American English, lexical meaning and word structure

A semantic loan is the borrowing of a meaning for a word already existing in the English language e.g. the compound word shock brigade which existed in the English language with the meaning "аварийная бригада" acquired a new meaning "ударная бригада" which it borrowed from the Russian language.

Latin Loans are classified into the subgroups.

1. Early Latin Loans. Those are the words which came into English through the language of Anglo-Saxon tribes. The tribes had been in contact with Roman civilisation and had adopted several Latin words denoting objects belonging to that civilisation long before the invasion of Angles, Saxons and Jutes into Britain (cup, kitchen, mill, port, wine).

2. Later Latin Borrowings. To this group belong the words which penetrated the English vocabulary in the sixth and seventh centuries, when the people of England were converted to Christianity (priest, bishop, nun, candle).

3. The third period of Latin includes words which came into English due to two historical events: the Norman conquest in 1066 and the Renaissance or the Revival of Learning. Some words came into English through French but some were taken directly from Latin (major, minor, intelligent, permanent).

4. The Latest Stratum of Latin Words. The words of this period are mainly abstract and scientific words (nylon, molecular, vaccine, phenomenon, vacuum).

Norman-French Borrowings may be subdivided into subgroups:

1. Early loans - 12th - 15th century

2. Later loans - beginning from the 16th century.

The Early French borrowings are simple short words, naturalised in accordance with the English language system (state, power, war, pen, river) Later French borrowings can be identified by their peculiarities of form and pronunciation (regime, police, ballet, scene, bourgeois).

The Etymological Structure of the English Vocabulary:

The Native element:

I. Indo-European element

II. Germanic element

III. English proper element (brought by Angles, Saxons and Jutes not earlier than 5th c. A.D.)

The Borrowed Element:

I. Celtic (5-6th c. A.D.)

II. Latin: 1st group: B.C.

2nd group: 7th c AD

3d group: the Renaissance period

III. Scandinavian (8-11 th c. A.D.)

IV. French: 1. Norman borrowings (11-13th c. A.D.); 2. Parisian borrowings (Renaissance)

V. Greek

VI. Italian (Renaissance and later)

VII. Spanish (Renaissance)

VIII. German

IX. Indian and others

Translation-Loans. This term is equivalent to borrowing. They are not taken into the vocabulary of another language more or less in the same phonetic shape in which they have been functioning in their own language, but undergo the process of translation. It is obvious that it is only compound words, which can be subjected to such an operation, each stem being translated separately. Ex: collective farm (колхоз); wonder child (Wunderkind); five-year plan (пятилетка) ----(calques).

Билет 30. Assimilation. Types of assimilation. Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation

Assimilation of a loan word is a partial or total conformation to the phonetic, graphical and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system. The degree of assimilation depends upon:

1) the length of period during which the word has been used in the receiving language;

2) its importance for communication purpose;

3) its frequency.

The degree of assimilation of loan words - 3 groups:

completely assimilated loan words;

partially assimilated loan words;

non-assimilated loan words or barbarisms.

Latin borrowings: cheese, street, wall, wine. Scandinavian loan words: husband, fellow gate, root, call, die, take, want, happy, ill, add, wrong. French: table, chair, fall, figure, finish, matter.

Completely assimilated words follow all morphological, phonetic and orthographic standards of English.

Partly assimilated words:

1. Loan words not assimilated semantically because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they come: sari, sombrero, shah, rickshaw;

2. Words not assimilated grammatically (nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek, which keep their original plural forms: bacillus - bacilli, crisis - crises, phenomenon - phenomena;

3. Loan words not completely assimilated phonetically: machine, cartoon, police, regime, bourgeois;

4. Loan words not completely assimilated graphically. This group is large and variegated: ballet, buffet, cafй.

Barbarism is a word borrowed without any change in form: habeas, corpus, alibi, de-facto.

Билет 31. Etymological doublets. International words

Etymological Doublets

Etymological doublets [d?blits] are two words of the same language which were derived from different roots from the same basic words.

Latin - French

abbreviate( Lat.) (сокращать слова) - abridge (Lat.) (сокращать рассказы)

canal (Lat.) - channel (Fr.)

captain (Lat.) - chieftan ( Fr.)

cart (Lat.) - chart ( Fr.)

Scandinavian - English

screw (Sc.) (винт) - shrew (Eng.) (сварливая тётушка)

skirt (Sc.) - shirt ( Eng.)

major (Lat.) - mayor (Fr.)

International Words

Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous borrowings from one and the same source are called international words.

control - контроль, general - генерал, industry - индустрия

We find numerous English words in the field of sports: football, match, time, pullover, sweater film, club, cocktail, jazz;

Words of international currency borrowed from Russian have spread all over the world:soviet, sputnik, kolkhoz, perestroika, glasnost.

Билет 32. Regional varieties of the English language. Standard variant and dialects. Accent and Dialect

Standard English -- 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 may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognised as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialecticisms. Local dialeсts are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalised literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. In Great Britain there are two variants, Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group contains several (up to ten) dialects.

One of the best known Southern dialects is Cockney, the regional dialect of London. According to E. Partridge and H.C. Wylde, this dialect exists on two levels. As spoken by the educated lower middle classes it is a regional dialect marked by some deviations in pronunciation but few in vocabulary and syntax. As spoken by the uneducated, Cockney differs from Standard English not only in pronunciation but also in vocabulary, morphology and syntax. G.B. Shaw's play “Pygmalion” clearly renders this level of Cockney as spoken at the time when the play was written and reveals the handicap Cockney obviously presents in competition with speakers of standard English. Professor Henry Higgins, the main character of the play, speaking about Eliza Doolittie, the flower girl, says: You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass this girl off as a duchess ... even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant which requires better English.

“The Encyclopaedia Britannica” treats Cockney as an accent, not acknowledging it the status of dialect.

Cockney has attracted much literary attention, and so we can judge of its past and present on the evidence of literature. As recorded by Ch. Dickens over a century ago, Cockney was phonetically characterised by the interchange of the labial and labio-dental consonants [w] and [v]: wery for very and vell for well. This trait was lost by the end of the 19th century. The voiceless and voiced dental spirants [и] and [?] are still replaced -- though not very consistently -- by [f] and [v] respectively: fing for thing and farver for father (inserting the letter r indicates vowel length). This variation is not exclusively characteristic of Cockney and may be found in several dialects. Another trait not limited to Cockney is the interchange of the aspirated and non-aspirated initial vowels: hart for art and `eart for heart. The most marked feature in vowel sounds is the substitution of the diphthong [ai] for standard [ei] in such words as day, face, rain, way pronounced: [dai], [fais], [rain], [wai].

There are some specifically Cockney words and set expressions such as up the pole `drunk', you'll get yourself disliked (a remonstrance to a person behaving very badly).

Cockney is lively and witty and its vocabulary imaginative and colourful. Its specific feature not occurring anywhere else is the so-called rhyming slang, in which some words are substituted by other words rhyming with them. Boots, for instance, are called daisy roots, hat is tit for tat, head is sarcastically called loaf of bread, and wife -- trouble and strife. It has set expressions of its own. Here is an example of a rather crude euphemistic phrase for being dead: “She may have pulled me through me operation,” said Mrs Fisher, “but `streuth I'm not sure I wouldn't be better off pushing up the daisies, after all.” (M. Dickens)

The study of dialects has been made on the basis of information obtained with the help of special techniques: interviews, questionnaires, recording by phonograph and tape-recorder, etc. Data collected in this way show the territorial distribution of certain key words and pronunciations which vary from region to region.

Dialects are now chiefly preserved in rural communities, in the speech of elderly people. Their boundaries have become less stable than they used to be; the distinctive features are tending to disappear with the shifting of population due to the migration of working-class families in search of employment and the growing influence of urban life over the countryside. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema.

For the most part dialect in literature has been limited to speech characterisation of personages in books otherwise composed in Standard English. There are Yorkshire passages in “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontл, and Lancashire passages in “Mary Barton” by E. Gaskell. A Southern dialect (that of Dorset) is sometimes introduced by Th. Hardy, A. Tennyson used Lancashire dialect in two of his poems reproducing peasant speech ("Northern Farmer: Old Style” and “Northern Farmer: New Style").

“The Northern Farmer: Old Style” is the monologue of a dying old man. He knows that his death is near and is resigned to it: “If I must die I must die.” He wants his nurse to bring him ale, although doctor has forbidden it. The last stanza runs as follows: “What atta stannin' theer for, an' doesn bring ma the yaдle? Doctor's a `tattier, lass, an a's hallus V the owd taдle; I weдnt break rules for Doctor, a knows now moor nora floy, Git ma my yaдle I tell tha, an gin I тип doy I тип doy.” (Tennyson)

The dialect vocabulary is remarkable for its conservatism: many words that have become obsolete in standard English are still kept in dialects, e. g. to and `envy' < OE andian; barge `pig' < OE berg; bysen `blind' < OE bisene and others.

According to O. Jespersen, however, dialect study suffered from too much attention being concentrated on the “archaic” traits. “Every survival of an old form, every trace of old sounds that have been dropped in standard speech, was greeted with enthusiasm, and the significance of these old characteristics greatly exaggerated, the general impression being that popular dialects were always much more conservative than the speech of educated people. It was reserved for a much later time to prove that this view is completely erroneous, and that popular dialects in spite of many archaic details are on the whole further developed than the various standard languages with their stronger tradition and literary reminiscences."1

The standard work of reference in dialect study is Joseph Wright's “English Dialect Dictionary”.

After this brief review of dialects we shall now proceed to the discussion of variants.

The Scottish Tongue and the Irish English have a special linguistic status as compared with dialects because of the literature composed in them. The name of Robert Burns, the great national poet of Scotland, is known all over the world. There is a whole group of modern poets including Hugh MacDiarmid writing in this variant of the English language.

Some traits of Anglo-Irish may be observed in the following lines from “The Playboy of the Western World” by J.M. Synge: I've told my story no place till this night, Pegeen Mike, and it's foolish I was here, maybe, to be talking free, but you're decent people, I'm thinking, and yourself a kindly woman, the way I was not fearing you at all.

Pegeen exemplifies the diminutive suffix found in Standard English only in loan-words. The emphatic personal pronoun yourself appears in a non-appositional construction. Cf. also It was yourself started it (O'Casey). The main peculiarities concern syntax, and they are reflected in some form words. The concrete connective word the way substitutes the abstract conjunction so that. Cf. also the time that, the while for when, and all times for always. E.g.: I'd hear himself snoring out -- a loud, lonesome snore he'd be making all times, the while he was sleeping', and he a man'd be raging all times the while he was waking (Synge). The Anglo-Irish of J.M. Synge, however, should not be taken as a faithful reproduction of real speech, as it is imbued with many romantic poetic archaisms.

Words from dialects and variants may penetrate into Standard English. The Irish English gave, for instance, blarney n `flattery', bog n `a spongy, usually peaty ground of marsh'. This word in its turn gave rise to many derivatives and compounds, among them bog-trotter, the ironical nickname for Irishman. Shamrock (a trifoliate plant, the national emblem of Ireland) is a word used quite often, and so is the noun whiskey.

The contribution of the Scottish dialect is very considerable. Some of the most frequently used Scotticisms are: bairn `child', billy `chum', bonny `handsome', brogue `a stout shoe', glamour `charm', laddie, lassie, kilt, raid, slogan, tartan, wee, etc.

A great deal in this process is due to Robert Burns who wrote his poems in Scottish English, and to Walter Scott who introduced many Scottish words into his novels.

Билет 33. American English

Facts about British English and American English:

1) A great majority of words used in Britain and in the USA are identical. The same is true of grammar forms. The difference between the variants is mostly apparent in pronunciation.

2) The literary language used in the USA is identical with the one used in Great Britain.

3) Word-building, morphology and syntax are identical too.

The English language first came to America at the beginning of the 17th century. The first period of the history of American English includes the 18th century as well. The 1st English colonists who settled in America were Shakespeare's contemporaries. At that time, the English language became a national language. The London dialect became standard English.

At that time the sound R was pronounced in every position, e.g. (pa:rt; fa:r).

Before voiceless consonants, fricatives, in such words as (ask, fast, path), [ ж ] was pronounced as before any other consonant in a closed syllable.

In closed syllables in the words of type (stop, lock, rob), [ ? ] was pronounced which in the 18th century became [ ? ], in America ) [ ? ] is preserved in this position, e.g. (st?p, l?k).

In most cases the difference in the vocabulary is due to the borrowings, which appeared both in British English and American English. Some words connected with the life of American natives (Indians) came into American English, such as: moccasin, squaw, medicine-man, war-path, papoose, wigwam, skunk.

Some words were borrowed from languages of other colonists in America, e.g. such words as (cocky, boss) were borrowed from Dutch.

The second period of the history of American English includes the 19th and 20th century. The formation of the new state, of the USA with their specific state and political system brought many new words into American English, e.g.: Congress, Senate, President, Vice-President.

The growth of American industry and agriculture made it necessary to form special terms, which are different now with British English

There are some slang words that are Americanisms: bum factory (ночлежка); hold-up (вооруженный налет); slush money (деньги для подкупа).

There are some differences in the spelling between British and American English due to well-known American scientist Webster.

The simplifications in spelling (Webster):

1) Words having the suffix -our (labour, favour) were simplified in the spelling and have the suffix -or in American English (flavor, labor).

2) Words having -ce at the end in British English have -se in American. (defence-defense)

3) Words ending in -re in British have -er in American (theatre-thearter)

4) Some words of French origin have letters at the end that are not pronounced, in American English these letters are not spelled.



Билет 34. Types of dictionaries

Dictionary is listing of the words of a language, usually in alphabetical order but sometimes also by topic, with their meanings or their equivalents. A dictionary' may also contain pronunciations, syllabications, etymologies (word histories), and examples of usage. Some dictionaries are called encyclopedic, because they not only define words but also offer additional descriptive and explanatory information and identify many biographical and geographical names. A famous encyclopedic dictionary is the French 19th-century dictionary encyclopedia the Grand dictionnaire universe! (17 volumes, 1865-1890), compiled by Pierre

Athanase Larousse. The greatest such American work is the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (revised edition, 12 volumes, 1911), edited by American linguist William Dwight Whitney.

STANDARD EUROPEAN DICTIONARIES

The earliest polyglot (multilingual) dictionary of modern languages, the work of Italian monk Ambrogio Calepino, appeared in 1502. Originally compiled as a Latin-Greek lexicon, it grew to include Italian, French, and Spanish; the 1590 Basel edition included 11 languages.

DICTIONARIES IN BRITAIN

The Oxford dictionaries have made good use of technological advances and exist in several forms. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, a 2-volume photographically reduced version of the 13-volume set, became available in 1971. In 1987 The Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM was published (see CD-ROM). The second edition of the CD-ROM version was issued in 1992. With the release of the OED on the Internet in 2000, subscribers gained access not only to the 1989 version but also to the work of editors revising it, an effort expected to reach completion in 2010.

DICTIONARIES IN THE UNITED STATES

The first important contribution to lexicography in the United States was The American Spelling Book (1783), issued by educator and lexicographer Noah Webster as the first part of his Grammatical Institute of the English Language (1783-1785). A number of well-known dictionaries came into existence between 1947 and 1969. The wide success of the American College Dictionary (1947), edited by Clarence L. Barnhart, proved that new opportunities existed in the dictionary market. Barnhart went on to edit the two-volume World Book Dictionary (1963) through several editions. Other new entrants in the field were Webster's New World Dictionary (4th college edition, 1999); Random House dictionaries (2nd unabridged edition, 1987; 2nd college edition, 1997); and the American

Heritage Dictionary (4th edition, 2000).

DICTIONARIES OF SPECIAL INTEREST

Specialized and scholarly dictionaries have made major advances in the last century.

Noteworthy dictionaries of slang and popular usage include the Dictionary of Sldng and Unconventional English. Other sorts of dictionaries aim at practical everyday benefit. A number of publishers of textbooks issue dictionaries for students, with separate titles for various levels, from first readers to high school.

ELECTRONIC DICTIONARIES

Computers have been important tools in lexicography for decades; the need to store, sort, and retrieve huge amounts of linguistic information drew publishers to electronic methods.

Today publishers and universities maintain corpora (collections of language, published or recorded from speech) amounting to tens of millions of words that can be searched in moments.

A lexicographer can see not only individual occurrences of a word, but also occurrences sorted by nearby words, by grammatical form, or by context. Computational linguists use such data to analyze language patterns along with word meanings, with the overall goal of enabling computers to understand and generate language as skillfully as human users do.

Билет 35. Theory of nomination. Types of names

Nomination - 1) the process of denoting ('naming') things, the linguistic part of which consists in the act of connecting a certain denotatum/designatum with a sign/designator. Typology of ns.:

a) according to the number of acts of n. a certain sign takes part in:

- primary n.;

- secondary nomination (q.v);

b) according to various linguistic means employed in n.:

- lexical n. - n. of a concept by means of lexical items as opposed to concepts expressed grammatically;

- propositive n. - expression of concepts of propositional nature by means of propositions.

2) a name; a linguistic unit denoting an extralinguistic entity. Typology of names:

According to the nature of extralinguistic entity denoted names/nominations can by subdivided into:

names of classes vs. names of individual objects;

names of objects vs. names of properties (qualities, features)

Secondary nomination - the process and the result of derivational processes in the vocabulary, when an already existing name is used for the second time to denote another referent. However, the term is assumed to be incorrect because for each referent the process of nomination is always a primary and the only act of nomination.

Although we can speak of secondary (or multiple) use of one the same name in nomination acts.

THEORY OF NOMINATION

The word, the phrase and the sentence are the basic nom.units of the lang., it means that they are united by nominative function, the ability to.

The process of nomination is going names to things, objects, phenomena, qualities, actions.

The process of semiosis- something serves as a sign.

It takes places when we address smb., exchange information, present something to somebody showing our love and respect, when a painter paints his picture, when we nod or shake our head.

Nomination and semiosis are performed simultaneously.

When we give name to an object we ascribe some meaning to it.

Our language reflects the structure of the world, but not directly, it reflects the world through our conceptual sphere => language reflects our conceptualization of the world.

Words are symbols, they represent objects.

There are 2 steps of conceptualization:

The formation of a concept or an image.

Establishing a link between the conception and the linguistic sign.

Nomination always presupposes idealization.

Idealization- the formation of abstractions.

Mental representation of objects, properties and relations- abstractions.

The results of this are reflected with the help of linguistic signs. Words mirror concepts through our perception of the world.

Conclusion:

Languages are semiotic system which operate with signs.

Signs are bilateral entities. They have signifier and signified ( the plane of content, the plane of expression).

Signs convey some meaning which is enveloped in a certain form.

Linguistic signs differ from each other according to the type of nomination and referential function which they form.

Nomination

Universal. One word. (one object - one word)

Multiverbal. more than one verb. a writing table. a mother-in-law

3 types of motivation of nomination:

Phonetic - onomatopoeic words

Morphological - derivatives (teach - teacher)

Semantic - direct & figurative meanings (foot of the mountain)

Primary and secondary nomination

Ex.: sputnik - primary

Flower bed - secondary (the metaphorical use, based on certain similarities observed by the speaker)

Билет 36. Semiosis, types of signs, basic features of linguistic signs

1) THE PROCESS OF SIGN FORMATION;

2) THE PROCESS OF SIGNIFICATION OF A LINGUISTIC SIGN WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THE ACT OF NOMINATION (Q.V.). THERE ARE TWO MODES OF S. DISTINGUISHED IN MODERN LINGUISTICS:

PRIMARY S. - ENDOWING A WORD WITH MEANING IN THE PRIMARY ACT OF NOMINATION;

SECONDARY S. - APPEARANCE OF SENSE (Q.V.) IN AN UTTERANCE IN A CURRENT PARTICULAR ACT OF COMMUNICATION WHICH INVOLVES ACTUALIZATION OF MEANING OF EVERY WORD IN THE GIVEN UTTERANCE AND ALL POSSIBLE ASSOCIATIVE, SEMIO-IMPLICATIONAL, CONTEXTUAL ADDITIONS TO THEIR VIRTUAL MEANING. Semasiology is a discipline within linguistics concerned with the question "what does the word X mean?". It studies the meaning of words regardless of their phonetic expression. Semasiology departs from a word or lexical expression and asks for its meaning, its different senses, i.e. polysemy. The opposite approach is known as onomasiology.

The process of semiosis- something serves as a sign.

It takes places when we address smb., exchange information, present something to somebody showing our love and respect, when a painter paints his picture, when we nod or shake our head.

All these processes are different, but they have the same structure from the point of view of semiosis.

It consists of 3 components:

1)sign знаковое средство

2)interpreter or user пользователь

3)designatum ( what the sign means) дисигнант (то, что знак выражает)

Non-linguistic signs

A road sign has 2 aspects:

arises directly from the visual symbol itself- the signifier.

IS what the sign means- signification.

The signifier conveys the meaning of message- signification.

Road signs are conventional (all the symbols are clear enough, it has meaning for a person who's familiar with this code). They are chosen by some agreement between people (traffic light).

Linguistic signs:

the signifier, signification

arbitrary and conventional

In linguistic signs the signifier is represented by the vocal or graphic component.

The signification is what the signifier means/signifies (e.g. an article of furniture) the signification - the semantic content (the difference between linguistic and non-linguistic signs -> non-linguistic signs are unambiguous (однозначны)

Traffic light “red” -> only “stop”

Linguistic signs can tell us a lot about the cultures of various speech communities, language is a special way of looking at the world and interpreting experience.

The relations «signifier- signification» are not fixed. This is the well- know law of sign conversion (semiotic conversion ) by С.О.Карцевский (asymmetric dualism of the linguistic sign- ассиметричный дуализме языкового знака)

There is no one to one correspondence between signifier and signification.

striking differences between linguistic and non-linguistic signs:

1.) Linguistics signs are often complex

Disc-jockey (is composed of 2 signs when we add them together the meaning changes)

2.) Ling.signs depend on context

We can't say what “wood” meanы alone

3.) Ling/signs are creative, flexible and adaptable

Desk - an article of furniture

Saussure: 1.Linguistic signs are natural, because languages are the only natural systems of communication for people.

2. The linear character of the linguistic sign can represent themselves in time and space only in the form of a line (chain)

3. Immutability and mutability at the same time being natural adaptive systems languages change in time causing changes of linguistic signs, but at the same time they possess certain stability because they are used for the purposes of communication.

Language is a complex:

House - can be used in universal sense to cover a range of houses or a particular house. -> The elements of language are associated with whole groups of experience and not with a single experience.

Language is a kind of catalogue, the world is ordered prier to perception by man into perfectly distinct categories of objects.

Semiotic, semiology- a general science of signs.

It studies signs, sign phenomena, sign using.

Charles Morris- semiotics consists of 3 parts:

1)Pragmatics - sign - user relations.

2)Semantics - sign - referent relations. We abstract from the user and analyse only the expression and their meaning. 3)Syntax - sign- sign relations. We abstract from the meaning and analyse only the relations between expressions.

Charles Pierce- gave his original definition of a sign and classified the signs. A sign is smth. which stands to somebody for something. 3 main types of signs:

1)Icons (resembles its referent)- there are 2 kinds of them: diagram & image

The dog on the gate -> Beware of the dog.

2)Indexes are associated with their referents.

A smoke is an index of fire.

High temperature -> illness

3)Symbols is related to its referent only by convention.

Mathematical signs

Traffic light signals.

Signs classification by С.О.Карцевский

1)Иконическая- подобие означаемого и означающего. «собака на воротах» Ч. Пирс

Иконические:

- Образы(images) (морда собаки на воротах)

- Диаграммы(diagram) (сходство означаемого с означающим в соотношении частей) pie-chart «Я тебя жду» «Я тебя жду-жду»

2)Индексы основаны на отношении смежности.

Дым- индекс огня

Покраснения кожи лица - стыд

Индексы в языке: указательные местоимения (тот, этот)

3)Символы основаны на условности (математический корень квадратный)

Билет 37. Cognitive & pragmatic meaning of the word

Denotation (denotational/denotative meaning) - 1) the part of lexical semantics which involves the relationship between a linguistic unit (a lexical item) and the non-linguistic entities to which it refers. It is thus equivalent to referential meaning-1; 2) the type of meaning which reflects the concept of a class and is actualised by lexical items in situations when they denote a class of referents/denotata, is supported by the generalising and classifying function of the articles; 3) the expression of the core/main/central/cognitive meaning, meaning proper of a linguistic unit in contrast to its connotation (q.v.). E.g. the denotation of dog is the animal characterized by certain features discriminating it from cats, whales, elephants, its connotation might include helper, friend, etc.

Cognition, - human cognition in relation to language; cognitive-linguistic processes and mechanisms of conceptualization, verbalization, nomination, reference, categorization, etc.

Pragmatics - 1) according to Ch.Morris, one of the three dimensions of the sign (syntax, semantics, pragmatics), 'sign-user' relationships; 2) general study of language from the point of the user, its intentions, verbal behaviour, etc.

Cognitive meaning represents the information about the world (the referent)

Pragmatic component presents our subjunctive attitude towards the world and its elements (depends on our life experience)

Both of them or only one of them is represented in the structure of lexical meaning.

1) Most words are pragmatically neutral (only cognitive component in the structure of their meaning) chair, desk, pen - they are free from expressing subjunctive attitude to the referent.

2) “fascist” - cognitive and pragmatic components

3) sometimes cognitive components are switched off & pragmatic component plays the leading role (ругательства) “mother”

The difference between extension & contention lies in the difference between the contents & the volume of the notion.

Contentional meaning reflects the structure of essential features of the notion.

Extension: a number of denotater to which its name refers: godmother, biological mother, mother-in-law.

Both components are variable.

1) They have got a parrot. This parrot has been with them for a long time. This parrot is a funny creature.

2) How long can a parrot live?

In this two examples the word PARROT changes its extensional.

1 - a representative of a class (denotative - конкретный)

2 - a name of a class (significative - усредненный)

the contentional is also different:

2) A bird living in some tropical countries, exotic bird, is able to speak

1) 2 + a concrete bird living with them

(more features of contentional meaning)

Not all the words have extensional meaning.

Names of properties (признаковые слова)

Verbs, adjectives, adverbs - don't have the extensional meaning, because they are non-referential.

(они не могут выступать в репрезантивной функции они могут только описывать то, что уже описано другим именем(существительным)

A name has a denotative meaning if it represents a representative of a class.

When it represents the class in general it has significative meaning.

1. This is the house that Jack built.

2. A good laugh is sunshine in the house

general idea of the house

1 - denotative

2 - significative meaning

All common nouns can represent both a representative of a class & some class in general.

They can have either denotative or significative meanings.

Proper names can represent only a representative of a class. They can't represent a the class in general. They have no intentional. They have only denotative meaning.

Some linguists use the term “connotational meaning” instead of the term “pragmatic meaning”

“dog”

semiotic - (sign) - dog

cognitive - an animal kept as a pet

used for hunting and guarding

pragmatic - devoted, friend - positive

wicked, bites, evil - negative

intentional - animal +

pet +

mammal +

used for hunting and guarding +

carnivorous +

extensional - different kinds of dogs (breeds)

significative - a dog is a man's friend

How long can a dog live?

Denotative - I have a dog. This dog lives with me for a long time.

Implicational - 1. rigid implication: 4 paws, a tail, barks

2. strong implication: runs fast. Bites

3. weak implication: can swim

4. negative implication: a speaking dog

Componential analysis of meaning - linguistic analysis of the semantic structure of a word (a monosemantic word or a lexico-semantic variant of a polysemantic unit) as constituted by a set of minimal elements of sense - semes.

COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS

Is linguistic analysis of the semantic structure of a word? It can be a monosemantic word or lexico-semantic variant of polysemantic word.

The meaning of any word can be represented in a form of a structure, semantic components of the words' meaning form a hierarchy.

Is an investigation of the structural organization & interrelations of the semantic components of the words' meaning?

Lexical meaning is a complicated dynamic whole & its constituency is semes.

A seme is a minimal unit of sense, an atom of lexical semantics distinguished on the basis of oppositions by method of componential analysis.

A seme is not expressed in a word in any material unit but it's revealed & singled out through interrelations of the word with other words on a paradigmatic & syntagmatic levels.

The sem. structure of a word can be represented graphically:

Father =

human - seme

Adult - seme

Male - seme

Parent - seme

human, adult, male, parent - they are semes!

1) Componential analysis is very popular in linguistics; it shows heterogeneity, complexity of lexical meaning.

2) Componential analysis helps to differentiate between words (especially between synonyms) the difference between small & little lies in the presence of an additional seme (pleasant, nice) in the word “little” > not absolute synonyms.

3) Componential analysis helps to explain semantic derivation (metaphor, metonymy, etc.)

4) Componential analysis to create the so called language of semantic primitives - minimal units of sense.

Seme (same as Sememe, Semantic component) - minimal unit of sense, an 'atom' of lexical semantics, distinguished on the basis of oppositions by methods applied in componential analysis.

Typology of semes.:

- categorial s.;

- denotative/connotative s.;

- differential s.;

- covert/overt s.;

- occasional s.;

- potential s.

TYPOLOGY OF SEMES.

Semes differ in many aspects:

- the role they play & the place they occupy in their structure.

- Interrelations between each other

- Dependence of all the context

- Participation in formation an actual meaning

- The role they play in secondary nomination or in semantic

1) Cognitive & pragmatic semes “dog” cognitive semes - living being

- animal

- domestic

- carnivorous (плотоядный)

pragmatic semes - friend

- devoted

- understanding

- silent

2) Extralinguistically bound & linguistically bound (appear as a result of pragmatic (mostly cognitive, factors, show the attitude of part & parcel of language users towards word lexical meaning) reference) fascist - negative connotations, extralinguistic bound among extralinguistically semes can be cultural bound.

The English notion of freedom is negatively oriented

Freedom - non-imposition, the possibility of choice (if you are free you can be sure that you will be left alone, won't be imposed anybody's wills)

Russian conception of freedom - the idea of absence of outer restrictions.

3) Central & peripheral

Central - belonging to the core of the word meaning (belong to the intention)

Father - male, parent, human

- adult (peripheral)

4) Categorial & non-categorial (hypersemes) (hyposemes)

bathe - swim for pleasure or for the medical reasons

swim - through water

float - to stay on a surface without sinking

sail - in a ship or boat

1 hyperseme - to move in the water

but hyposemes are different

they show - type of movement, use of transport means, type of agent

5) Actual & potential

potential can be generated in some particular content

Билет 39. Denotation and signification

Signification is one of the basic notions of semasiology referring to the virtual ability of linguistic signs to bear the information about their denotata in terms of their indispensable and ascribed properties.

D. Crystal: Signification is that aspect of word's meaning which stresses that 'sign' function of linguistic expressions. Lexical items are viewed upon as signs within the sign system of language vocabulary.

The relationship between sign and thing or sign and concept is Signification.

Signification as the word's systemic meaning within the structure of the lexicon is opposed to denotation as what the word is used to name, hence the opposition significatum vs. denotatum

When words are used literally in their factual objective primary meanings denotation and s. coincides - are brought into agreement.

Semantic changes however go beyond signification, because when words are used to refer to a new object or concept (to name a new thing), they depart from the systematised structure of their meaning (signification), and acquire a new dimension.

Their reference (denotation) is thus being extended to bring about new shades or nuances of meaning.

It can be the process of semantic derivation or the process of the appearance of new connotations. However, in modern semantics the term Signification developed a second (somewhat narrower) reading: significative meaning - type of lexical meaning, non-referential by its nature, which reflects the concept of property/feature as opposed to the concept of class, reflected in denotative meaning (which can thus be termed referential)

Significative meaning is actualised primarily by verbs and adjectives, articles, morphemes.

Denotation (denotational/denotative meaning) is the part of lexical semantics which involves the relationship between a linguistic unit (a lexical item) and the non-linguistic entities to which it refers.

It is thus equivalent to referential or cognitive meaning, 1,2)the type of meaning which reflects the concept of a class and is actualised by lexical items in situations when they denote a class of referents/denotata, is supported by the generalising and classifying function of the articles; 3) the expression of the core/main/central/cognitive meaning, meaning proper of a linguistic unit in contrast to its connotation

E.g. the denotation of dog is the animal characterized by certain features discriminating it from cats, whales, elephants, its connotation might include helper, friend, etc

Implication

This is meaning which a speaker or writer intends but does not communicate directly. Where a listener is able to deduce or infer the intended meaning from what has been uttered, this is known as (conversational) implicature. David Crystal gives this example:

Utterance: “A bus!” > Implicature (implicit meaning): “We must run.”

Semantics is the study of meaning. It is a wide subject within the general study of language.

An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language acquisition (how language users acquire a sense of meaning, as speakers and writers, listeners and readers) and of language change (how meanings alter over time).

It is important for understanding language in social contexts, as these are likely to affect meaning, and for understanding varieties of English and effects of style. It is thus one of the most fundamental concepts in linguistics.

The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured, illustrated, simplified negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased.

Names of objects

Names of properties (признаковые слова)

Verbs, adjectives, adverbs - don't have the extensional meaning, because they are non-referential.

(они не могут выступать в репрезантивной функции они могут только описывать то, что уже описано другим именем (существительным)

A name has a denotative meaning if it represents a representative of a class

When it represents the class in general it has significative meaning.

1. This is the house that Jack built.

2. A good laugh is sunshine in the house general idea of the house

1 - denotative

2 - significative meaning

All common nouns can represent both a representative of a class & some class in general.

They can have either denotative or significative meanings.

Proper names can represent only a representative of a class. They can't represent a the class in general. They have no intentional. They have only denotative meaning.

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