost, perestroika; Reichkanzler, Blitzkrieg, Luftwaffe.

27. Obsolete and archaic words

The vocabulary of a language never remains stable. There are constant changes in the semantic structure of any language. Words appear, undergo a number of phonetic and semantic changes and finally pass completely out of use. The disappearance of various things, phenomena, etc. causes either complete disappearance of their names or turns them into «representatives» of a previous epoch.

Many words become obsolete in ordinary language, but remain in poetry, in books conforming to a definite style, in oratory, etc. A great many archaisms survive in English dialects.

The fate of obsolete words may be different. We distinguish two groups of obsolete words: historical terms (historisms) and archaisms proper.

Historisms are names of things and phenomena which passed out of use with the development of social, economical, cultural life of society but which retain historical importance. Unlike archaisms, historical terms have no synonyms in Modern English: they are only names of things and notions which refer to the past of the English people.

The sphere of these words is restricted with scientific literature or with books and novels dealing with certain historical periods. There are lots of historisms in the historical novels of W.Scott and other English authors, e.g.:

1. words of social position: yeomen - éîìåí, knight - ðûöàðü, scribe - ïèñåö;

2. names of arms and words connected with war: battle ax - áîåâîé òîïîðèê, musket - ìóøêåò, visor - çàáðàëî, warrior - âîèí, sword - ìå÷, halberd - àëåáàðäà, cross-bow - ñàìîñòðåë, coat of mail - êîëü÷óãà, gauntlet - ðûöàðñêàÿ ïåð÷àòêà = ëàòíàÿ ðóêàâèöà, archer - ñòðåëîê èç ëóêà, spear - êîïüå;

3. types of vessels: galley - ãàëåðà, frigate - ôðåãàò, caravel - êàðàâåëëà;

4. types of carts which went out of use: brougham - îäíîìåñòíàÿ êàðåòà, chaise - ôàýòîí, ëåãêàÿ ïîâîçêà ñ îòêðûòûì âåðõîì, hansom - äâóõìåñòíûé ýêèïàæ, ãäå ñèäåíèå êó÷åðà ðàñïîëîæåíî ïîçàäè è íåñêîëüêî âûøå ìåñò äëÿ ñåäîêîâ, coach - êàðåòà (ïî÷òîâàÿ);

5. names of old musical instruments: lute - ëþòíÿ, lyre - ëèðà.

The number of historisms which reflect the social life and culture of the past is very great.

Archaisms proper are obsolete words denoting real things and phenomena, but the words themselves are no longer found in ordinary English: they were substituted by others, obsolete words becoming their stylistic synonyms.

We distinguish lexical and grammatical archaisms. Grammatical archaisms are forms of words which went out of use with the development of the grammar system of the English language:

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