edu.semgu.kz€¦ · web vieware words that were once common but are now replaced by synonyms....

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РЕСПУБЛИКИ КАЗАХСТАНГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ имени ШАКАРИМА г.СЕМЕЙ

Документ СМК 3 уровня УМКДУМКД 042-18-26.1.77/03 2013Учебно-методические

материалы дисциплины «Теоретические основы иностранного языка»

Редакция №1 от ______13г.

УЧЕБНО-МЕТОДИЧЕСКИЙ КОМПЛЕКСДИСЦИПЛИНЫ

«Теоретические основы иностранного языка»для специальности 5В011900 - «Иностранный язык: два иностранных языка»

УЧЕБНО-МЕТОДИЧЕСКИЕ МАТЕРИАЛЫ

Семей 2013

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Редакция №2 от 30.09.2009г страница 2 из 73

Содержание

1 Глоссарий 32 Практические занятия 53 Тестовые задания для самоконтроля 624 Экзаменационные вопросы 685 Самостоятельная работа студентов 68

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1 ГЛОССАРИЙ

В данном УММ использованы следующие термины с соответствующими определениями:

В данных УММ использованы следующие термины с соответствующими определениями:

Abbreviation may be also used for a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in a text in place of the whole for economy of space and effort. Abbreviation is achieved by omission of letters from one or more parts of the whole, as for instance abbr for abbreviation, bldg for building, govt for government, wd for word, doz or dz for dozen, ltd for limited, B.A. for Bachelor of Arts, N.Y. for New York State. Sometimes the part or parts retained show some alteration, thus, oz denotes ounce and Xmas denotes Christmas. Doubling of initial letters shows plural forms as for instance pplp.p. for pages, ll for lines or cc for chapters. These are in fact not separate words but only graphic signs or symbols representing them.

Abstracted form is the use of a part of the word in what seems to be the meaning it contributes. Acronyms (from Gr acros- ‘end'+onym ‘name’) are abbreviations whose abbreviated written

form lends itself to be read as though it were an ordinary English word and sounds like an English word, it will be read like one. This way of forming new words is becoming more and more popular in almost all fields of human activity, and especially in political and technical vocabulary: U.N.O., also UNO ['ju:nou] — United Nations Organisation, NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, SALT—Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

Adaptive system is the system of the vocabulary of a language is moreover an a d a p t i v e s y s t e m constantly adjusting itself to the changing requirements and conditions of human communications and cultural surroundings. It is continually developing by overcoming contradictions between its state and the new tasks and demands it has to meet.

Affix is a derivational morpheme forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or a different word class. Affixes are classified into p r e f i x e s and s u f f i x e s : a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it . Affixes besides the meaning proper to root-morphemes possess the part-of-speech meaning and a generalised lexical meaning.

Affixation (prefixation and suffixation) is the formation of words by adding derivational affixes (prefixes and suffixes) to bases.

Allomorph is defined as a positional variant of one and the same morpheme occurring in a specific environment and so characterised by complementary distribution.

Allonym is a term offered by N.A. Shetchman denoting contextual pairs semantically coordinated like slow and careful, quick and impatient.

American English is the variety of English spoken in the USA.Americanism may be defined as a word or a set expression peculiar to the English language as

spoken in the USA. E. g. cookie ‘a biscuit’; frame-up ‘a staged or preconcerted law case’; guess ‘think’; mail ‘post’; store ‘shop’.

Antonyms may be defined as two or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and often used together so that their denotative meanings render contradictory or contrary notions.antonyms, absolute are root words (right : : wrong).

antonyms derivational are created with the presence of negative affixes (happy : : unhappy).Aphaeresis, aphesis is a word that has been shortened at the beginning, e.g. car (from motor-

car), phone (from telephone), copter (from helicopter), etc.Apocope is a word that has been shortened at the end, e.g. ad (from advertisement), lab (from

laboratory), mike (from microphone), etc.Archaic words are words that were once common but are now replaced by synonyms. When

these new synonymous words, whether borrowed or coined within the English language, introduce nothing conceptually new, the stylistic value of older words tends to be changed; on becoming rare

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they acquire a lofty poetic tinge due to their ancient flavour, and then they are associated with poetic diction.

Some examples will illustrate this statement: aught n ‘anything whatever’, betwixt prp ‘between’, billow n ‘wave’, chide v ‘scold’, damsel n ‘a noble girl’, ere prp ‘before’, even n ‘evening’, forbears n ‘ancestors’, hapless a ‘unlucky’, hark v ‘listen’, lone a ‘lonely’, morn n ‘morning’, perchance adv ‘perhaps’, save prp, cj ‘except’, woe n ‘sorrow’, etc.

Assimilation of synonyms consists in parallel development. This law was discovered and described by G. Stern. H.A. Trebe and G.H. Vallins give as examples the pejorative meanings acquired by the nouns wench, knave and churl which originally meant ‘girl’, ‘boy’ and ‘labourer’ respectively, and point out that this loss of old dignity became linguistically possible, because there were so many synonymous terms at hand.

Australian variant is the variety of English spoken in Australia.Back-formation (also called reversion) is a term borrowed from diachronic linguistics. It denotes

the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure.

Barbarisms are foreign words of phrases, sometimes perverted, e.g. chic, bonmot, en passant, delicatessen, matador, reprimand, helicopter, hippopotamus, marauder, Midi, guerre des baguettes, boulangers, croissants

Bias words are especially characteristic of the newspaper vocabulary reflecting different ideologies and political trends in describing political life. Some authors think these connotations should be taken separately. The term b i a s w o r d s is based on the meaning of the noun bias ‘an inclination for or against someone or something, a prejudice’, e. g. a newspaper with a strong conservative bias.

Blends, blendings are the result of conscious creation of words by merging irregular fragments of several words which are aptly called “splinters.” Splinters assume different shapes — they may be severed from the source word at a morpheme boundary as in transceiver (=transmitter and receiver), transistor (= transfer and resistor) or at a syllable boundary like cute (from execute) in electrocute, medicare (from medical care), polutician (from pollute and politician) or boundaries of both kinds may be disregarded as in brunch (from breakfast and lunch), smog (from smoke and fog), ballute (from baloon and parachute), etc. Many blends show some degree of overlapping of vowels, consonants and syllables or echo the word or word fragment it replaces. This device is often used to attain punning effect, as in foolosopher echoing philosopher; icecapade (= spectacular shows on ice) echoing escapade; baloonatic (= baloon and lunatic).

Borrowed affixes, the term is not very exact as affixes are never borrowed as such, but only as parts of l o a n w o r d s . To enter the morphological system of the English language a borrowed affix has to satisfy certain conditions. The borrowing of the affixes is possible only if the number of words containing this affix is considerable, if its meaning and function are definite and clear enough, and also if its structural pattern corresponds to the structural patterns already existing in the language.

Canadianisms are specifically Canadian words. They are not very frequent outside Canada, except shack ‘a hut’ and fathom out ‘to explain’

Classification is orderly arrangement of the data obtained through observation.Cliché the term comes from the printing trade. The cliché (the word is French) is a metal block

used for printing pictures and turning them out in great numbers. The term is used to denote such phrases as have become hackneyed and stale. Being constantly and mechanically repeated they have lost their original expressiveness and so are better avoided. H.W. Fowler in a burst of eloquence in denouncing them even exclaims: “How many a time has Galileo longed to recant his recantation, as e pur si muove was once more applied or misapplied!"

Clipping refers to the creation of new words by shortening a word of two or more syllables (usually nouns and adjectives) without changing its class membership. Clipped words, though they often exist together with the longer original source word function as independent lexical units with a certain phonetic shape and lexical meaning of their own. The lexical meanings of the clipped word and its source do not as a rule coincide, for instance, doc refers only to ‘one who practices medicine’,

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whereas doctor denotes also ‘the higher degree given by a university and a person who has received it’, e.g. Doctor of Law, Doctor of Philosophy.

Cognate words are words descended from a common ancestor. The cognates of heart are the Latin cor, whence cordial ‘hearty’, ‘sincere’, and so cordially and cordiality, also the Greek kardia, whence English cardiac condition. The cognates outside the English vocabulary are the Russian cepдце, the German Herz, the Spanish corazon and other words.

Colloquial words are words used in illiterate popular speech. Combining form is a bound form but it can be distinguished from an affix historically by the fact that it is always borrowed from another language, namely, from Latin or Greek, in which it existed as a free form, i.e. a separate word, or also as a combining form. They differ from all other borrowings in that they occur in compounds and derivatives that did not exist in their original language but were formed only in modern times in English, Russian, French, etc., сf. polyclinic, polymer; stereophonic, stereoscopic, telemechanics, television. Combining forms are mostly international. Descriptively a combining form differs from an affix, because it can occur as one constituent of a form whose only other constituent is an affix, as in graphic, cyclic.

Componential analysis is a very important method of linguistic investigation and has attracted a great deal of attention. It is usually illustrated by some simple example such as the words man, woman, boy, girl, all belonging to the semantic field “the human race” and differing in the characteristics of age and sex.

Compounds are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms. In a compound word the immediate constituents obtain integrity and structural cohesion that make them function in a sentence as a separate lexical unit. E. g.: I'd rather read a time-table than nothing at all.

Compound adjectives regularly correspond to free phrases. Thus, for example, the type threadbare consists of a noun stem and an adjective stem. The relation underlying this combination corresponds to the phrase ‘bare to the thread’. Examples are: airtight, bloodthirsty, carefree, heartfree, media-shy, noteworthy, pennywise, poundfoolish, seasick, etc.

Compound derivatives: see Derivational compounds Compound nouns are endocentric and exocentr ic compounds.In endocen tric nouns

the referent is named by one of the elements and given a further characteristic by the other. In exocentric nouns only the combination of both elements names the referent. A further subdivision takes into account the character of stems.

Compound verbs are such verbs as outgrow, overflow, stand up, black-list, stage-manage and whitewash.

Compounds, asyntactic are compounds that fail to conform to grammatical patterns current in present-day, e. g. baby-sitting.

Compounds, endocentric. In these compounds the two constituent elements are clearly the determinant and the determinatum, e.g. sun-beam, blackboard, slow-coach, wall-flower.

Compounds, exocentric these are words which have a zero determinatum stem, e. g. cut-throat, dare-devil, scarecrow because their determinatum lies outside

Compounds, syntactic are compounds that conform to grammatical patterns current in present-day English, e.g. seashore.

Connotation and connotative meaning The information communicated by virtue of what the word refers to is often subject to complex associations originating in habitual contexts, verbal or situational, of which the speaker and the listener are aware.

Contrastive analysis is applied to reveal the features of sameness and difference in the lexical meaning and the semantic structure of correlated words in different languages.

Contrastive and contrary notions are mutually opposed and denying one another, e. g. alive means ‘not dead’ and impatient means ‘not patient’. C o n t r a r y notions are also mutually opposed but they are gradable, e. g. old and young are the most distant elements of a series like: old : : middle-aged : : young, while hot and cold form a series with the intermediate cool and warm, which, as F.R.

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Palmer points out, form a pair of antonyms themselves. The distinction between the two types is not absolute, as one can say that one is more dead than alive, and thus make these adjectives gradable.

Contrastive distribution, i.e. if they occur in the same environment they signal different meanings. The suffixes -able and -ed, for instance, are different morphemes, not allomorphs, because adjectives in -able mean ‘capable of being’: measurable ‘capable of being measured’, whereas -ed as a suffix of adjectives has a resultant force: measured ‘marked by due proportion’, as the measured beauty of classical Greek art; hence also ‘rhythmical’ and ‘regular in movement’, as in the measured form of verse, the measured tread.

Conversion, one of the principal ways of forming words in Modern English is highly productive in replenishing the English word-stock with new words. The term c o n v e r s i o n , which some linguists find inadequate, refers to the numerous cases of phonetic identity of word-forms, primarily the so-called initial forms, of two words belonging to different parts of speech. This may be illustrated by the following cases: work — to work; love — to love; paper — to paper; brief — to brief, etc. As a rule we deal w i t h simple words, although there are a few exceptions, e.g. wireless — to wireless.

Conversives (or relational opposites) as F.R. Palmer calls them denote one and the same referent or situation as viewed from different points of view, with a reversal of the order of participants and their roles. The interchangeability and contextual behaviour are specific. The relation is closely connected with grammar, namely with grammatical contrast of active and passive. The substitution of a conversive does not change the meaning of a sentence if it is combined with appropriate regular morphological and syntactical changes and selection of appropriate prepositions: He gave her flowers. She received flowers from him. = She was given flowers by him.

Correlation of oppositions is a set of binary oppositions. It is composed of two subsets formed by the first and the second elements of each couple, i.e. opposition. Each element of the first set is coupled with exactly one element of the second set and vice versa. Each second element may be derived from the corresponding first element by a general rule valid for all members of the relation.

Degradation of meaning: see PejorationDeletion — a procedure which shows whether one of the words is semantically subordinated to

the other or others, i.e. whether the semantic relations between words are identical. For example, the word- group red flowers may be deleted and transformed into flowers without making the sentence nonsensical. Cf.: I love red flowers, I love flowers, whereas I hate red tape cannot be transformed into I hate tape or I hate red.

Denotative meaning is essentially cognitive: it conceptualises and classifies our experience and names for the listener some objects spoken about. Fulfilling the significative and the communicative functions of the word it is present in every word and may be regarded as the central factor in the functioning of language.

Derivational affixes serve to supply the stem with components of lexical and lexico-grammatical meaning, and thus form4different words.

Derivational compounds are words in which the structural integrity of the two free stems is ensured by a suffix referring to the combination as a whole, not to one of its elements: kind-hearted, old-timer, schoolboyishness, teenager. In the coining of the derivational compounds two types of word-formation are at work. The essence of the derivational compounds will be clear if we compare them with derivatives and compounds proper that possess a similar structure.

Descriptive lexicology deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development. It studies the functions of words and their specific structure as a characteristic inherent in the system. The descriptive lexicology of the English language deals with the English word in its morphological and semantical structures, investigating the interdependence between these two aspects. These structures are identified and distinguished by contrasting the nature and arrangement of their elements.

Diachronic (Gr. dia — ‘through’) approach deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time. It is special Historical Lexicology that deals with the evolution of the vocabulary units of a language as time goes by. An English Historical Lexicology would be concerned, therefore, with the origin of English vocabulary units, their change and development, the linguistic and

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extralinguistic factors modifying their structure, meaning and usage within the history of the English language.

Dialects are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalised literary form.

Dictionaries, bilingual or t r a n s l a t i o n are those that explain words by giving their equivalents in another language.

Dictionaries, explanatory are dictionaries in which the words and their definitions belong to the same language.

Dictionaries of slang contain elements from areas of substandard speech such as vulgarisms, jargonisms, taboo words, curse-words, colloquialisms, etc.

Dictionaries of word-frequency inform the user as to the frequency of occurrence of lexical units in speech, to be more exact in the “corpus of the reading matter or in the stretch of oral speech on which the word-counts are based.

Dictionary is the term used to denote a book listing words of a language with their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage and/or origin. There are also dictionaries that concentrate their attention upon only one of these aspects: pronouncing (phonetical) dictionaries (by Daniel Jones) and etymological dictionaries (by Walter Skeat, by Erik Partridge, “The Oxford English Dictionary").

Echoism, echo words: see Sound imitationElevation: see AmeliorationEllipsis is a deliberate omission of at least one member of the sentence, e.g. What! all my pretty

chickens and their dam at one fell swoop? (W.Shakespeare) or omission of certain members of the sentence: it is typical phenomenon in conversation, always imitates the common features of colloquial language, e.g. So Justice Oberwaltzer – solemnly and didactically from his high seat to the jury. (Dreiser)

Emotional tone (colouring, connotation, component, force): see ConnotationsEmotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as linguistic units and

forms part of the connotational component of meaning.Emotive speech is any speech or utterance conveying or expressing emotion. This emotive

quality of discourse is due to syntactical, intonational and lexical peculiarities. By lexical peculiarities we mean the presence of emotionally coloured words. The emotional colouring of the word may be permanent or occasional.

Equivalence is the relation between two elements based on the common feature due to which they belong to the same set.

Etymology or h i s t o r i c a l l e x i c o l o g y . This branch of linguistics discusses the origin of various words, their change and development, and investigates the linguistic and extra-linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage.

Euphemism (Gr euphemismos < eu ‘good’ and pheme ‘voice’) has been repeatedly classed by many linguists as t a b о о , i.e. a prohibition meant as a safeguard against supernatural forces. From the semasiological point of view euphemism is important, because meanings with unpleasant connotations appear in words formerly neutral as a result of their repeated use instead of words that are for some reason unmentionable, c f . deceased ‘dead’, deranged ‘mad’.

Form words, also called functional words, empty words or auxiliaries (the latter term is coined by H. Sweet), are lexical units which are called words, although they do not conform to the definition of the word, because they are used only in combination with notional words or in reference to them. This group comprises auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions and relative adverbs. Primarily they express grammatical relationships between words. This does not, however, imply that they have no lexical meaning of their own.

Free forms are the forms which may stand alone without changing their meaning. Functional affixes serve to convey grammatical meaning. They build different forms of one and

the same word.Functional change: see Conversion

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Functional styles - a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim of communication. Includes: official style, scientific style, publicist style, newspaper style, belles-lettres style, the co-ordination of the language means and stylistic devices which shapes the distinctive features of each style, and not the language means or stylistic devices themselves, a patterned variety of literary text characterized by the greater or lesser typification of its constituents, supra-phrasal units, in which the choice and arrangement of interdependent and interwoven language media are calculated to secure the purport of the communication

Fusions or portmanteau words: see BlendsGeneral slang includes words that are not specific for any social or professional group.Generalisation is the process reverse to specialisation. g e n e r a l i s a t i o n , i.e. the

collection of data and their orderly arrangement must eventually lead to the formulation of< a generalisation or hypothesis, rule, or law.

Generic terms are words in which abstraction and generalisation are so great that they can be lexical representatives of lexico-grammatical meanings and substitute any word of their class. For example the word matter is a generic term for material nouns, the word group — for collective nouns, the word person — for personal nouns.

Glossaries are highly specialised dictionaries of limited scope which may appeal to a particular kind of reader. They register and explain technical terms for various branches of knowledge, art and trade: linguistic, medical, technical, economical terms, etc. Unilingual books of this type giving definitions of terms.

Historism it is the name of the thing which is no longer used . Historisms are very numerous as names for social relations, institutions and objects of material culture of the past. The names of ancient transport means, such as types of boats or types of carriages, ancient clothes, weapons, musical instruments, etc. can offer many examples.

Holophrasis is a type of a phrase whose elements are united by their attributive function and become further united phonemically by stress and graphically by a hyphen, or even solid spelling. Cf. common sense and common-sense advice; old age and old-age pensioner; the records are out of date and out-of-date records; the let-sleeping-dogs-lie approach (Priestley). Cf . : Let sleeping dogs lie (a proverb). The speaker (or writer, as the case may be) creates those combinations freely as the need for them arises: they are originally nonce-compounds. In the course of time they may become firmly established in the language: the ban-the-bomb voice, round-the-clock duty.

Homographs аrе words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling: bow [bou] : : bow [bau]; lead [li:d] : : lead [led]; row [rou] : : row [rau]; sewer [’souэ] : : sewer [sjuэ]; tear [tiэ] : : tear [tea]; wind [wind] : : wind [waind] and many more.

Homonyms and homonymy two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and (in many cases) origin are called h o m o nyms. The term is derived from Greek homonymous (homos ‘the same' ‘name’) and thus expresses very well the sameness of name combined with the difference in meaning.

Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning: air : : heir; arms : : alms; buy : : by; him : : hymn; knight : : night; not: : knot; or: : oar; piece : : peace; rain: : reign; scent: : cent; steel : : steal; storey : : story; write : : right and many others.

Hybrids are words that are made up of elements derived from two or more different languages. English contains thousands of hybrid words, the vast majority of which show various combinations of morphemes coming from Latin, French and Greek and those of native origin. Thus, readable has an English root and a suffix that is derived from the Latin -abilis and borrowed through French.

Hyperbole (from Gr hyperbolē ‘exceed’) is an exaggerated statement not meant to be understood literally but expressing an intensely emotional attitude of the speaker to what he is speaking about. E. g.: A fresh egg has a world of power (Bellow). The emotional tone is due to the illogical character in which the direct denotative and the contextual emotional meanings are combined.

Ideographic dictionaries designed for English-speaking writers, orators or translators seeking to express their ideas adequately contain words grouped by the concepts expressed.

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Ideographic groups are independent of classification into parts of speech. Words and expressions are here classed not according to their lexico-grammatical meaning but strictly according to their signification, i.e. to the system of logical notions. These subgroups may comprise nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs together, provided they refer to the same notion. Thus, V.I. Agamdzhanova unites into one group such words as light n, bright a, shine v and other words connected with the notion of light as something permitting living beings to see the surrounding objects.

Idioms, the term generally implies that the essential feature of the linguistic units under consideration is idiomaticity or lack cf. motivation. This term habitually used by English and American linguists is very often treated as synonymous with the term phraseological u n i t universally accepted in our country.

Implicational is the communicative value of a word contains latent possibilities realised not in this particular variant but able to create new derived meanings or words.

Indivisibility: “It cannot be cut into without a disturbance of meaning, one or two other or both of the several parts remaining as a helpless waif on our hands”. The essence of indivisibility will be clear from a comparison of the article a and the prefix a- in a lion and alive. A lion is a word-group because we can separate its elements and insert other words between them: a living lion, a dead lion. Alive is a word: it is indivisible, i.e. structurally impermeable: nothing can be inserted between its elements. The morpheme a- is not free, is not a word.

International words are words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one ultimate source. International words play an especially prominent part in various terminological systems including the vocabulary of science, industry and art. The etymological sources of this vocabulary reflect the history of world culture. A few examples of comparatively new words due to the progress of science will suffice to illustrate the importance of international vocabulary: algorithm, antenna, antibiotic, automation, bionics, cybernetics, entropy, gene, genetic code, graph, microelectronics, microminiaturisation, quant, quasars, pulsars, ribosome, etc. All these show sufficient likeness in English, French, Russian and several other languages.

Irony, the term is taken from rhetoric, it is the expression of one’s meaning by words of opposite sense, especially a simulated adoption of the opposite point of view for the purpose of ridicule or disparagement. One of the meanings of the adjective nice is ‘bad’, ‘unsatisfactory’; it is marked off as ironical and illustrated by the example: You’ve got us into a nice mess! The same may be said about the adjective pretty: A pretty mess you’ve made of it!

Jargonisms, i.e. words marked by their use within a particular social group and bearing a secret and cryptic character, e.g. a sucker — ‘a person who is easily deceived’, a squiffer — ‘a concertina’.

Learned words or literary words serve to satisfy communicative demands of official, scientific, high poetry and poetic messages, authorial speech of creative prose; mainly observed in the written form; contribute to the message the tone of solemnity, sophistication, seriousness, gravity, learnedness, e.g. I must decline to pursue this painful discussion, It is not pleasant to my feelings; it is repugnant to my feelings. (Dickens)

Lexical group is a subset of the vocabulary, all the elements of which possess a particular feature forming the basis of the opposition. Every element of a subset of the vocabulary is also an element of the vocabulary as a whole.

Lexical variants are examples of free variation in language, in so far as they are not conditioned by contextual environment but are optional with the individual speaker. E. g. northward / norward; whoever / whosoever. The variation can concern morphological or phonological features or it may be limited to spelling. Compare weazen/weazened ‘shrivelled and dried in appearance’, an adjective used about a person’s face and looks; directly which may be pronounced [di'rektli] or [dai'rektli] and whisky with its spelling variant whiskey. Lexical variants are different from synonyms, because they are characterised by similarity in phonetical or spelling form and identity of both meaning and distribution.

Lexico-grammatical meaning: see Meaning, lexico-grammatical

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Lexico-grammatical group, a class of words which have a common lexico-grammatical meaning, a common paradigm, the same substituting elements and possibly a characteristic set of suffixes rendering the lexico-grammatical meaning. These groups are subsets of the parts of speech, several lexico-grammatical groups constitute one part of speech. Thus, English nouns are subdivided approximately into the following lexico-grammatical groups: personal names, animal names, collective names (for people), collective names (for animals), abstract nouns, material nouns, object nouns, proper names for people, toponymic proper nouns.

Lexicography, that is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries, is an important branch of applied linguistics. The fundamental paper in lexicographic theory was written by L.V. Shcherba as far back as 1940. A complete bibliography of the subject may be found in L.P. Stupin’s works. Lexicography has a common object of study with lexicology, both describe the vocabulary of a language. The essential difference between the two lies in the degree of systematisation and completeness each of them is able to achieve. Lexicology aims at systematisation revealing characteristic features of words.

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics, the science of language. The term Lexicology is composed of two Greek morphemes: lexis meaning ‘word, phrase’ (hence lexicos ‘having to do with words’) and logos which denotes ‘learning, a department of knowledge’. Thus, the literal meaning of the term L e x i c o l o g y is ‘the science of the word’.

Meaning, lexical may be described as the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this word.

Meaning, lexico-grammatical, a common paradigm, the same substituting elements and possibly a characteristic set of suffixes rendering the lexico-grammatical meaning.

Metaphor (Gr metaphora < meta change’ and pherein ‘bear’). A metaphor is a transfer of name based on the association of similarity and thus is actually a hidden comparison. It presents a method of description which likens one thing to another by referring to it as if it were some other one. A cunning person for instance is referred to as a fox. A woman may be called a peach, a lemon, a cat, a goose, a bitch, a lioness, etc.

Metonymy (Gr metonymia < meta ‘change’ and onoma/onytna ‘name’). In a metonymy, this referring to one thing as if it were some other one is based on association of contiguity (a woman —a skirt). Sean O'Casey in his one-act play “The Hall of Healing” metonymically names his personages according to the things they are wearing: Red Muffler, Grey Shawl, etc. Metaphor and metonymy differ from the two first types of semantic change, i.e. generalisation and specialisation, inasmuch as they do not result in hyponymy and do not originate as a result of gradual almost imperceptible change in many contexts, but come of a purposeful momentary transfer of a name from one object to another belonging to a different sphere of reality.

Morpheme i s an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. But unlike a word it is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of a single morpheme. Nor are they divisible into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the minimum meaningful language unit.The term m o r p h e m e is derived from Gr morphe ‘form’ + -eme. The Greek suffix -erne has been adopted by linguists to denote the smallest significant or d i s t i n c t i v e u n i t . (Cf. phoneme, sememe.) The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases is a recurring discrete unit of speech.

Native affixes are those that existed in English in the Old English period or were formed from Old English words.

Native words are words of Anglo-Saxon origin brought to the British Isles from the continent in the 5th century by the Germanic tribes — the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. Words of native origin consist for the most part of very ancient elements—Indo-European, Germanic and West Germanic cognates. The bulk of the Old English word-stock has been preserved, although some words have passed out of existence. When speaking about the role of the native element in the English language linguists usually confine themselves to the small Anglo-Saxon stock of words, which is estimated to make 25—30% of the English vocabulary.

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Neologism is a newly coined word or phrase or a new meaning for an existing word, or a word borrowed from another language. The intense development of science and industry has called forth the invention and introduction of an immense number of new words and changed the meanings of old ones, e. g. aerobic, black hole, computer, isotope, feedback, penicillin, pulsar, quasar, tape-recorder, supermarket and so on.

Notion (concept) is the term introduced into linguistics from logic and psychology. It denotes the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their essential features and relations.

Observation is an early and basic, phase of all modern scientific investigation, including linguistic, and is the centre of what is called the inductive method of inquiry.

Obsolete words are words which are no longer used.Official vocabulary the language of business documents, the language of legal documents, the

language of diplomacy, the language of military documents.Onomasiology, the study of means and ways of naming the elements of reality. Onomatopoeic words: see Sound imitationOnomatopoeic stems are repeated parts of a compound.Oppositions are semantically and functionally relevant partial differences between partially

similar elements of the vocabulary. Opposition, theory of studying of this system of interdependent elements with specific

peculiarities of its own, different from other lexical systems; showing the morphological and semantic patterns according to which the elements of this system are built, pointing out the d i s t i n c t i v e f e a t u r e s with which the main o p p o s i t i o n s can be systematised, and trying and explaining how these vocabulary patterns are conditioned by the structure of the language.

Orthographic words are written as a sequence of letters bounded by spaces on a page.Paradigm has been defined in grammar as the system of grammatical forms characteristic of a

word, e. g. near, nearer, nearest; son, son’s, sons, sons’ .Pattern implies that we are speaking of the structure of the word-group in which a given word is

used as its head.Pejoration are changes depending on the social attitude to the object named, connected with

social evaluation and emotional tone. Phrasal verbs: see Verbal collocations Phraseology: see Set expressionsPhraseological collocations are motivated but they are made up of words possessing specific

lexical valency which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such word-groups. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For instance, bear a grudge may be changed into bear malice, but not into bear a fancy or liking. We can say take a liking (fancy) but not take hatred (disgust). These habitual collocations tend to become kind of clichés where the meaning of member-words is to some extent dominated by the meaning of the whole group. Due to this phraseological collocations are felt as possessing a certain degree of semantic inseparability.

Prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning, c f . hearten — dishearten. It is only with verbs and statives that a prefix may serve to distinguish one part of speech from another, like in earth n — unearth v, sleep n — asleep (stative).

Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes.Proper nouns or p r o p e r n a m e s . It has been often taken for granted that they do not

convey any generalised notion at all, that they only name human beings, countries, cities, animals, rivers, stars, etc. And yet, names like Moscow, the Thames, Italy, Byron evoke notions. Moreover, the notions called forth are particularly rich. The clue, as St. Ullmann convincingly argues, lies in the specific function of proper names which is identification, and not signifying.

Professionalisms, i.e. words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation, such as, e.g., lab for ‘laboratory’, hypo for ‘hypodermic syringe’, a buster for ‘a bomb’, etc.

Proverb is a short familiar epigrammatic saying expressing popular wisdom, a truth or a moral lesson in a concise and imaginative way.

Quotations, familiar, they are different from proverbs in their origin. They come from literature but by and by they become part and parcel of the language, so that many people using them do not

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even know that they are quoting, and very few could acccurately name the play or passage on which they are drawing even when they are aware of using a quotation from W. Shakespeare.

Semantic component: see Seme Semantic triangle is the scheme. The account of meaning given by Ferdinand de Saussure

implies the definition of a word as a linguistic sign. He calls it ‘signifiant’ (signifier) and what it refers to — ‘signifie’ (that which is signified). By the latter term he understands not the phenomena of the real world but the ‘concept’ in the speaker’s and listener’s mind.

Semantics is the study of meaning which is relevant both for lexicology and grammar.Semasiology The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word

equivalents. The name comes from the Greek sēmasiā ‘signification’ (from sēma ‘sign’ sēmantikos ‘significant’ and logos ‘learning’).

Semi-affixes, elements that stand midway between roots and affixes: godlike, gentlemanlike, ladylike, unladylike, manlike, childlike, unbusinesslike, suchlike.

Set expression or set- p h r a s e implies that the basic criterion of differentiation is stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure of word-groups.

Shortened words and shortening 134-145 Slang are words which are often regarded as a violation of the norms of Standard English, e.g.

governor for ‘father’, missus for ‘wife’, a gag for ‘a joke’, dotty for ‘insane’.Sociolinguistics is the branch of linguistics, dealing with causal relations between the way the

language works and develops, on the one hand, and the facts of social life, on the other.Sound imitation: see onomatopoeia Stem is what remains when a derivational or functional affix is stripped from the word. The

stem expresses the lexical and the part of speech meaning. A stem may also be defined as the part of the word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm.

Suffix is a derivational morpheme standing after the root and modifying meaning, e.g. childish, quickly, worker.

Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify the lexical meaning of the base and transfer words to a, different part of speech. There are suffixes however, which do not shift words from one part of speech into another; a suffix of this kind usually transfers a word into a different semantic group, e.g. a concrete noun becomes an abstract one, as is the case with child — childhood, friend — friendship, etc.

Synchronic (Gr. syn — ‘together, with’ and chronos — ‘time’) approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time, for instance, at the present time.

Synonyms are words different in sound-form but similar in their denotational meaning (or meanings) and interchangeable at least in some contexts.

Technical terms and terminology is the greatest part of every language vocabulary. It is also its Word building or d e r i v a t i o n a l p a t t e r n is used to denote a meaningful

combination of stems and affixes that occur regularly enough to indicate the part of speech, the lexico-semantic category and semantic peculiarities common to most words with this particular arrangement of morphemes.1 Every type of word-building (affixation, composition, conversion, compositional derivation, shortening, etc.) as well as every part of speech have a characteristic set of patterns. Some of these, especially those with the derivational suffix -ish, have already been described within this paragraph. It is also clear from the previous description that the grouping of patterns is possible according to the type of stem, according to the affix or starting with some semantic grouping.

Word, definition of The term word denotes the basic unit of a given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. A word therefore is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit.

Word-family is a type of traditional lexicological grouping. For example: dog, doggish, doglike, doggy/doggie, to dog, dogged, doggedly, doggedness, dog-wolf, dog-days, dog-biscuit, dog-cart, etc.; hand, handy, handicraft, handbag, handball, handful, handmade, handsome, etc.

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Word form, or the form of a word, is defined as one of the different aspects a word may take as a result of inflection. Complete sets of all the various forms of a word when considered as inflectional patterns, such as declensions or conjugations, are termed paradigms.

Word-formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns.Word-formation, types of there are such types as affixation, conversion and word-composition.

Zero derivation: see Conversion

Лекции по лексикологии2.1 The subject matter of lexicology1. The lexicology2. The theoretical and practical value of English lexicology3. The connection of English lexicology with other linguistic sciences, such as phonetics,

grammar, stylistics, the history of languageAims:teaching – To give the idea of subject matter of lexicology;developing – To deepen the idea of the theoretical and practical value of English lexicology;educational (pedagogic) – To increase the connection of English lexicology with other

linguistic sciences, such as phonetics, grammar, stylistics, the history of language.1. The lexicology is a part of linguistic dealing with the vocabulary of the language and the

property of the words and word combinations. The term “lexicology” is composed of two great morphemes: “lexis” – which means “phrase” and “logos” – which denotes learning or department knowledge. The literal meaning of the lexicology is the science of the word. The term “vocabulary” denotes the system formed by a sound total of all the words and word equivalents that the language possesses. The term “word” denotes the basic unit of a particular meaning, of a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. A word is a semantic grammatical and phonological group of sounds. For example: in the word “girl” the group of sounds [g, i, r, l] is associated with the meaning “a female child up to the age 16-17”, also with other meanings and definite grammatical employment, that is “girl” is a personal noun, it has a genitive case and it has plural form. It also may be used in some syntactical functions, as subject, predicative and object. The general study of words and vocabulary is known as general lexicology. Special lexicology devotes its attention to description to all the characteristics peculiarities in the vocabulary of the given language or concrete language. It goes without saying that every special lexicology is based on the principals of general lexicology. A great deal has been written to provide a theoretical bases, on which the vocabularies of different languages can be compared and described. This relatively new branch is called contractive or comparative lexicology. The evolution of any vocabulary as well as single element forms the object of the historical lexicology of different words, their change, development, investigates the linguistic and extra linguistic forces modifying their development and structure, meaning and usage. Descriptive lexicology deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development. It studies the function of words and their specific structures. For example: it may contrast the word “child” with its derivatives “childhood”, “childish”. Descriptive lexicology also studies the English words and their morphological and semantic structures, determines their colorations between two these aspects.

The lexicology also studies all kinds of semantic grouping or semantic relations, such as synonymy, antonym, homonymy. There are two principal approaches in linguistics to the study of linguistic material, namely: synchronic (from Greek “syn” – “together”, “with” and “chronos” – “time”), diachronic (“dia” – “through”, “chronos” – “time”). The distinction between synchronic and diachronic was proposed by Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saucier (1857 – 1913).

Language is a reality of thought and thought develops with development of society, so language and vocabulary must being studied in the light of social history. A word through its meaning

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rendering some notion is generalized reflection of reality. With extra linguistic forces influencing the development of words are considered in historical lexicology, etymology.

2. The importance of English lexicology is based not on the size of its vocabulary, however big it is, but on the fact that at present it is the world’s most widely used language. On of the most fundamental works on the English language of the present – “a grammar of contemporary English” by R.Quirk, S. Greenbaum, G/ Leech and J. Svartvik (1978) –gives the following data: it is spoken as a native language by nearly three hundred million people in Britain, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and some other countries. The knowledge of English is widely spread geographically – it is in fact used in all continents. It is also spoken in many countries as a second language and used in official and business activities there. This is the case in India, Pakistan and many other former British colonies. English is also one of the working languages of the United Nations and the Universal language of International Aviation. More than a half world’s scientific literature is published in English and 60% of the world’s radio broadcasts are in English. For all these reasons it widely studied all over the world as a foreign language.

The theoretical value of lexicology becomes obvious if we realize that it forms the study of one of the three main aspects of language, i.e. its vocabulary, the other two being its grammar and sound system. The theory of meaning was originally developed within the limits philosophical science. The relationship between the name and the thing named has in the course of history constituted one of the key questions in Gnostic theories and therefore in the struggle of materialistic and idealistic trends. The idealistic point of view assumes that the earlier forms of words disclose their real correct meaning, and that originally language was created by some superior reason so that later changes of any kind are looked upon as distortions and corruptions.

The materialistic approach considers the origin, development and current use of words as depending upon the needs of social communication. The dialectics of its growth is determined by its interaction with the development of human practice and mind. In the light of V.I. Lenin’s theory of reflection we know that the meanings of words reflect objective reality. Words theory as names for thighs, actions, qualities, etc. and by their modification become better adapted to the needs of the speakers. This proves the fallacy of one of the characteristics trends in modern idealistic linguistics, the so-called Sappier- Whorf thesis according t which the linguistic system of one’s native language not only expresses one’s thoughts but also determines them. This view is incorrect, because our mind reflects the surrounding world not only through language but also directly.

Lexicology came into being to meet the demands of many different branches of applied linguistics, namely of lexicography, standardization of terminology, information retrieval, literary criticisms especially of foreign language teaching.

Its importance in training a would – be teacher of languages is of a quite special character and cannot be overestimated as it helps to stimulate a systematic approach to the facts of vocabulary and an organized comparison of the foreign and native language. It is particularly useful in building up the learner’s vocabulary by an effective selection, grouping and analysis of new words. New words are better remembered if they are given not at random but organized in thematic groups, words families, synonymy series, etc.

A good knowledge of the system of word – formation furnishes a tool helping the student to guess and retain in his memory the meaning of new words on the basis of their motivation and by comparing and contrasting them with the previously learned elements and patterns.

The knowledge, for instance, of the meaning of negative, reversative prefixes and patterns of derivation may be helpful in understanding new words. For example such words as immovable a, deforestation n and miscalculate v will be readily understood as ‘hat cannot be moved’, ‘clearing land from forests’ and ‘to calculate wrongly’.

A working knowledge and understanding of functional styles and stylistic synonyms is indispensable when literary texts are used as a basis for acquiring oral skills, for analytical reading, discussing fiction and translation.

3. The treatment of words in lexicology cannot be separated from the study of all languages. The word is studied in several branches in linguistics, not only in lexicology. It is closely connected with

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general linguistics, grammar, the history of the language, phonetics, social linguistics, paralinguistic, pragmalinguistics. The importance of connection between lexicology and phonetics is explained if we remember that a word is an association of a given group of sounds with a given meaning, so that “tip” is one word, “top” another. Phonemes have no meaning of their own but they serve to distinguish between meanings. The differentiations between words may be based upon stress “import” – noun, “import” – verb.

Stylistics from different angle studies many problems of lexicology. These are problems of meaning, synonymy, connotation – the problem of semantic change of words.

A close connection between lexicology and grammar is conditioned by the inseparable ties between the objects of their investigation. the ties between lexicology and grammar are particularly strong in the sphere of word – building as lexicology before has been considered as a part of grammar, later it had become as separate pattern of linguistics.

2.2 Word as a basic unit of the language1. Types of lexicological units.2. The definition of the word.3. Phonetic, morphemic, semantic motivation of words.Aims:teaching – To give the idea of a word as a basic unit of the language;developing – To deepen the idea of the definition of the word;educational (pedagogic) – To increase the willing to study a word.1. The term “unit” means one of the elements into which a whole may be divided or analyzed.

The units of vocabulary or lexicological units are two faced-elements possessing form and meaning. The basic unit forming the of vocabulary is the word. Other units are morphemes that are parts of words into which they may be divided and the set expression – groups of words, into which words may be combined.

Morpheme – word – set expression.Words are the central elements of the language system. They are the biggest of morphology and

smallest of syntax. They embody the main structural properties and the functions of the language. Words can be separated in an utterance by other units and can be used in isolation. Unlike words, morphemes cannot be divided into smaller meaningful feeling or action. The meaning of morphemes is more abstract, more general than that of words.

Set expressions are word groups consisting of two or more words, whose combinations is integrated, so that they are introduced as readymade units with the specialized meaning of the whole.

2. The most important point to remember about definition is that, it should indicate the most essential characteristic features of the notion, the features of the notion, the features by which this notion is distinguished from other similar notion. The defining the word we must distinguish it from other linguistic units, such as morphemes, phonemes and word groups. To make things easier we’ll begin from preliminary description. Uniting meaning and form the word is composed of two or more morphemes, each consisting of one or more speech sounds. Morphemes are also meaningful units, but they cannot be used independently, they are always parts of words. Definition of every notion is a very hard task and the definition of a word is one of the most difficult in linguistics, because the simplest word has many different aspects, because any word has its own sound form, it has its morphological structure, being a certain arrangement of morphemes. When we used a certain actual speech it may occur in different meanings, because any words has polysemantic nature, it may be used in different forms and syntactical functions. Being the central element of any language system the word is the focus for the problems for phonology, lexicology, syntax, morphology. The authors, who investigated the word, gave the different variants of the definitions of the word.

Th. Hobbs (1588-1671) one of the great philosophies reviewed materialistic approach to a formal problem of nomination when that “Words are not mere sounds, but names of matter”. Three centuries later the great Russian physiologist Pavlov I. V. examined the word in the connection with the studies of the second signal system. One of the latest developments of the science and engineering is machine. It also deals with words and requires the definition to them within the scope the linguistics.

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The word has been defined syntactically, semantically, phonologically and by combining different approaches. The word has been defined syntactically as “the minimum sentence” by Sweet and later by L. Bloomfield as “ a minimum free form”. L. Sappier takes into consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects when he calls the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated meaning into which the sentence resolves itself”. He also points out one more important characteristics of a word – its indivisibility. The essence of indivisibility will be clear in forming comparison of an article “a”, “or” and prefix “a”. In the words “a lion – alive”: “a lion” – is a word group, because it can be divided into elements and we can insert some elements between them. Ex: “a beautiful lion”. “alive” is a word, because it is indivisible, because nothing can be inserted, because the morpheme “a” is not free, it is not a word.

J. Lyos points out that the word should be discussed in terms of two criteria: positional movelety and uninterruptibility.

Ex: The – boy – s – walk – ed – slow – ly – up – the – hill. Slow – ly – the – boy – s – walk – ed – up – the – hill. We can change word order, but we can’t “s – boy, ed – walk”.

The efforts of many eminent scholars Vinogradov, Smirnitsky, Ahmanove resulted in throwing light on the problem of the word as a basic unit of the language and they achieved definite results. The eminent French linguist A. Mallet combines the semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria and gives the following definition: “The word is defined by the association of the particular meaning with the particular group of sounds of a particular grammatical employment”. This definition doesn’t permit us to distinguish words from phonemes, because not only “a child”, but also “a pretty child” are combination of sound with particular meaning. But we can except this definition with some modification adding that the word is the smallest significant unit of a given language capable functioning a known and characterized by the positional movelity within a sentence.

3. The term “motivation” is used to denote the relationship existing between the phonemic and morphemic composition and structural pattern on the word on the one hand and its meaning on the other. There are three types of motivation in English: phonemic, morphemic, semantic.

When there is a certain similarity between the sounds that make up a word and those refer to by the sense, the motivation is phonemic. Ex: “bang, buzz, cuckoo, giggle, hiss, purr”, here the sounds of words are imitative of sounds in nature. Although they exist a certain arbitrary element on the resulting phonemes, one can see this type of motivation is determined by the phonological system of each language as shown by the difference of echo words for the same concept in different languages.

Ex: cuckoo – in English, kuckuck – in German, кукушка – in Russian, кокек – in Kazah. Words denoting noises produced by animals are most play sound imitative. In English they only phonetically, though nouns and verbs are exactly the same. In Russian motivation combines phonetic and morphemic motivation.

Ex: bark, moo, purr. The morphological motivation may be quite regular. Thus the prefix –ex means “former”.

When added to human nouns ‘expresident”, there is a general use of prefix –“ex” is unstressed and motivation is fated. Ex: “expect”, “export”.

3 Semantic structure of the English word1. The definition of lexical meaning of a word.2. The lexical meaning of words.3. Types of grammatical meanings of words:a. denotative meaning (direct)b. connotative meaning (figurative)Aims:teaching – To give the idea of the semantic structure of the English word;developing – To deepen the idea of the semantic structure of the English word;educational (pedagogic) – To increase the willing to study the semantic structure of the English

word.

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1. The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents is called s e m a s i o l o g y . The name comes from the Greek sēmasiā ‘signification’ (from sēma ‘sign’ sēmantikos ‘significant’ and logos ‘learning’).

If treated diachronically, semasiology studies the change in meaning which words undergo. Descriptive synchronic approach demands a study not of individual words but of semantic structures typical of the language studied, and of its general semantic system.

The main objects of semasiological study are follows: semantic development of words, its causes and classification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning,

Polysemy and semantic structure of words, semantic grouping and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, terminological systems, etc.

An exact definition of any basic term is no easy task altogether. In the case of lexical meaning it becomes especially difficult due to the complexity of the process by which language and human mind serve to reflect outward reality and to adapt it to human needs.

The definition of lexical meaning has been attempted more than once in accordance with the main principles of different linguistic schools. The disciples of F. de Saussure consider meaning to be the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself. Descriptive linguistics of the Bloomfieldian trend defines the meaning as the situation in which the word is uttered. Both ways of approach afford no possibility of a further investigation of semantic problems in strictly linguistic terms, and therefore, if taken as a basis for general linguistic theory, give no insight into the mechanism of meaning. Some of L. Bloomfield’s successors went so far as to exclude semasiology from linguistics on the ground that meaning could not be studied “objectively", and was not part of language but “an aspect of the use to which language is put”. This point of view was never generally accepted. The more general opinion is well revealed in R. Jakobson’s pun. He said: “Linguistics without meaning is meaningless". This crisis of semasiology has been over for some twenty years now, and the problem of meaning has provided material for a great number of books, articles and dissertations.

The definitions of meaning given by various authors, though different in detail, agree in the basic principle: they all point out that l e x i c a l m e a n i n g is t h e r e a l i s a t i o n of c o n c e p t or e m o t i o n by m e a n s of a d e f i n i t e l a n g u a g e s y s t e m . The definition stresses that semantics studies only such meanings that can be expressed, that is concepts bound by signs.

It has also been repeatedly stated that the plane of content in speech reflects the whole of human consciousness, which comprises not only mental activity but emotions, volition, etc. as well. The mentalistic approach to meaning treating it only as a concept expressed by a word oversimplifies the problem because it takes into consideration only the referential function of words. Actually, however, all the pragmatic functions of language — communicative, emotive, evaluative, phatic, esthetic, etc., are also relevant and have to be accounted for in semasiology, because they show the attitude of the speaker to the thing spoken of, to his interlocutor and to the situation in which the act of communication takes place.

The complexity of the word meaning is manifold. The four most important types of semantic complexity may be roughly described as follows:

Firstly, every word combines lexical and grammatical meanings. E.g.: Father is apersonal noun.Secondly, many words not only refer to some object but have an aura of associations expressing

the attitude of the speaker. They have not only denotative but connotative meaning as well.E. g.: Daddy is a colloquial term of endearment.Thirdly, the denotational meaning is segmented into semantic components or semes.E.g.: Father is a male parent.Fourthly, a word may be polysemantic, that is it may have several meanings, all interconnected

and forming its semantic structure.E. g.: Father may mean: ‘male parent’, ‘an ancestor’, ‘a founder or leader’, ‘a priest’.

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It will be useful to remind the reader that the g r a m m a t i c a l m e a n i n g is defined as an expression in speech of relationships between words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur. The grammatical meaning is more abstract and more generalised than the lexical meaning, it unites words into big groups such as parts of speech or lexica-grammatical classes. It is recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words. E. g. parents, books, intentions, whose common element is the grammatical meaning of plurality. The interrelation of lexics and grammar has already been touched upon in § 1.3. This being a book on lexicology and not on grammar, it is permissible not to go into more details though some words on lexica-grammatical meanings are necessary.

T h e l e x i c a - g r a m m a t i c a l m e a n i n g is the common denominator of all the meanings of words belonging to a lexica - grammatical class of words, it is the feature according to which they are grouped together. Words in which abstraction and generalisation are so great that they can be lexical representatives of lexica-grammatical meanings and substitute any word of their class are called g e n e r i c t e r m s . For example the word matter is a generic term for material nouns, the word group — for collective nouns, the word person — for personal nouns.

Words belonging to one lexica - grammatical class are characterised by a common system of forms in which the grammatical categories inherent in them are expressed. They are also substituted by the same prop-words and possess some characteristic formulas of semantic and morphological structure and a characteristic set of derivational affixes. See tables on word-formation in: R. Quirk et al., “A Grammar of Contemporary English”. The common features of semantic structure may be observed in their dictionary definitions:

management — a group of persons in charge of some enterprise,chorus — a group of singers,team — a group of persons acting together in work or in a game.

The degree and character of abstraction and generalisation in lexico-grammatical meanings and the generic terms that represent them are intermediate between those characteristic of grammatical categories and those observed on the lexical level — hence the term l e x i c a - g r a m m a t i c a l .

The conceptual content of a word is expressed in its d e n o t a t i v e m e a n i n g . To denote is to serve as a linguistic expression for a concept or as a name for an individual object. The denotative meaning may be signifiсative, if the referent is a concept, or d e m о f i s t r a t i v e , if it is an individual object. The term r e f e r e n t or den o t a t u m (pl. denotata) is used in both cases. Any text will furnish examples of both types of denotative meaning. The demonstrative meaning is especially characteristic of colloquial speech where words so often serve to identify particular elements of reality. E. g.: “Do you remember what the young lady did with the telegram?”. Here the connection with reality is direct.

Especially interesting examples of significative meaning may be found in aphorisms, proverbs and other sayings rendering general ideas. E. g.: A good laugh is sunshine in the house (Thackeray) or The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work (Frost) contain words in their significative meanings.

The information communicated by virtue of what the word refers to is often subject to complex associations originating in habitual contexts, verbal or situational, of which the speaker and the listener are aware, they give the word its c o n n o t a t i v e m e a n i n g . The interaction of denotative meaning and its pragmatic counterpart — connotation — is no less complicated than in the case of lexical and grammatical meaning. The connotative component is optional, and even when it is present its proportion with respect to the logical counterpart may vary within wide limits.

We shall call connotation what the word conveys about the speaker’s attitude to the social circumstances and the appropriate functional style (slay vs kill), about his approval or disapproval of the object spoken of (clique vs group), about the speaker’s emotions (mummy vs mother), or the degree of intensity (adore vs love).

The emotional overtone as part of the word’s communicative value deserves special attention. Different approaches have been developing in contemporary linguistics.

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The emotional and evaluative meaning of the word may be part of the denotational meaning. For example hireling ‘a person who offers his services for payment and does not care about the type of work.

Has a strong derogatory and even scornful connotation, especially when the name is applied to hired soldiers. There is a considerable degree of fuzziness about the boundaries between the denotative and connotative meanings.

The third type of semantic segmentation was the segmentation of the denotative meaning into s e m a n t i c c o m p o n e n t s . The c o m p o n e n t i a l a n a l y s i s is a very important method of linguistic investigation and has attracted a great deal of attention. It is usually illustrated by some simple example such as the words man, woman, boy, girl, all belonging to the semantic field “the human race” and differing in the characteristics of age and sex. Using the symbols HUMAN, ADULT, MALE and marking them positively and negatively so that -ADULT means ‘young’ and -MALE means ‘female’, we may write the following componential definitions:

man: + HUMAN + ADULT + MALEwoman: + HUMAN + ADULT — MALEboy: + HUMAN — ADULT + MALEgirl: + HUMAN — ADULT — MALE

One further point should be made: HUMAN, ADULT, MALE in this analysis are not words of English or any other language: they are elements of meaning, or s e m e s which can be combined in various ways with other similar elements in the meaning of different words. Nevertheless a linguist, as it has already been mentioned, cannot study any meaning devoid of form, therefore these semes are mostly determined with the help of dictionary definitions.

To conclude this rough model of semantic complexities we come to the fourth point, that of polysemy.

P o l y s e m y is inherent in the very nature of words and concepts as every object and every notion has many features and a concept reflected in a word always contains a generalisation of several traits of the object. Some of these traits or components of meaning are common with other objects. Hence the possibility of using the same name in secondary nomination for objects possessing common features which are sometimes only implied in the original meaning. A word when acquiring new meaning or meanings may also retain, and most often retains the previous meaning.

E. g. birth — 1) the act or time of being born, 2) an origin or beginning, 3) descent, family.The different variants of a polysemantic word form a semantic whole due to the proximity of

the referents they name and the notions they express. The formation of new meanings is often based on the potential or implicational meaning. The transitive verb drive, for instance, means ‘to force to move before one’ and hence, more generally, ‘to cause an animal, a person or a thing work or move in some direction’, and more specifically ‘to direct a course of a vehicle or the animal which draws it, or a railway train, etc.’, hence ‘to convey in a vehicle’ and the intransitive verb: ‘to go in a vehicle’. There are also many other variants but we shall mention only one more, namely — the figurative — ‘to mean’, as in: “What can he be driving at?” (Foote)

All these different meanings can be explained one with the help of one of the others.The typical patterns according to which different meanings are united in one polysemantic

word often depend upon grammatical meanings and grammatical categories characteristic of the part of speech to which they belong.

Depending upon the part of speech to which the word belongs all its possible meanings become connected with a definite group of grammatical meanings, and the latter influence the s e m a n t i c s t r u c t u r e of the word so much that every part of speech possesses semantic peculiarities of its own.

2. The term n o t i o n (concept) is introduced into linguistics from logic and psychology. It denotes the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their essential features and relations. Each notion is characterised by its s c o p e and c o n t e n t . The scope of the notion is determined by all the objects it refers to. The content of the notion is made up of all the features that

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distinguish it from other notions. The distinction between the scope and the content of a notion lies at the basis of such terms as the i d e n t i f y i n g ( d e m o n s t r a t i v e ) and s i g n i f i c a t i v e f u n c t i o n s of the word that have been discussed above. The identifying function may be interpreted as denoting the objects covered by the scope of the notion expressed in the word, and the significative function is the function of expressing the content of the respective notion. The function of rendering an emotion or an attitude is termed t h e e x p r e s s i v e f u n c t i o n .

The relationship between the linguistic lexical meaning and the logical notion deserves special attention not only because they are apt to be confused but also because in comparing and contrasting them it is possible to achieve a better insight into the essence of both. In what follows this opposition will be treated in some detail.

I. The first essential point is that the relationship between notion and meaning varies. A word may have a notion for its referent. In the example A good laugh is sunshine in the house (Thackeray).

The scope of the significative meaning and that of the notion coincide; on different levels they cover the same area. But a word may also have, and quite often has a particular individual object for its referent as in “Do you remember what the young lady did with the telegram?” (Christie)

The problem of p r o p e r n a m e s is particularly complicated. It has been often taken for granted that they do not convey any generalised notion at all, that they only name human beings, countries, cities, animals, rivers, stars, etc. And yet, names like Moscow, the Thames, Italy, Byron evoke notions. Moreover, the notions called forth are particularly rich. The clue, as St. Ullmann convincingly argues, lies in the specific function of proper names which is identification, and not signifying.1

Pronouns possess the demonstrative function almost to a complete exclusion of the significative function, i.e. they only point out, they do not impart any information about the object pointed out except for its relation to the speaker.

To sum up this first point: the logical notion is the referent of lexical meaning quite often but not always, because there may be other referents such as the real objects.

II. Secondly, notions are always emotionally neutral as they are a category of thought. Language, however, expresses all possible aspects of human consciousness. Therefore the meaning of many words not only conveys some reflection of objective reality but also connotations revealing the speaker’s state of mind and his attitude to what he is speaking about. The following passage yields a good example: “Vile bug of a coward,” said Lypiatt, “why don’t you defend yourself like a man?” (Huxley) Due to the unpleasant connotations the name bug acquires a negative emotional tone. The word man, on the contrary, has a positive connotation implying courage and firmness. When used in emotionally coloured situations emphatic syntactic structures and contexts, as in our example from Huxley, words accumulate emotional associations that finally blur their exact denotative meaning.

The content of the emotional component of meaning varies considerably. Emotionally charged words can cover the whole scale of both positive and negative emotions: admiration, respect, tenderness and other positive feelings, on the one hand, and scorn, irony, loathing, etc., on the other. Two or more words having the same denotative meaning may differ in emotional tone. In such oppositions as brat : : baby and kid : : child the denotative force of the right- and left-hand terms is the same but the left-hand terms are emotional whereas those on the right are neutral.

III. Thirdly, the absence not only of identity, but even of regular one-to-one correspondence between meaning and notion is clearly seen in words belonging to some specific stylistic level. This purely linguistic factor is relevant not for the content of the message but for the personality of the speaker, his background and his relations with his audience. The wording of the following example can serve to illustrate the point: “Well,” said Kanga, “Fancy that! Fancy my making a mistake like that.” (Milne) Fancy when used in exclamatory sentences not only expresses surprise but has a definite colloquial character and shows that the speaker and those who hear him are on familiar terms.

Summing up the second and the third points, one may say that owing to its linguistic nature the lexical meaning of many words cannot be divorced from the typical sphere where these words are used and the typical contexts, and so bears traces of both, whereas a notion belongs to abstract logic and so has no ties with any stylistic sphere and does not contain any emotive components.

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IV. The linguistic nature of lexical meaning has very important consequences. Expressing a notion, a word does so in a way determined by the peculiarities of the lexical and grammatical systems of each particular language and by the various structural ties of the word in speech. Every word may be said to have paradigmatic ties relating it to other words and forms, and giving it a differential quality. These are its relations to other elements of the same thematic group, to synonymous and antonymous words, phraseological restrictions on its use and the type of words which may be derived from it. On the other hand, each word has syntagmatic ties characterising the ordered linear arrangement of speech elements.

The lexical meaning of every word depends upon the part of speech to which the word belongs. Every word may be used in a limited set of syntactical functions, and with a definite valence. It has a definite set of grammatical meanings, and a definite set of forms.

Every lexica-grammatical group of words or class is characterised by its own lexica-grammatical meaning, forming, as it were, the common denominator of all the meanings of the words which belong to this group. The lexica-grammatical meaning may be also regarded as the feature according to which these words are grouped together. Many recent investigations are devoted to establishing word classes on the basis of similarity of distribution.

In the lexical meaning of every separate word the lexica-grammatical meaning common to all the words of the class to which this word belongs is enriched by additional features and becomes particularised.

The meaning of a specific property in such words as bright, clear, good, quick, steady, thin is a particular realisation of the lexica-grammatical meaning of qualitative adjectives. These adjectives always denote the properties of things capable of being compared and so have degrees of comparison. They refer to qualities that vary along a continuous scale and are called gradable. The scope of the notion rendered by the lexica-grammatical meaning of the class is much larger than the scope of the notion rendered by the lexical meaning of each individual word. The reverse also holds good: the content of the notion expressed by the lexica-grammatical meaning of the class is smaller, poorer in features than the content of the notion expressed by the lexical meaning of a word.

In summing up this fourth point, we note that the complexity of the notion is determined by the relationships of the extra-linguistic reality reflected in human consciousness. The structure of every separate meaning depends on the linguistic syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships because meaning is an inherent component of language. The complexity of each word meaning is due to the fact that it combines lexical meaning with lexica-grammatical meaning and sometimes with emotional colouring, stylistic peculiarities and connotations born from previous usage.

V. The foregoing deals with separate meanings as realised in speech. If we turn to the meaning of words as they exist in language we shall observe that frequently used words are polysemantic.

Morphological derivation also plays a very important part in determining possible meaning combinations. Thus, for instance, nouns derived from verbs very often name not only the action itself but its result as well, e. g. show n ‘the act of showing’, ‘an exhibition’.

All these examples are sufficient to prove the fifth point, namely, that the grouping of meanings is different from the grouping of notions.

VI. Last but not least, the difference between notion and meaning is based upon the fact that notions are mostly international, especially for nations with the same level of cultural development, whereas meaning may be nationally determined and limited. The grouping of meanings in the semantic structure of a word is determined by the whole system of every language, by its grammar and vocabulary, by the peculiar history both of the language in question and the people who speak it. These factors influence not only the mere presence and absence of this or that meaning in the semantic system of words that may be considered equivalent in different languages, but also their respective place and importance. Equivalent words may be defined as words of two different languages, the main lexical variants of which express or name the same notion, emotion or object. Their respective semantic structures (in the case of polysemantic words) show a marked parallelism, but this similarity is not absolute. Its degree may vary.

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There is quite a number of meanings that are realised only under certain specific structural conditions, such as: go fishing (skating, boating, skiing, mountain-climbing); go running (flying, screaming); go limp (pale, bad, blind); be going to ... that have no parallel in Russian (see p. 16).

It is common knowledge that there are many cases when one English word combines the meanings of two or more Russian words expressing similar notions and vice versa. For example:

A. boat — судно, шлюпка, пароход, лодка; coat — пальто, пиджак, китель; desk — парта, письменный стол; floor — пол, этаж; gun — пушка, ружье; cry — кричать, плакать.

B. нога — foot and leg; рука — hand and arm; часы — watch and clock; пальцы — fingers and toes; сон — sleep and dream; высокий — high and tall. The last example is particularly interesting because it reveals that the word high cannot cover all the cases of great vertical dimension, i.e. the scope of the notion and that of the meaning do not coincide.

Summing up all the points of difference between the thing meant, the notion and the meaning, we can say that the lexical meaning of the word may be defined as the realisation or naming of a notion, emotion or object by means of a definite language system subject to the influence of grammar and vocabulary peculiarities of that language. Words that express notions may also have some emotional or stylistic colouring or express connotations suggestive of the contexts in which they often appear. All the specific features that distinguish the lexical meaning from the notion are due to its linguistic nature. Expressing the notion is one of the word’s functions but not the only one, as there are words that do not name any notion; their meaning is constituted by other functions. The development of the lexical meaning is influenced by the whole complicated network of ties and relations between the words in a given vocabulary and between the vocabulary and other aspects of the language.

3. In the previous paragraphs we emphasised the complexity of word meaning and mentioned its possible segmentation into denotative and connotative meaning. In this paragraph we shall analyse these in greater detail. In most cases t h e d e n o t a t i v e m e a n i n g is essentially cognitive: it conceptualises and classifies our experience and names for the listener some objects spoken about. Fulfilling the significative and the communicative functions of the word it is present in every word and may be regarded as the central factor in the functioning of language.

The expressive function of the language with its orientation towards the speaker’s feelings, and the pragmatic function dealing with the effect of words upon listeners are rendered in connotations. Unlike the denotative meaning, connotations are optional.

The description of the denotative meaning or meanings is the duty of lexicographers in anilingual explanatory dictionaries. The task is a difficult one because there is no clear-cut demarcation line between the semantic features, strictly necessary for each definition, and those that are optional. A glance at the definitions given in several dictionaries will suffice to show how much they differ in solving the problem. A cat, for example, is defined by Hornby as “a small fur-covered animal often kept as a pet in the house”. Longman in his dictionary goes into greater detail: a cat is “a small animal with soft fur and sharp teeth and claws, often kept as a pet, or in buildings to catch mice”. The Chambers Dictionary gives a scientific definition — “a cat is a carnivore of the genus Felix, esp. the domesticated kind”.

The examples given above bring us to one more difficult problem. Namely, whether in analysing a meaning we should be guided by all that science knows about the referent, or whether a linguist has to formulate the simplest possible concept as used by every speaker. If so, what are the features necessary and sufficient to characterise the referent? The question was raised by many prominent scientists, the great Russian philologist A. A. Potebnya among them. A. A. Potebnya distinguished the “proximate” word meaning with the bare minimum of characteristic features as used by every speaker in everyday life, and the “distant” word meaning corresponding to what specialists know about the referent. The latter type we could have called ‘special’ or ‘terminological’ meaning. A. A. Potebnya maintained that linguistics is concerned only with the first type. The problem is by no means simple, especially for lexicographers, as is readily seen from the above lexicographic treatment of the word cat.

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The demarcation line between the two types is becoming more fluid; with the development of culture the gap between the elementary notions of a layman and the more and more exact concepts of a specialist narrows in some spheres and widens in others. The concepts themselves are constantly changing. The speakers’ ideolects vary due to different life experience, education and other extra-linguistic factors.

The bias of studies depends upon their ultimate goals.If lexicology is needed as the basis for language teaching in engineering colleges, we have to

concentrate on terminological semantics, if on the other hand it is the theory necessary for teaching English at school, the meaning with the minimum semantic components is of primary importance. So we shall have to concentrate on this in spite of all its fuzziness.

Now, if the denotative meaning exists by virtue of what the word refers to, connotation is the pragmatic communicative value the word receives by virtue of where, when, how, by whom, for what purpose and in what contexts it is or may be used. Four main types of connotations are described below. They are stylistic, emotional, evaluative and expressive or intensifying.

The orientation toward the subject-matter, characteristic, as we have seen, of the denotative meaning, is substituted here by pragmatic orientation toward speaker and listener; it is not so much what is spoken about as the attitude to it that matters.

When associations at work concern the situation in which the word is uttered, the social circumstances (formal, familiar, etc.), the social relationships between the interlocutors (polite, rough), the type and purpose of communication (learned, poetic, official, etc.), the connotation is stylistic.

An effective method of revealing connotations is the analysis of synonymic groups, where the identity of denotation meanings makes it possible to separate the connotational overtones. A classical example for showing stylistic connotations is the noun horse and its synonyms. The word horse is stylistically neutral, its synonym steed is poetic, nag is a word of slang and gee-gee is baby language.

An emotional or affective connotation is acquired by the word as a result of its frequent use in contexts corresponding to emotional situations or because the referent conceptualised and named in the denotative meaning is associated with emotions. For example, the verb beseech means 'to ask eagerly and also anxiously'. E. g.: He besought a favour of the judge (Longman).

Making use of the same procedure of comparing elements of a synonymic group, one compares the words magic, witchcraft and sorcery, all originally denoting art and power of controlling events by occult supernatural means, we see that all three words are now used mostly figuratively, and also that magic as compared to its synonyms will have glamorous attractive connotations, while the other two, on the contrary, have rather sinister associations.

It is not claimed that these four types of connotations: stylistic, emotional, evaluative and intensifying form an ideal and complete classification. Many other variants have been proposed, but the one suggested here is convenient for practical analysis and well supported by facts. It certainly is not ideal. There is some difficulty for instance in separating the binary good/bad evaluation from connotations of the so-called b i a s words involving i d e o l o g i c a l viewpoints. Bias words are especially characteristic of the newspaper vocabulary reflecting different ideologies and political trends in describing political life. Some authors think these connotations should be taken separately.

The term b i a s w o r d s is based on the meaning of the noun bias ‘an inclination for or against someone or something, a prejudice’, e. g. a newspaper with a strong conservative bias.

The following rather lengthy example is justified, because it gives a more or less complete picture of the phenomenon. E. Waugh in his novel “Scoop” satirises the unfairness of the Press. A special correspondent is sent by a London newspaper to report on a war in a fictitious African country Ishmalia. He asks his editor for briefing:

“Can you tell me who is fighting whom in Ishmalia?”“I think it is the Patriots and the Traitors.”“Yes, but which is which?”“Oh, I don’t know that. That’s Policy, you see [...] You should have asked Lord Copper.”“I gather it’s between the Reds and the Blacks.”

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“Yes, but i t ’ s not quite so easy as that. You see they are all Negroes. And the Fascists won’t be called black because of their racial pride. So they are called White after the White Russians. And the Bolshevists want to be called black because of their racial pride.” (Waugh)

The example shows that connotations are not stable and vary considerably according to the ideology, culture and experience of the individual. Even apart of this satirical presentation we learn from Barn-hart’s dictionary that the word black meaning ‘a negro’, which used to be impolite and derogatory, is now upgraded by civil rights movement through the use of such slogans as “Black is Beautiful” or “Black Power”.

A linguistic proof of an existing unpleasant connotation is the appearance of euphemisms. Thus backward students are now called under-achievers. Countries with a low standard of living were first called undeveloped, but euphemisms quickly lose their polite character and the unpleasant connotations are revived, and then they are replaced by new euphemisms such as less developed and then as developing countries.

A fourth type of connotation that should be mentioned is the i n t e n s i f y i n g c o n n o t a t i o n (also expressive, emphatic). Thus magnificent, gorgeous, splendid, superb are all used colloquially as terms of exaggeration.

Sometimes emotion or evaluation is expressed in the style of the utterance. The speaker may adopt an impolite tone conveying displeasure (e. g. Shut up!). A casual tone may express friendliness о r affection: Sit down, kid [...] There, there — just you sit tight (Chris tie).

Polysemy is a phenomenon of language not of speech. The sum total of many contexts in which the word is observed to occur permits the lexicographers to record cases of identical meaning and cases that differ in meaning. They are registered by lexicographers and found in dictionaries.

A distinction has to be drawn between the lexical meaning of a word in speech, we shall call it c o n t e x t u a l meaning, and the semantic structure of a word in language. Thus the semantic structure of the verb act comprises several variants: ‘do something’, ‘behave’, ‘take a part in a play’, ‘pretend’. If one examines this word in the following aphorism: Some men have acted courage who had it not; but no man can act wit (Halifax), one sees it in a definite context that particularises it and makes possible only one meaning ‘pretend’. This contextual meaning has a connotation of irony. The unusual grammatical meaning of transitivity (act is as a rule intransitive) and the lexical meaning of objects to this verb make a slight difference in the lexical meaning.

Contextual meanings include nonce usage. Nonce words are words invented and used for a particular occasion.

The study of means and ways of naming the elements of reality is called o n o m a s i o l o g y . As worked out in some recent publications it received the name of Theory of Nomination. So if semasiology studies what it is the name points out, onomasiology and the theory of nomination have to show how the objects receive their names and what features are chosen to represent them.

Originally the nucleus of the theory concerned names for objects, and first of all concrete nouns. Later on a discussion began, whether actions, properties, emotions and so on should be included as well. The question was answered affirmatively as there is no substantial difference in the reflection in our mind of things and their properties or different events. Everything that can be named or expressed verbally is considered in the theory of nomination. Vocabulary constitutes the central problem but syntax, morphology and phonology also have their share. The theory of nomination takes into account that the same referent may receive various names according to the information required at the moment by the process of communication, e. g. Walter Scott and the author of Waverley (to use an example known to many generations of linguists). According to the theory of nomination every name has its primary function for which it was created (primary or direct nomination), and an indirect or secondary function corresponding to all types of figurative, extended or special meanings (see p. 53). The aspect of theory of nomination that has no counterpart in semasiology is the study of repeated nomination in the same text, as, for instance, when Ophelia is called by various characters of the tragedy: fair Ophelia, sweet maid, dear maid, nymph, kind sister, rose of May, poor Ophelia, lady, sweet lady, pretty lady, and so on.

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To sum up this discussion of the semantic structure of a word, we return to its definition as a structured set of interrelated lexical variants with different denotational and sometimes also connotational meanings. These variants belong to the same set because they are expressed by the same combination of morphemes, although in different contextual conditions. The elements are interrelated due to the existence of some common semantic component. In other words, the word’s semantic structure is an organised whole comprised by recurrent meanings and shades of meaning that a particular sound complex can assume in different contexts, together with emotional, stylistic and other connotations, if any.

Every meaning is thus characterised according to the function, significative or pragmatic effect that it has to fulfil as denotative and connotative meaning referring the word to the extra-linguistic reality and to the speaker, and also with respect to other meanings with which it is contrasted. The hierarchy of lexica-grammatical variants and shades of meaning within the semantic structure of a word is studied with the help of formulas establishing semantic distance between them developed by N. A. Shehtman and other authors.

Recommended literature:1. Antrushina Modern English Lexicology - M.,19992. Arnold I.V. The English Word - M.,19863. Ginzburg Modern English Lexicology – M.,19794. Koonin A. English Lexicology - M.,19785. Смирницкий А.И. Лексикология английского языка - M.,19776. Харитончик З.А. Лексикология английского языка - M.,1987

4 Types of lexical grouping of the English words1. The English Vocabulary as an Adaptive System. Neologisms 2. Morphological and Lexico-Grammatical Grouping3. Terminological Systems4. Different Types of Non-Semantic GroupingAims:teaching – To give the idea of lexical grouping of the English words;developing – To deepen the idea of lexical grouping of the English words;educational (pedagogic) – To increase meaning from a lexicological point of view.1. To adapt means to make or undergo modifications in function and structure so as to be fit for a

new use, a new environment or a new situation.1 It has been stated in § 1.5 that being an adaptive system the vocabulary is constantly adjusting itself to the changing requirements and conditions of human communications and cultural and other needs. We shall now give a more detailed presentation of the subject. This process of self-regulation of the lexical system is a result of overcoming contradictions between the state of the system and the demands it has to meet. The speaker chooses from the existing stock of words such words that in his opinion can adequately express his thought and feeling. Failing to find the expression he needs, he coins a new one. It is important to stress that the development is not confined to coining new words on the existing patterns but in adapting the very structure of the system to its changing functions.

According to F. de Saussure synchronic linguistics deals with systems and diachronic linguistics — with single elements, and the two methods must be kept strictly apart. A language system then should be studied as something fixed and unchanging, whereas we observe the opposite: it is constantly changed and readjusted as the need arises. The concept of adaptive systems overcomes this contradiction and permits us to study language as a constantly developing but systematic whole. The adaptive system approach gives a more adequate account of the systematic phenomena of a vocabulary by explaining more facts about the functioning of words and providing more relevant generalisations, because we can take into account the influence of extra-linguistic reality. The study of the vocabulary as an adaptive system reveals the pragmatic essence of the communication process, i.e. the way language is used to influence the addressee.

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There is a considerable difference of opinion as to the type of system involved, although the majority of linguists nowadays agree that the vocabulary should be studied as a system.2 Our present state of knowledge is, however, insufficient to present the whole of the vocabulary as one articulated system, so we deal with it as if it were a set of interrelated systems.

For different purposes of study different types of grouping may prove effective, there is no optimum short cut equally suitable for all purposes. In the present chapter we shall work out a review of most of the types of grouping so far suggested and an estimate of their possibilities. If we succeed in establishing their interrelation, it will help us in obtaining an idea of the lexical system as a whole. We must be on our guard, however, against taking the list of possible oppositions suggested by this chapter for a classification.

We shall constantly slide the basis of our definitions from one level to another, whereas in an adequate classification the definition of various classes must be based on the same kind of criteria. That means we shall obtain data for various approaches to the system, not the system itself as yet.

The adaptive system approach to vocabulary is still in its infancy, but it is already possible to hazard an interim estimate of its significance. Language as well as other adaptive systems, better studied in other branches of science, is capable of obtaining information from the extra-linguistic world and with the help of feedback makes use of it for self-optimisation. If the variation proves useful, it remains in the vocabulary. The process may be observed by its results, that is by studying new words or n e o l o g i s m s . New notions constantly come into being, requiring new words to name them. 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, the increase, as a rule, more than makes up for the leak-out.

New words and expressions or n e о l о g i s m s are created for new things irrespective of their scale of importance. They may be all-important and concern some social relationships, such as a new form of state, e. g. People’s Republic, or something threatening the very existence of humanity, like nuclear war. Or again the thing may be quite insignificant and short-lived, like fashions in dancing, clothing, hairdo or footwear (e. g. roll-neck). In every case either the old words are appropriately changed in meaning or new words are borrowed, or more often coined out of the existing language material either according to the patterns and ways already productive in the language at a given stage of its development or creating new ones.

Thus, a n e o l o g i s m is a newly coined word or phrase or a new meaning for an existing word, or a word borrowed from another language.

The intense development of science and industry has called forth the invention and introduction of an immense number of new words and changed the meanings of old ones, e. g. aerobic, black hole, computer, isotope, feedback, penicillin, pulsar, quasar, tape-recorder, supermarket and so on.

The laws of efficient communication demand maximum signal in minimum time. To meet these requirements the adaptive lexical system is not only adding new units but readjusts the ways and means of word-formation and the word-building means. Thus, when radio location was invented it was defined as radio detection and ranging which is long and so a convenient abbreviation out of the first letter or letters of each word in this phrase was coined, hence radar. The process of nomination may pass several stages. In other words, a new notion is named by a terminological phrase consisting of words which in their turn are made up of morphemes. The phrase may be shortened by ellipsis or by graphical abbreviation, and this change of form is achieved without change of meaning. Acronyms are not composed of existing morphemes according to existing word-formation patterns, but on the contrary revolutionise the system by forming new words and new morphemes out of letters. The whole process of word-formation is paradoxically reversed.

The lexical system may adapt itself to new functions by combining several word-building processes. Thus fall-out — the radioactive dust descending through the air after an atomic explosion — is coined by composition and conversion simultaneously. Ad-lib ‘to improvise’ is the result of borrowing (Lat. ad libitum), shortening, compounding and conversion. Compare also admass coined by J.B. Priestley and meaning ‘mass advertising in its harmful effect on society’.

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It is also interesting to mention the new meaning of word-formation patterns in composition. Teach-in is a student conference or a series of seminars on some burning issue of the day, meaning some demonstration of protest. This pattern is very frequent: lie-in, sleep-in, pray-in, laugh-in, love-in, read-in, sing-in, stay-in, talk-in.

In all the above variants the semantic components ‘protest’ and ‘place’ are invariably present. This is a subgroup of peculiarly English and steadily developing type of nouns formed by a combined process of conversion and composition from verbs with postpositives, such as a holdup ‘armed robbery’ from hold-up ‘rob’, come-back ‘a person who returns after a long absence’.

The intense development of shortening aimed at economy of time and effort but keeping the sense complete is manifest not only in acronyms and abbreviations but also in blends, e . g . bionics < bio+(electr)onics; slintnastics < slim+gymnastics and back-formation. The very means of word-formation change their status. This is for instance manifest in the set of combining forms. In the past these were only bound forms borrowings from Latin and Greek mostly used to form technical terms. Now some of them turn into free standing words, e. g. maxi n ‘something very large’.

Semi-affixes which used to be not numerous and might be treated as exceptions now evolve into a separate set. An interesting case is person substituting the semi-affix -man due to an extra linguistic cause — a tendency to degender professional names, to avoid mentioning sex discrimination (chairperson, policeperson). A freer use of semi-affixes has been illustrated. The set of semi-affixes is also increased due to the so-called abstracted forms, that is parts of words or phrases used in what seems the meaning they contribute to the unit. E. g. workaholic ‘a person with a compulsive desire to work’ was patterned on alcoholic; footballaholic and bookaholic are selfexplanatory. Compare also: washeteria ‘a self-service laundry’.

When some word becomes a very frequent element in compounds the discrimination of compounds and derivatives, the difference between affix and semi-affix is blurred. Here are some neologisms meaning ‘obsessed with sth’ and containing the elements mad and happy: power-mad, money-mad, speed-mad, movie-mad and auto-happy, trigger-happy, footlight-happy. It is not quite clear whether, in spite of their limitless productivity, we are still justified in considering them as compounds.

Our survey has touched only upon a representative series of problems connected with the functioning and development of the present-day English vocabulary as an adaptive system and of the tendency in coining new words. For a reliable mass of evidence on the new English vocabulary the reader is referred to lexicographic sources.

New additions to the English vocabulary are collected in addenda to explanatory dictionaries and in special dictionaries of new words. One should consult the supplementary volume of the English-Russian Dictionary ed. by I.R. Galperin, the three supplementary volumes of “The Oxford English Dictionary” and the dictionaries of New English which are usually referred to as Barnhart Dictionaries, because Clarence Barnhart, a distinguished American lexicographer, is the senior of the three editors. The first volume covers words and word equivalents that have come into the vocabulary of the English-speaking world during the period 1963-1972 and the second — those of the 70s.

Compounding by mere juxtaposition of free forms has been a frequent pattern since the Old English period and is so now, сf. brains-trust ‘a group of experts’, brain drain ‘emigration of scientists’, to brain-drain, brain-drainer, quiz-master ‘chairman in competitions designed to test the knowledge of the participants’. In the neologism backroom boys ‘men engaged in secret research’ the structural cohesion of the compound is enhanced by the attributive function. Cf. redbrick (universities), paperback (books), ban-the-bomb (demonstration). The change of meaning, or rather the introduction of a new, additional meaning may be illustrated by the word net-work ‘a number of broadcasting stations, connected for a simultaneous broadcast of the same programme’. Another example is a word of American literary slang — the square. This neologism is used as a derogatory epithet for a person who plays safe, who sticks to his illusions, and thinks that only his own life embodies all decent moral values.

As a general rule neologisms are at first clearly motivated. An exception is shown by those based on borrowings or learned coinages which, though motivated at an early stage, very soon begin to

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function as indivisible signs. A good example is the much used term cybernetics ‘study of systems of control and communication in living beings and man-made devices’ coined by Norbert Wiener from the Greek word kyberne-tes ‘steersman’+suffix -ics.

There are, however, cases when etymology of comparatively new words is obscure, as in the noun boffin ‘a scientist engaged in research work’ or in gimmick ‘a tricky device’ — an American slang word that is now often used in British English.

In the course of time the new word is accepted into the word-stock of the language and being often used ceases to be considered new, or else it may not be accepted for some reason or other and vanish from the language. The fate of neologisms is hardly predictable: some of them are short-lived, others, on the contrary, become durable as they are liked and accepted. Once accepted, they may serve as a basis for further word-formation: gimmick, gimmickry, gimmicky. Zip (an imitative word denoting a certain type of fastener) is hardly felt as new, but its derivatives — the verb zip (zip from one place to another), the corresponding personal noun zipper and the adjective zippy — appear to be neologisms.

When we consider the lexical system of a language as an adaptive system developing for many centuries and reflecting the changing needs of the communication process, we have to contrast the innovations with words that dropped from the language ( o b s o l e t e words) or survive only in special contexts ( a r c h a i s m s and h i s t o r i s m s ) .

A r c h a i s m s are words that were once common but are now replaced by synonyms. When these new synonymous words, whether borrowed or coined within the English language, introduce nothing conceptually new, the stylistic value of older words tends to be changed; on becoming rare they acquire a lofty poetic tinge due to their ancient flavour, and then they are associated with poetic diction.

Some examples will illustrate this statement: aught n ‘anything whatever’, betwixt prp ‘between’, billow n ‘wave’, chide v ‘scold’, damsel n ‘a noble girl’, ere prp ‘before’, even n ‘evening’, forbears n ‘ancestors’, hapless a ‘unlucky’, hark v ‘listen’, lone a ‘lonely’, morn n ‘morning’, perchance adv ‘perhaps’, save prp, cj ‘except’, woe n ‘sorrow’, etc.

When the causes of the word’s disappearance are extra-linguistic, e.g. when the thing named is no longer used, its name becomes an h i s t о r i s m . Historisms are very numerous as names for social relations, institutions and objects of material culture of the past. The names of ancient transport means, such as types of boats or types of carriages, ancient clothes, weapons, musical instruments, etc. can offer many examples.

Before the appearance of motor-cars many different types of horse-drawn carriages were in use. The names of some of them are: brougham, berlin, calash, diligence, fly, gig, hansom, landeau, phaeton, etc. It is interesting to mention specially the romantically metaphoric prairie schooner ‘a canvas-covered wagon used by pioneers crossing the North American prairies’. There are still many sailing ships in use, and schooner in the meaning of ‘a sea-going vessel’ is not an historism, but a prairie schooner is. Many types of sailing craft belong to the past as caravels or galleons, so their names are historisms too.

The history of costume forms an interesting topic by itself. It is reflected in the history of corresponding terms. The corresponding glossaries may be very long. Only very few examples can be mentioned here. In W. Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, doublets are often mentioned. A doublet is a close-fitting jacket with or without sleeves worn by men in the 15th-17th centuries. It is interesting to note that descriptions of ancient garments given in dictionaries often include their social functions in this or that period. Thus, a tabard of the 15th century was a short surcoat open at the sides and with short sleeves, worn by a knight over his armour and emblazoned on the front, back and sides with his armorial bearings. Not all historisms refer to such distant periods. Thus, bloomers — an outfit designed for women in mid-nineteenth century. It consisted of Turkish-style trousers gathered at the ankles and worn by women as “a rational dress”. It was introduced by Mrs Bloomer, editor and social reformer, as a contribution to woman rights movement. Somewhat later bloomers were worn by girls and women for games and cycling, but then they became shorter and reached only to the knee.

A great many historisms denoting various types of weapons occur in historical novels, e. g. a battering ram ‘an ancient machine for breaking walls’; a blunderbuss ‘an old type of gun with a wide

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muzzle’; breastplate ‘a piece of metal armour worn by knights over the chest to protect it in battle’; a crossbow ‘a medieval weapon consisting of a bow fixed across a wooden stock’. Many words belonging to this semantic field remain in the vocabulary in some figurative meaning, e. g. arrow, shield, sword, vizor, etc.

2. On the morphological level words are divided into four groups according to their morphological structure, namely the number and type of morphemes which compose them. They are:

1. Root or morpheme words. Their stem contains one free morpheme, e. g. dog, hand.2. Derivatives contain no less than two morphemes of which at least one is bound, e . g .

dogged, doggedly, handy, handful; sometimes both are bound: terrier.3. Compound words consist of not less than two free morphemes, the presence of bound

morphemes is possible but not necessary, e. g. dog-cheap ‘very cheap’; dog-days ‘hottest part of the year’; handball, handbook.

4. Compound derivatives consist of not less than two free morphemes and one bound morpheme referring to the whole combination. The pattern is (stem+stem) +suffix, e. g. dog-legged ‘crooked or bent like a dog’s hind leg’, left-handed.

This division is the basic one for lexicology.Another type of traditional lexicological grouping is known as w o r d - f a m i l i e s . The

number of groups is certainly much greater, being equal to the number of root morphemes if all the words are grouped according to the root morpheme. For example: dog, doggish, doglike, doggy/doggie, to dog, dogged, doggedly, doggedness, dog-wolf, dog-days, dog-biscuit, dog-cart, etc.; hand, handy, handicraft, handbag, handball, handful, handmade, handsome, etc.

Similar groupings according to a common suffix or prefix are also possible, if not as often made use of. The greater the combining power of the affix, the more numerous the group. Groups with such suffixes as -er, -ing, -ish, -less, -ness constitute infinite (open) sets, i.e. are almost unlimited, because new combinations are constantly created. When the suffix is no longer productive the group may have a diminishing number of elements, as with the adjective-forming suffix -some, e. g. gladsome, gruesome, handsome, lithesome, lonesome, tiresome, troublesome, wearisome, wholesome, winsome, etc.

The next step is classifying words not in isolation but taking them within actual utterances. Here the first contrast to consider is the contrast between notional words and form or functional words. Actually the definition of the word as a minimum free form holds good for notional words only. It is only n o t i o n a l words that can stand alone and yet have meaning and form a complete utterance. They can name different objects of reality, the qualities of these objects and actions or the process in which they take part. In sentences they function syntactically as some primary or secondary members. Even extended sentences are possible which consist of notional words only. They can also express the attitude of the speaker towards reality.

F o r m w o r d s , also called functional words, empty words or auxiliaries (the latter term is coined by H. Sweet), are lexical units which are called words, although they do not conform to the definition of the word, because they are used only in combination with notional words or in reference to them. This group comprises auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions and relative adverbs. Primarily they express grammatical relationships between words. This does not, however, imply that they have no lexical meaning of their own.

The borderline between notional and functional words is not always very clear and does not correspond to that between various parts of speech. Thus, most verbs are notional words, but the auxiliary verbs are classified as form words. It is open to discussion whether link verbs should be treated as form words or not. The situation is very complicated if we consider pronouns. Personal, demonstrative and interrogative pronouns, as their syntactical functions testify, are notional words; reflexive pronouns seem to be form words building up such analytical verb forms as I warmed myself, but this is open to discussion. As to prop-words (one, those, etc.), some authors think that they should be considered as a separate, third group.

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It is typical of the English language that the boundary between notional and functional words sometimes lies within the semantic structure of one and the same word, so that in some contexts they appear as notional words and in other contexts as form words. Compare the functions and meanings of the verb have as used in the following extract from a novel by A. Huxley: Those that have not complain about their own fate. Those that have do not, it is only those in contact with them •— and since the havers are few these too are few — who complain of the curse of having. In my time I have belonged to both categories. Once I had, and I can see that to my fellowmen I must then have been intolerable ... now I have not. The curse of insolence and avarice has been removed from me.

The systematic use of form words is one of the main devices of English grammatical structure, surpassed in importance only by fixed word order. Form words are therefore studied in grammar rather than in lexicology which concentrates its attention upon notional words.

Those linguists who divide all the words into three classes (notional words, form words, deictic and substitute words or prop-words) consider the latter as pointing words (this, that, they, there, then, thus, he, here, how, who, what, where, whither, nobody, never, not). Deictic words are orientational words, relative to the time and place of utterance. They ultimately stand for objects of reality, if only at second hand.

Very interesting treatment of form words is given by Charles Fries. The classes suggested by Ch. Fries are based on distribution, in other words, they are syntactic positional classes. Ch. Fries establishes them with the view of having the minimum number of different groups needed for a general description of utterances. His classification is based on the assumption that all the words that could occupy the same “set of positions” in the patterns of English single free utterances without a change of the structural meaning, must belong to the same class. Very roughly and approximately his classification may be described as follows. The bulk of words in the utterances he investigated is constituted by four main classes. He gives them no names except numbers. Class I: water, time, heating, thing, green (of a particular shade), (the) sixth, summer, history, etc.; Class II: felt, arranged, sees, forgot, guess, know, help, forward ‘to send on’; Class HI: general, eighth, good; better, outstanding, wide, young’, Class IV: there, here, now, usually, definitely, first, twice.

Every reader is at once tempted to equate these class numbers with the usual names: “nouns", “verbs", “adjectives” and “adverbs”. The two sets of names, however, do not strictly coincide in either what is included or what is excluded. Neither morphological form nor meaning are taken into consideration. Unfortunately Ch. Fries does not give satisfactory definitions and offers only the procedure of substitution by which words can be tested and identified in his minimum test frames:

Class I Class II Class III Class IVFrame A (The

)concert was good (always)

Frame В (The)

clerk remembered (the) tax (suddenly)

Frame С (The)

team went there

The functional words are subdivided into 15 groups, and as Ch. Fries could not find for them any general identifying characteristics, they are supposed to be recognised and learned as separate words, so that they form 15 subsets defined by listing all the elements. As an example of form words the group of determiners may be taken. These are words which in the Ch. Fries classification system serve to mark the so-called Class I forms. They can be substituted for the in the frame (The) concert is good. That is to say, they are words belonging to the group of limiting noun modifiers, such as a, an, any, each, either, every, neither, no, one, some, the, that, those, this, these, what, whatever, which, whichever, possessive adjectives (my) and possessive case forms (Joe’s). Determiners may occur before descriptive adjectives modifying the Class I words.

We have dwelt so extensively upon this classification, because it is very much used, with different modifications, in modern lexicological research practice, though the figures in the denotations of Ch. Fries were later substituted by letters. N denotes Class I words, i.e. all the nouns and some pronouns and numerals occupying the same positions, V — Class II, namely verbs with the

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exception of the auxiliaries, A — Class III, adjectives, some pronouns and numerals used attributively, D — Class IV, adverbs and some noun phrases. In lexicology the notation is chiefly used in various types of semasiological research with distributional and transformational analysis.

The division into such classes as p a r t s of s p e e c h observes both paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships of the words and also their meaning. There is no necessity to dwell here upon the parts of speech, because they are dealt with in grammar. We shall limit our discussion to subdivisions of parts of speech and call them lexico-grammatical groups. By a l e x i c o -g r a m m a t i c a l g r o u p we understand a class of words which have a common lexico-grammatical meaning, a common paradigm, the same substituting elements and possibly a characteristic set of suffixes rendering the lexico-grammatical meaning. These groups are subsets of the parts of speech, several lexico-grammatical groups constitute one part of speech. Thus, English nouns are subdivided approximately into the following lexico-grammatical groups: personal names, animal names, collective names (for people), collective names (for animals), abstract nouns, material nouns, object nouns, proper names for people, toponymic proper nouns.

If, for instance, we consider a group of nouns having the following characteristics: two number forms, the singular and the plural; two case forms; animate, substituted in the singular by he or she; common, i.e. denoting a notion and not one particular object (as proper names do); able to combine regularly with the indefinite article, some of them characterised by such suffixes as -er/-or, -ist, -ее, -eer and the semi-affix -man, we obtain the so-called personal names: agent, baker, artist, volunteer, visitor, workman.

Observing the semantic structure of words belonging to this group we find a great deal of semantic likeness within it, not only in the denotative meanings as such but also in the way various meanings are combined. Personal nouns, for instance, possess a comparatively simple semantic structure. A structure consisting of two variants predominates. In many cases the secondary, i.e. derived meaning is due to generalisation or specialisation.1 Generalisation is present in such words as advocate, which may mean any person who supports or defends a plan or a suggestion anywhere, not only in court; apostle, which alongside its religious meaning may denote any leader of any reform or doctrine. E.g.: What would Sergius, the apostle of the higher love, say if he saw me now? (Shaw)

Specialisation is observed in cases like beginner, where the derived meaning corresponds to a notion of a narrower scope: ‘one who has not had much experience’ as compared to ‘one who begins’.

The group is also characterised by a high percentage of emotionally coloured, chiefly derogatory words among the metaphorical derived variants, such as baby ‘a person who behaves like a baby’ or witch ‘an ugly and unkind woman’.

Words belonging to another lexico-grammatical group, for instance those denoting well-known animals, very often develop metaphorical expressive names for people possessing qualities rightly or wrongly attributed to the respective animals: ass, bitch, cow, fox, swine. E. g.: Armitage had talked, he supposed. Damned young pup! What did he know about it! (Christie)

The subdivision of all the words belonging to some part of speech into groups of the kind described above is also achieved on this basis of oppositions. Should we want to find the subgroups of the English noun, we may take as distinctive features the relations of the given word to the categories of number and case, their combining possibilities with regard to definite, indefinite and zero article, their possible substitution by he, she, it or they, their unique or notional correlation.2

Lexico-grammatical groups should not be confused with parts of speech. A few more examples will help to grasp the difference. Audience and honesty, for instance, belong to the same part of speech but to different lexico-grammatical groups, because their lexico-grammatical meaning is different: audience is a group of people, and honesty is a quality; they have different paradigms: audience has two forms, singular and plural, honesty is used only in the singular; also honesty is hardly ever used in the Possessive case unless personified. To show that the substituting elements are different two examples will suffice: I am referring to what goes on inside the audience’s mind when they see the play (Arden). Honesty isn’t everything but I believe it’s the first thing (Priestley). Being a collective noun, the word audience is substituted by they; honesty is substituted by it.

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Other words belonging to the same lexico-grammatical group as audience are people, party, jury, but not flock or swarm, because the lexico-grammatical meaning of the last two words is different: they are substituted by it and denote groups of living beings but not persons, unless, of course, they are used metaphorically.

3. Sharply defined extensive semantic fields are found in terminological systems.Terminology constitutes the greatest part of every language vocabulary. It is also its most

intensely developing part, i.e. the class giving the largest number of new formations. Terminology of a. language consists of many systems of terms. We shall call a t e r m any word or word-group used to name a notion characteristic of some special field of knowledge, industry or culture. The scope and content of the notion that a ‘term serves to express are specified by d e f i n i t i o n s in literature on the subject. The word utterance for instance, may be regarded as a linguistic term, since Z. Harris, Ch. Fries and other representatives of descriptive linguistics attach to it the following definition: “An utterance is any stretch of talk by one person before and after which there is a silence.”

Many of the influential works on linguistics that appeared in the last five years devote much attention to the problems of sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics may be roughly defined as the study of the influence produced upon language by various social factors. It is not difficult to understand that this influence is particularly strong in lexis. Now terminology is precisely that part of lexis where this influence is not only of paramount importance, but where it is recognised so that terminological systems are purposefully controlled. Almost every system of special terminology is nowadays fixed and analysed in glossaries approved by authorities, special commissions and eminent scholars.

A term is, in many respects, a very peculiar type of word. An ideal term should be monosemantic and, when used within its own sphere, does not depend upon the micro-context, provided it is not expressed by a figurative variant of a polysemantic word. Its meaning remains constant until some new discovery or invention changes the referent or the notion. Polysemy, when it arises,1 is a drawback, so that all the speakers and writers on special subjects should be very careful to avoid it. Polysemy may be tolerated in one form only, namely if the same term has various meanings in different fields of science. The terms alphabet and word, for example, have in mathematics a meaning very different from those accepted in linguistics.

Being mostly independent of the context a term can have no contextual meaning whatever. The only meaning possible is a denotational free meaning. A term is intended to ensure a one-to-one correspondence between morphological arrangement and content. No emotional colouring or evaluation are possible when the term is used within its proper sphere. As to connotation or stylistic colouring, they are superseded in terms by the connection with the other members of some particular terminological system and by the persistent associations with this system when the term is used out of its usual sphere.

A term can obtain a figurative or emotionally coloured meaning only when taken out of its sphere and used in literary or colloquial speech. But in that case it ceases to be a term and its denotational meaning may also become very vague. It turns into an ordinary word. The adjective atomic used to describe the atomic structure of matter was until 1945 as emotionally neutral as words like quantum or parallelogram. But since Hiroshima and the ensuing nuclear arms race it has assumed a new implication, so that the common phrase this atomic age, which taken literally has no meaning at all, is now used to denote an age of great scientific progress, but also holds connotations of ruthless menace and monstrous destruction.

Every branch and every school of science develop a special terminology adapted to their nature and methods. Its development represents an essential part of research work and is of paramount importance, because it can either help or hinder progress. The great physiologist I.P. Pavlov, when studying the higher nervous activity, prohibited his colleagues and pupils to use such phrases as the dog thinks, the dog wants, the dog remembers; he believed that these words interfered with objective observation.

The appearance of structuralist schools of linguistics has completely changed linguistic terminology. A short list of some frequently used terms will serve to illustrate the point: allomorph,

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allophone; constituent, immediate constituent’, distribution, complementary distribution, contrastive distribution’, morph, morphophonemics, morphotactics, etc.

Using the new terms in context one can say that “phonologists seek to establish the system pattern or structure of archiphonemes, phonemes and phonemic variants based primarily on the principle of twofold choice or binary opposition11. All the italicised words in the above sentence are terms. No wonder therefore that the intense development of linguistics made it imperative to systematise, standardise and check the definitions of linguistic terms now in current use. Such work on terminology standardisation has been going on in almost all branches of science and engineering since the beginning of the 20th century, and linguists have taken an active part in it, while leaving their own terminology in a sad state of confusion. Now this work of systematisation of linguistic terms is well under way. A considerable number of glossaries appeared in different countries. These efforts are of paramount importance, the present state of linguistic terminology being quite inadequate creating a good deal of ambiguity and misunderstanding.

The terminology of a branch of science is not simply a sum total of its terms but a definite system reflecting the system of its notions. Terminological systems may be regarded as intersecting sets, because some terms belong simultaneously to several terminological systems. There is no harm in this if the meaning of the terms and their definitions remain constant, or if the respective branches of knowledge do not meet; where this is not so, much ambiguity can arise. The opposite phenomenon, i.e. the synonymy of terms, is no less dangerous for very obvious reasons. Scholars are apt to suspect that their colleagues who use terms different from those favoured by themselves are either talking nonsense or else are confused in their thinking. An interesting way out is offered by one of the most modern developments in world science, by cybernetics. It offers a single vocabulary and a single set of concepts suitable for representing the most diverse types of systems: in linguistics and biological aspects of communication no less than in various engineering professions. This is of paramount importance, as it has been repeatedly found in science that the discovery of analogy or relation between two fields leads to each field helping the development of the other.

Such notions and terms as quantity of information, redundancy, enthropy, feedback and many more are used in various disciplines. Today linguists, no less than other scholars, must know what is going on in other fields of learning and keep abreast of general progress.

The origin of terms shows several main channels, three of which are specific for terminology. These specific ways are:

1. Formation of terminological phrases with subsequent clipping, ellipsis, blending, abbreviation: transistor receiver → transistor → trannie; television text → teletext; ecological architecture → ecotecture; extremely low frequency → ELF.

2. The use of combining forms from Latin and Greek like aerodrome, aerodynamics, cyclotron, microfilm, telegenic, telegraph, thermonuclear, telemechanics, supersonic. The process is common to terminology in many languages.

3. Borrowing from another terminological system within the same language whenever there is any affinity between the respective fields. Sea terminology, for instance, lent many words to aviation vocabulary which in its turn made the starting point for the terminology adopted in the conquest of space. If we turn back to linguistics, we shall come across many terms borrowed from rhetoric: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and others.

The remaining two methods are common with other layers of the vocabulary. These are word-formation in which composition, semantic shift and derivation take the leading part, and borrowing from other languages. The character of the terms borrowed, the objects and ideas they denote are full of significance for the history of world culture. Since the process of borrowing is very marked in every field, all terminology has a tendency to become international. An important peculiarity of terms as compared to the rest of the vocabulary is that they are much more subject to purposeful control. There are special establishments busy with improving terminology. We must also pay attention to the fact that it is often possible to trace a term to its author. It is, for instance, known that the radio terms anode and cathode were coined by M. Faraday, the term vitamin by Dr. Funk in 1912, the term bionics was born at a symposium in Ohio (USA) in September of 1960. Those who coin a new term are always

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careful to provide it with a definition and also to give some reasons for their choice by explaining its motivation.

Terms are not separated from the rest of the vocabulary, and it is rather hard to say where the line should be drawn. With the development and growth of civilisation many special notions become known to the layman and form part and parcel of everyday speech. Are we justified to call such words as vitamin, inoculation and sedative or tranquilliser terms? With radio and television sets in every home many radio terms — antenna, teletype, transistor, short waves — are well known to everybody and often used in everyday conversation. In this process, however, they may lose their specific terminological character and become similar to all ordinary words in the intentional part of their meaning. The constant interchange of elements goes both ways. The everyday English vocabulary, especially the part of it characterised by a high index of frequency and polysemy, constitutes a constant source for the creation of new terms.

Due to the expansion of popular interest in the achievements of science and technology new terms appear more and more frequently in newspapers and popular magazines and even in fiction. Much valuable material concerning this group of neologisms is given in two Barn-hart Dictionaries of New English from which we borrow the explanation of two astronomical terms black hole (1968) and white hole created on its pattern in 1971. Both terms play an important symbolic role in A. Voznesensky’s first major prose work entitled “O”. A black hole is a hypothetic drain in space which engulfs matter and energy, even massive stars. A white hole is a hypothetical source of matter and energy through which what was sucked in through black holes may reappear in other universes.

Dictionaries for the most part include terminological meanings into the entry for the head-word. The fact that one of the meanings is terminological is signalled by showing in brackets the field where it can be used. For example, the word load as an electrical term means ‘the amount of current supplied by a generating station at any given time’; power in mathematics is ‘the product obtained by multiplying the number into itself, and in mechanics ‘capacity of doing work’; the optical term power denotes ‘the magnifying capacity of a lens’.

The above survey of terms as a specific type of words was descriptive, the approach was strictly synchronic. Investigation need not stop at the descriptive stage. On the contrary, the study of changes occurring in a group of terms or a whole terminological subsystem, such as sea terms, building terms, etc. during a long period of time, can give very valuable data concerning the interdependence of the history of language and the history of society. The development of terminology is the most complete reflection of the history of science, culture and industry.

4.The simplest, most obvious non-semantic grouping, extensively used in all branches of applied linguistics is the alphabetical organisation of written words, as represented in most dictionaries. It is of great practical value as the simplest and the most universal way of facilitating the search for the necessary word. Even in dictionaries arranged on some other principles (in “Roget’s International Thesaurus", for example) we have an alphabetical index for the reader to refer to before searching the various categories. The theoretical value of alphabetical grouping is almost null, because no other property of the word can be predicted from the letter or letters the word begins with. We cannot infer anything about the word if the only thing we know is that it begins with a p. Only in exceptional cases some additional information can be obtained on a different, viz. the etymological, level. For instance, words beginning with a w are mostly native, and those beginning with a ph borrowed from Greek. But such cases are few and far between.

The rhyming, i.e. inverse, dictionary presents a similar non-semantic grouping of isolated written words differing from the first in that the sound is also taken into consideration and in that the grouping is done the other way round and the words are arranged according to the similarity of their ends. The practical value of this type is much more limited. These dictionaries are intended for poets. They may be also used, if but rarely, by teachers, when making up lists of words with similar suffixes.

A third type of non-semantic grouping of written words is based on their length, i.e. the number of letters they contain. This type, worked out with some additional details, may prove useful for communication engineering, for automatic reading of messages and correction of mistakes. It may

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prove useful for linguistic theory as well, although chiefly in its modified form, with length measured not in the number of letters but in the number of syllables. Important statistical correlations have been found to exist between the number of syllables, the frequency, the number of meanings and the stylistic characteristics a word possesses. The shorter words occur more frequently and accumulate a greater number of meanings.

Finally, a very important type of non-semantic grouping for isolated lexical units is based on a statistical analysis of their frequency. Frequency counts carried out for practical purposes of lexicography, language teaching and shorthand enable the lexicographer to attach to each word a number showing its importance and range of occurrence. Large figures are, of course, needed to bring out any inherent regularities, and these regularities are, naturally, statistical, not rigid. But even with these limitations the figures are fairly reliable and show important correlations between quantitative and qualitative characteristics of lexical units, the most frequent words being polysemantic and stylistically neutral.


5 Phraseological unit (set expression)1.Phraseological unit2.Free Word-Groups, Versus Set-Phrases. Phraseological Units, Idioms, Word-Equivalents3.Phraseological Units and Idioms Proper4.Phraseology as a Subsystem of Language

Aims:teaching – To give the idea of Phraseological Units and Idioms Proper;developing – To deepen the idea of Phraseological Units and Idioms Proper;educational (pedagogic) – To increase the willing to study Phraseological Units and Idioms

Proper.1. It has been repeatedly pointed out that word-groups viewed as functionally and semantically

inseparable units are traditionally regarded as the subject matter of phraseology. It should be noted, however, that no proper scientific investigation of English phraseology has been attempted until quite recently. English and American linguists as a rule confine themselves to collecting various words, word-groups and sentences presenting some interest either from the point of view of origin, style, usage, or some other feature peculiar to them. These units are habitually described as i d i o m s but no attempt has been made to investigate these idioms as a separate class of linguistic units or a specific class of word-groups.

American and English dictionaries of unconventional English, slang and idioms and other highly valuable reference-books contain a wealth of proverbs, sayings, various lexical units of all kinds, but as a rule do not seek to lay down a reliable criterion to distinguish between variable word-groups and phraseological units. Paradoxical as it may seem the first dictionary in which theoretical principles for the selection of English phraseological units were elaborated was published in our country.1

The term itself p h r a s e o l o g i c a l u n i t s to denote a specific group of phrases was introduced by Soviet linguists and is generally accepted in our country.

2. Attempts have been made to approach the problem of phraseology in different ways. Up til l now, however, there is a certain divergence of opinion as to the essential feature of phraseological

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units as distinguished from other word-groups and the nature of phrases that can be properly termed p h r a s e o l o g i c a l u n i t s .

The complexity of the problem may be largely accounted for by the fact that the border-line between free or variable word-groups and phraseological units is not clearly defined. The so-called free word-groups are only relatively free as collocability of their member-words is fundamentally delimited by their lexical and grammatical valency which makes at least some of them very close to set-phrases. Phraseological units are comparatively stable and semantically inseparable. Between the extremes of complete motivation and variability of member-words on the one hand and lack of motivation combined with complete stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure on the other hand there are innumerable border-line cases.

However, the existing terms, e.g. set-phrases, idioms, word-equivalents, reflect to a certain extent the main debatable issues of phraseology which centre on the divergent views concerning the nature and essential features of phraseological units as distinguished from the so-called free word-groups. The term s e t - p h r a s e implies that the basic criterion of differentiation is stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure of word-groups. The term i d i o m s generally implies that the essential feature of the linguistic units under consideration is idiomaticity or lack of motivation. This term habitually used by English and American linguists is very often treated as synonymous with the term p h r a s e o l o g i c a l u n i t universally accepted in our country. The term w o r d - e q u i v a l e n t stresses not only the semantic but also the functional inseparability of certain word-groups and their aptness to function in speech as single words.

Thus differences in terminology reflect certain differences in the main criteria used to distinguish between free word-groups and a specific type of linguistic units generally known as phraseology. These criteria and the ensuing classification are briefly discussed below.

3. As can be inferred from the above discussion, the functional approach does not discard idiomaticity as the main feature distinguishing phraseological units from free word-groups, but seeks to establish formal criteria of idiomaticity by analysing the syntactic function of phraseological units in speech.

An attempt is also made to distinguish phraseological units as word-equivalents from i d i o m s proper, i.e. idiomatic units such as that’s where the shoe pinches, the cat is out of the bag, what will Mrs Grundy say?, etc. Unlike phraseological units, proverbs, sayings and quotations do not always function as word-equivalents. They exist as ready-made expressions with a specialised meaning of their own which cannot be inferred from the meaning of their components taken singly. Due to this the linguists who rely mainly on the criterion of idiomaticity classify proverbs and sayings as phraseological units.

The proponents of the functional criterion argue that proverbs and sayings lie outside the province of phraseology. It is pointed out, firstly, that the lack of motivation in such linguistic units is of an essentially different nature. Idioms are mostly based on metaphors which makes the transferred meaning of the whole expression more or less transparent. If we analyse such idioms, as, e.g., to carry coals to Newcastle, to fall between two stools, or fine feathers make fine birds, we observe that though their meaning cannot be inferred from the literal meaning of the member-words making up these expressions, they are still metaphorically motivated as the literal meaning of the whole expression readily suggests its meaning as an idiom, i.e. ‘to do something that is absurdly superfluous’, ‘fail through taking an intermediate course’ and ‘to be well dressed to give one an impressive appearance’ respectively.1 The meaning of the phraseological units, e.g. red tape, heavy father, in the long run, etc., cannot be deduced either from the meaning of the component words or from the metaphorical meaning of the word-group as a whole.

Secondly, the bulk of idioms never function in speech as word-equivalents which is a proof of their semantic and grammatical separability.

It is also suggested that idioms in general have very much in common with quotations from literary sources, some of which also exist as idiomatic ready-made units with a specialised meaning of their own. Such quotations which have acquired specialised meaning and idiomatic value, as, e.g., to be or not to be (Shakespeare), to cleanse the Augean stables (mythology), a voice crying out in the

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wilderness (the Bible), etc. differ little from proverbs and sayings which may also be regarded as quotations from English folklore and are part of this particular branch of literary studies.

4. Comparing the three approaches discussed above (semantic, functional, and contextual) we have ample ground to conclude that they have very much in common as the main criteria of phraseological units appear to be essentially the same, i.e. stability and idiomaticity or lack of motivation. It should be noted however that these criteria as elaborated in the three approaches are sufficient mainly to single out extreme cases: highly idiomatic non-variable and free (or variable) word-groups.

Thus red tape, mare’s nest, etc. according to the semantic approach belong to phraseology and are described as fusions as they are completely non-motivated. According to the functional approach they are also regarded as phraseological units because of their grammatical (syntactic) inseparability and because they function in speech as word-equivalents. According to the contextual approach red tape, mare’s nest, etc. make up a group of phraseological units referred to as idioms because of the impossibility of any change in the ‘fixed context’ and their semantic inseparability.

The status of the bulk of word-groups however cannot be decided with certainty with the help of these criteria because as a rule we have to deal not with c o m p l e t e idiomaticity and stability but with a certain degree of these distinguishing features of phraseological units. No objective criteria of the d e g r e e of idiomaticity and stability have as yet been suggested. Thus, e.g., to win a victory according to the semantic approach is a phraseological combination because it is almost completely motivated and allows of certain variability to win, to gain a victory. According to the functional approach it is not a phraseological unit as the degree of semantic and grammatical inseparability is insufficient for the word-group to function as a word-equivalent. Small hours according to the contextual approach is a phraseme because one of the components is used in its literal meaning. If however we classify it proceeding from the functional approach it is a phraseological unit because it is syntactically inseparable and therefore functions as a word-equivalent. As can be seen from the above the status of the word-groups which are partially motivated is decided differently depending on which of the criteria of phraseological units is applied.

There is still another approach to the problem of phraseology in which an attempt is made to overcome the shortcomings of the phraseological theories discussed above. The main features of this new approach which is now more or less universally accepted by Soviet linguists are as follows:

Phraseology is regarded as a self-contained branch of linguistics and not as a part of lexicology.1. Phraseology deals with a phraseological subsystem of language and not with isolated

phraseological units.2. Phraseology is concerned with all types of set expressions.4. Set expressions are divided into three classes: phraseological units (e.g. red tape, mare’s nest,

etc.), phraseomatic units (e.g. win a victory, launch a campaign, etc.) and border-line cases belonging to the mixed class. The main distinction between the first and the second classes is semantic: phraseological units have fully or partially transferred meanings while components of phraseomatic units are used in their literal meanings.

5. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are not regarded as word- equivalents but some of them are treated as word correlates.

6. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are set expressions and their phraseological stability distinguishes them from free phrases and compound words.

7. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are made up of words of different degree of wordness depending on the type of set expressions they are used in. (Cf. e.g. small hours and red tape.) Their structural separateness, an important factor of their stability, distinguishes them from compound words (cf. e.g. blackbird and black market).

Other aspects of their stability are: stability of use, lexical stability and semantic stability.8. S t a b i l i t y of use means that set expressions are reproduced ready-made and not

created in speech. They are not elements of individual style of speech but language units.9. L e x i c a l s t a b i l i t y means that the components of set expressions are either

irreplaceable (e.g. red tape, mare’s nest) or partly replaceable within the bounds of phraseological or

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phraseomatic variance: lexical (e.g. a skeleton in the cupboard — a skeleton in the closet), grammatical (e.g. to be in deep water — to be in deep waters), positional (e.g. head over ears — over head and ears), quantitative (e.g. to lead smb a dance — to lead smb a pretty dance), mixed variants (e.g. raise (stir up) a hornets’ nest about one’s ears — arouse (stir up) the nest of hornets).

10. S e m a n t i c s t a b i l i t y is based on the lexical stability of set expressions. Even when occasional changes ‘are introduced the meaning of set expression is preserved. It may only be specified, made more precise, weakened or strengthened. In other words in spite of all occasional changes phraseological and phraseomatic units, as distin-

guished from free phrases, remain semantically invariant or are destroyed. For example, the substitution of the verbal component in the free phrase to raise a question by the verb to settle (to settle a question) changes the meaning of the phrase, no such change occurs in to raise (stir up) a hornets’ nest about one’s ears.

11. An integral part of this approach is a method of phraseological identification which helps to single out set expressions in Modern English.


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Лекция № 1Тема: Phonetics and Phonology The Outline1. Phonetics as a science. Its object, branches and methods of investigation. 2. Functions of speech sounds. The reason for the invention of the phoneme. 3. Phonology as a science, its object and methods of investigation.4. Phonemes and allophones. Types of allophones.5. The link of phonetics with other branches of linguistics: grammar, lexicology and stylistics.The branch of linguistics which explore the inventory, structure and functions of the speech

sounds, is called phonetics.Phonetics is an independent branch of linguistics like lexicology or grammar. These linguistic

sciences study language from three different points of view. Lexicology deals with the vocabulary of language, with the origin and development of words, with their meaning and word building. Grammar defines the rules governing the modification of words and the combination of words into sentences. Phonetics studies the outer form of language; its sound matter. The phonetician investigates the phonemes and their allophones, the syllabic structure the distribution of stress, and intonation. He is interested in the sounds that are produced by the human speech-organs insofar as these sounds have a role in language. Let us refer to this limited range of sounds as the phonic medium and to individual sounds within that range as speech-sounds. We may now define phonetics as the study of the phonic medium. Phonetics is the study of the way humans make, transmit, and receive speech sounds. Phonetics occupies itself with the study of the ways in which the sounds are organized into a system of units and the variation of the units in all types and styles of spoken language.

Phonetics is a basic branch of linguistics. Neither linguistic theory nor linguistic practice can do without phonetics. No kind of linguistic study can be made without constant consideration of the material on the expression level.

2. Aspects and units of phonetics Human speech is the result of a highly complicated series of events. Let us consider the speech

chain, which may be diagrammed in simplified form like this:Speaker's

brainSpeaker's vocal

tractTransmission

of sounds Listener's ear Listener's brain

through air

1 2 3 4 5

linguistic articulatory acoustic auditory linguistic

The formation of the concept takes place in the brain of a speaker. This stage may be called psychological. The message formed within the brain is transmitted along the nervous system to the speech organs. Therefore, we may say that the human brain controls the behaviour of the articulating organs which effects in producing a particular pattern of speech sounds. This second stage may be called physiological. The movements of the speech apparatus disturb the air stream thus producing sound waves. Consequently, the third stage may be called physical or acoustic. Further, any communication requires a listener, as well as a speaker. So the last stages are the reception of the sound waves by the listener's hearing physiological apparatus, the transmission of the spoken message through the nervous system to the brain and the linguistic interpretation of the information conveyed. . The sound phenomena have different aspects:

(a) the articulatory aspect;(b) the acoustic aspect;(c) the auditory (perceptive) aspect;(d) the functional (linguistic) aspect.Now it is possible to show the correlation between the stages of the speech chain and the aspects

of the sound matter.

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Articulation comprises all the movements and positions of the speech organs necessary to pronounce a speech sound. According to their main sound-producing functions, the speech organs can be divided into the following four groups:

(1) the power mechanism;(2) the vibration mechanism;(3) the resonator mechanism;(4) the obstruction mechanism.The functions of the power mechanism consist in the supply of the energy in the form of the air

pressure and in regulating the force of the air stream. The power mechanism includes: (1) the diaphragm, (2) the lungs, (3) the bronchi, (4) the windpipe, or trachea. The glottis and the supra-glottal cavities enter into the power mechanism as parts of the respiratory tract. The vibration mechanism consists of the larynx, or voice box, containing the vocal cords. The most important function of the vocal cords is their role in the production of voice. The pharynx, the mouth, and the nasal cavity function as the principal resonators thus constituting the resonator mechanism. The obstruction mechanism (the tongue, the lips, the teeth, and the palate) forms the different types of obstructions.

The acoustic aspect studies sound waves. The basic vibrations of the vocal cords over their whole length produce the fundamental tone of voice. The simultaneous vibrations of each part of the vocal cords produce partial tones (overtones and harmonics). The number of vibrations per second is called frequency. Frequency of basic vibrations of the vocal cords is the fundamental frequency. Fundamental frequency determines the pitch of the voice and forms an acoustic basis of speech melody. Intensity of speech sounds depends on the amplitude of vibration.

The auditory (sound-perception) aspect, on the one hand, is a physiological mechanism. We can perceive sound waves within a range of 16 Hz-20.000 Hz with a difference in 3 Hz. The human ear transforms mechanical vibrations of the air into nervous and transmits them to brain. The listener hears the acoustic features of the fundamental frequency, formant frequency, intensity and duration in terms of perceptible categories of pitch, quality, loudness and length. On the other hand, it is also a psychological mechanism. The point is that repetitions of what might be heard as the same utterance are only coincidentally, if ever, acoustically identical. Phonetic identity is a. theoretical ideal. Phonetic similarity, not phonetic identity, is the criterion with which we operate in the linguistic analysis.

Functional aspect. Phonemes, syllables, stress, and intonation are linguistic phenomena. They constitute meaningful units (morphemes, words, word-forms, utterances). Sounds of speech perform different linguistic functions.

Let's have a look at the correlation of some phonetic terms discussed above.

articulatory characteristics acoustic properties

auditory(perceptible) qualities

linguistic phenomena

vibration of the vocal cords fundamental frequency melody pitch

different positions and movements of speech organs

formant frequency

quality (timbre) phoneme

the amplitude of vibrations intensity loudness stressthe quantity of time during

which the sound is pronounced Duration length tempo, rhythm, pauses

The phonetic system of language is a set of phonetic units arranged in an orderly way to replace each other in a given framework. Phonetics is divided into two major components (or systems): segmental phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds (i.e. "segments" of speech) and suprasegmental phonetics dealing with the larger units of connected speech: syllables, words, phrases and texts.

1. Segmental units are sounds of speech (vowels and consonants) which form the vocalic and consonantal systems;

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2. Suprasegmental, or prosodic, units are syllables, accentual (rhythmic) units, intonation groups, utterances, which form the subsystem of pitch, stress, rhythm, tempo, pauses.

Now we may define phonetics as a branch of linguistics that studies speech sounds in the broad sense, comprising segmental sounds, suprasegmental units and prosodic phenomena (pith, stress, tempo, rhythm, pauses).

Let us consider the four components of the phonetic system of language.The first and the basic component of the phonetic structure of language is the system of its

segmental phonemes existing in the material form of their allophones. The phonemic component has 3 aspects, or manifestations:

1. the system of its phonemes as discrete isolated units;2. the distribution of the allophones of the phonemes;3. the methods of joining speech sounds together in words and at their junction, or the

methods of effecting VC, CV, CC, and VV transitions.The second component is the syllabic structure of words. The syllabic structure has two aspects,

which are inseparable from each other: syllable formation and syllable division.The third component is the accentual structure of words as items of vocabulary (i.e. as

pronounced in isolation). The accentual structure of words has three aspects: the physical (acoustic) nature of word accent; the position of the accent in disyllabic and polysyllabic words; the degrees of word accent.

The fourth component of the phonetic system is the intonational structure of utterances. The four components of the phonetic system of language (phonemic, syllabic, accentual and intonational) all constitute its pronunciation (in the broad sense of the term).

3. Branches of phoneticsWe know that the phonic medium can be studied from four points of view: the articulatory, the

acoustic, the auditory, and the functional.We may consider the branches of phonetics according to these aspects. Articulatory phonetics is

the study of the way the vocal organs are used to produce speech sounds. Acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds. Auditory phonetics is the study of the way people perceive speech sounds. Of these three branches of phonetics, the longest established, and until recently the most highly developed, is articulatory phonetics. For this reason, most of terms used by linguists to refer to speech-sounds are articulatory in origin.

Phoneticians are also interested in the way in which sound phenomena function in a particular language. In other words, they study the abstract side of the sounds of language. The branch of phonetics concerned with the study of the functional (linguistic) aspect of speech sounds is called phonology. By contrast with phonetics, which studies all possible sounds that the human vocal apparatus can make, phonology studies only those contrasts in sound which make differences of meaning within language.

Besides the four branches of phonetics described above, there are other divisions of the science. We may speak of general phonetics and the phonetics of a particular language (special or descriptive phonetics). General phonetics studies all the sound-producing possibilities of the human speech apparatus and the ways they are used for purpose of communication. The phonetics of a particular language studies the contemporary phonetic system of the particular language, i.e. the system of its pronunciation, and gives a description of all the phonetic units of the language. Descriptive phonetics is based on general phonetics.

Linguists distinguish also historical phonetics whose aim is to trace and establish the successive changes in the phonetic system of a given language (or a language family) at different stages of its development. Historical phonetics is a part of the history of language.

Closely connected with historical phonetics is comparative phonetics whose aims are to study the correlation between the phonetic systems of two or more languages and find out the correspondences between the speech sounds of kindred languages.

Phonetics can also be theoretical and practical. At the faculties of Foreign Languages in this country, two courses are introduced:

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1. Practical, or normative, phonetics that studies the substance, the material form of phonetic phenomena in relation to meaning.

2. Theoretical phonetics, which is mainly concerned with the functioning of phonetic units in language.

This dichotomy is that which holds between theoretical and applied linguists. Briefly, theoretical linguistics studies language with a view to constructing theory of its structure and functions and without regard to any practical applications that the investigation of language might have. Applied linguistics has as its concerns the application of the concepts and findings of linguistics to a variety of practical tasks, including language teaching.

All the branches of phonetics are closely connected not only with one another but also with other branches of linguistics. This connection is determined by the fact that language is a system whose components are inseparably connected with one another.

Phonetics is also connected with many other sciences. Acoustic phonetics is connected with physics and mathematics. Articulatory phonetics is connected with physiology, anatomy, and anthropology. Historical phonetics is connected with general history of the people whose language is studied; it is also connected with archaeology. Phonology is connected with communication (information) theory, mathematics, and statistics.

СРС1. Write the plural forms of these words and transcribe them. Prove that phonetics is connected

with grammar.Witch judge half loafwife glass crash knifeself wolf fox calf leaf actress gas elf life thief hostess2. Write the three forms of these verbs and transcribe them. Prove that phonetics is connected

with grammar.beg compel stop work nod invent live recognize wrap pass permit rest

3. Transcribe these words. Underline the interchanging vowels and consonants in the corresponding parts of speech.

advice—to advise use—to use a house—to house an excuse—to excuse a device—to devise loose—to lose close—to close

4. Read these words and word combinations. Translate them into Russian. Prove that phonetics is connected with lexicology through accent.

'break-promise—'break 'promise 'heavy-weight — 'heavy 'weight 'red-book—'red 'book 'blue-stocking—'blue 'stocking 'blue-nose—'blue 'nose 'blue-coat — 'blue 'coat 'blue-bonnet—'blue 'bonnet 'black-hole—'black 'hole 'black mass—'black 'mass 'redbreast — 'red 'breast 'bluebell — 'blue 'bell 'bluestone— 'blue 'stone 'blue-lines — 'blue 'lines 'bluebottle—'blue 'bottle 'blackshirt — 'black 'shirt 'black-face—'black 'face 'bird's-eye—'bird's 'eye 'bread-and-butter — 'bread and 'butter

5. Transcribe, read and translate these pairs of words. Single out the sounds that differentiate the meaning of the words.

sell—sale model — modal saw—so Polish — polish guard—guide worth—worse truth — truce still—steel pool —pull ship—sheep sit—seat fill —feel live—leave ill —eel slip — sleep but—bath breath—breadth

6. Read these compounds. Single out the sounds that interchange. Translate the compounds into Russian.

ping—pong sing—song slip — slop tip—top wish—wash wishy—washy

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knick — knack mingle — mangle mish — mash prittle — prattle rickety — rackety riff—raff tip — top

shilly – shally tick – tackwig – wag wiggle – waggle zig – zag

7. Translate these words and then transcribe them.1. очень; меняться, изменяться; 2. личный; персонал, личный состав; 3. костюм;

свита; 4. патруль; бензин; 5. мэр; майор; 6. бунт; разгром; маршрут, путь; 7. выносить, терпеть; пиво; 8. год; ухо; 9. набережная; очередь; 10. влиять; эффект; 11. сквозняк; засуха; 12. волосы; заяц; наследник; 13. наливать; бедный; лапа; 14. мужество; вагон: 15. требовать; приобретать

8. Give the plural form of these words and then transcribe both forms.wolf, wife, life, leaf, thief, knife, sheaf, half, self, elf, loaf, calf, echo, potato, hostess, tigress,

basis, thesis, crisis, analysis, man, foot, goose, mouse, bath, house, class, box, dish, inch, phenomenon9. Single out pairs of sounds the interchange of which makes the words different parts of

speech.glaze v—glass n loathe v—loath n lose v—loss nclothe v—cloth n halve v—half n live v—life n prove v—proof n serve v—serf n 10. Accent and transcribe these words. Translate them into Russian.insult — to insult object—to object outgo — to outgo produce—to produce subject—to subject outgrowth—to outgrow outlay—to outlay outthrow—to outthrow present—to present protest—to protest torment—to torment

Занятие № 2Phoneme as a unit of languageOutline1. Definition of the phoneme and its functions2. Types of allophones and main features of the phoneme3. Methods of the phonemic analysis4. Main phonological schoolsTo know how sounds are produced is not enough to describe and classify them as language units.

When we talk about the sounds of language, the term "sound" can be interpreted in two different ways. First, we can say that [t] and [d], for example, are two different sounds in English: e.g. ten-den, seat-seed. But on the other hand, we know that [t] in let us and [t] in let them are not the same. In both examples the sounds differ in one articulatory feature only. In the second case the difference between the sounds has functionally no significance. It is clear that the sense of "sound" in these two cases is different. To avoid this ambiguity, linguists use two separate terms: phoneme and allophone.

The phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.

Let us consider the phoneme from the point of view of its aspects.Firstly, the phoneme is a functional unit. In phonetics function is usually understood as a role of

the various units of the phonetic system in distinguishing one morpheme from another, one word from another or one utterance from another. The opposition of phonemes in the same phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes and words: e.g. bath-path, light-like. Sometimes the opposition of phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases: He was heard badly - He was hurt badly. Thus we may say that the phoneme can fulfill the distinctive function.

Secondly, the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means it is realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The phonemes constitute the material form of morphemes, so this function may be called constitutive function.

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Thirdly, the phoneme performs the recognitive function, because the use of the right allophones and other phonetic units facilitates normal recognition. We may add that the phoneme is a material and objective unit as well as an abstract and generalized one at the same time.

2. Types of allophones and the main features of the phonemeLet us consider the English phoneme [d]. It is occlusive, forelingual, apical, alveolar, lenis

consonant. This is how it sounds in isolation or in such words as door, darn, down, etc, when it retains its typical articulatory characteristics. In this case the consonant [d] is called principal allophone. The allophones which do not undergo any distinguishable changes in speech are called principal.

Allophones that occur under influence of the neighboring sounds in different phonetic situations are called subsidiary, e.g.:

a. deal, did - it is slightly palatalized before front vowelsb. bad pain, bedtime - it is pronounced without any plosionс. sudden, admit - it is pronounced with nasal plosion before [n], [m] d. dry - it becomes post-alveolar followed by [r].If we consider the production of the allophones of the phoneme above we will find out that they

possess three articulatory features in common - all of them are forelingual lenis stops. Consequently, though allophones of the same phoneme possess similar articulatory features they may frequently show considerable phonetic differences.

Native speakers do not observe the difference between the allophones of the same phoneme. At the same time they realize that allophones of each phoneme possess a bundle of distinctive features that makes this phoneme functionally different from all other phonemes of the language. This functionally relevant bundle is called the invariant of the phoneme. All the allophones of the phoneme [d] instance, are occlusive, forelingual, lenis. If occlusive articulation is changed for constrictive one [d] will be replaced by [z]: e. g. breed - breeze, deal — zeal, the articulatory features which form the invariant of the phoneme are called distinctive or relevant.

To extract relevant features of the phoneme we have to oppose it to some other phoneme in the phonetic context.

If the opposed sounds differ in one articulatory feature and this difference brings about changes in the meaning this feature is called relevant: for example, port — court, [p] and [k] are consonants, occlusive, fortis; the only difference being that [p] is labial and [t] is lingual.

The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant. For example, it is impossible to oppose an aspirated [ph] to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish meaning.

We know that anyone who studies a foreign language makes mistakes in the articulation of sounds. L.V. Shcherba classifies the pronunciation errors as phonological and phonetic. If an allophone is replaced by an allophone of a different phoneme the mistake is called phonological. If an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by another allophone of the same phoneme the mistake is called phonetic.

3. Methods of the phonemic analysisThe aim of the phonological analysis is, firstly, to determine which differences of sounds are

phonemic and which are non-phonemic and, secondly, to find the inventory of phonemes of the language.

As it was mentioned above, phonology has its own methods of investigation. Semantic method is applied for phonological analysis of both unknown languages and languages already described. The method is based on a phonemic rule that phonemes can distinguish words and morphemes when opposed to one another. It consists in systematic substitution of one sound for another in order to find out in which cases where the phonetic context remains the same such replacing leads to a change of meaning. This procedure is called the commutation test. It consists in finding minimal pairs of words and their grammatical forms. For example:

pen [pen] Ben [ben]gain [gain]

cane [kain]ten [ten]den[den

Minimal pairs are useful for establishing the phonemes of the language. Thus, a phoneme can only perform its distinctive function if it is opposed to another phoneme in the same position. Such an opposition is called phonological. Let us consider the classification of phonological oppositions worked out by N.S. Trubetzkoy. It is based on the number of distinctive articulatory features underlying the opposition.

1. If the opposition is based on a single difference in the articulation of two speech sounds, it is a single phonological opposition, e.g. [p]-[t], as in [pen]-[ten]; bilabial vs. forelingual, all the other features are the same.

2. If the sounds in distinctive opposition have two differences in their articulation, the opposition is double one, or a sum of two single oppositions, e.g. [p]-[d], as in [pen]-[den], 1) bilabial vs. forelingual 2) voiceless-fortis vs. voiced-lenis

3. If there are three articulatory differences, the opposition is triple one, or a sum of three single oppositions, e.g. [p]- [ð], as in [pei]-[ ðei]: 1) bilabial vs. forelingual, 2) occlusive vs. constrictive, 3) voiceless-fortis vs. voiced-lenis.

American descriptivists, whose most zealous representative is, perhaps, Zellig Harris, declare the distributional method to be the only scientific one. At the same time they declare the semantic method unscientific because they consider recourse to meaning external to linguistics. Descriptivists consider the phonemic analysis in terms of distribution. They consider it possible to discover the phonemes of a language by the rigid application of a distributional method. It means to group all the sounds pronounced by native speakers into phoneme according to the laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution:

1. Allophones of different phonemes occur in the same phonetic context. In this case their distribution is contrastive.

2. Allophones of the same phoneme(s) never occur in the same phonetic context. In this case their distribution is complementary.

There is, however, a third possibility, namely, that the sounds both occur in a language but the speakers are inconsistent in the way they use them, for example, калоши-галоши, and [‘ei∫э - ‘егжэ]. In such cases we must take them as free variants of a single phoneme. We could explain the case on the basis of sociolinguistics. Thus, there are three types of distribution: contrastive, complementary and free variation.

4. Main phonological schoolsLet us consider the phrase [на лугу кос нет] and words [вАлы ], [сАма]. Logically, there can

only be three answers to the question: which phonemes are represented by the consonant sound [c] in [кос] and by the vowel sound [А] in [вАлы]:

M (1) If [кос] and [вАлы] are grammatical forms of the words коза and вол respectively, then the consonant [c] represents phoneme /з/, while the vowel [А] is an allophone of the phoneme /o/. If [кос] and [вАлы] are grammatical forms of the words коса and вал respectively, then the consonant [c] belongs to the phoneme /с/, while the vowel [А] should be assigned to the phoneme /а/.

СП (2) The consonant [c] in [кос] belongs to the phoneme Id no matter whether it is a form of коза or that of коса, while the vowel [А] in [вАлы] represents the phoneme /a/ no matter whether it is a form of вол or that of вал.

П (3) The consonant [c] represents neither phoneme /з/, nor phoneme Id, while the vowel [А] in [вАлы] does not belong either to the phoneme /a/ or to the phoneme /о/.

Since there are three possible answers to the above questions, there are three schools of thought on the problem of identifying phonemes.

Those linguists who give the first answer belong to the so-called morphological (Moscow phonological) school (R.I. Avanesov, V.N. Sidorov, P.S. Kuznetsov, A.A. Reformatsky, and N.F. Yakovlev). The exponents of this school maintain that two different phonemes in different allomorphs of the same morpheme may be represented on the synchronic level by one and the same

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sound, which is their common variant and, consequently, one and the same sound may belong to one phoneme in one word and to another phoneme in another word.

In order to decide to which phoneme the sounds in a phonologically weak (neutral) position belong, it is necessary to find another allomorph of the same morpheme in which the phoneme occurs in the strong position, i.e. one in which it retains all its distinctive features. The strong position of a Russian consonant phoneme is that before a vowel sound of the same word, whereas the strong position of a vowel phoneme is that under stress. The consonant [c] in кос belongs to the phoneme Id because in the strong position in such allomorphs of the same morpheme as in коса, косы the phoneme is definitely /с/. In коз the same sound [c] is a variant of the phoneme /з/ because in the strong position, as in коза, козы, the phoneme is definitely /з/. The vowel [А] in валы is an allophone of the phoneme /a/ because the phoneme occurs in the strong position in вал while the same vowel [А] in волы is a variant of the phoneme /o/ because this phoneme is found in the strong position in вол.

According to this school of thought, the neutral vowel sound in original should be assigned to the English phoneme /σ/ because this phoneme occurs in the strong position in such word as origin.

The second school of thought, originated by L.V. Shcherba, advocates the autonomy of the phoneme and its independence from the morpheme. Different allomorphs of a morpheme may differ from each other on the synchronic level not only in their allophonic, but also in their phonemic composition. According to the Leningrad (Petersburg) phonological school (L.V. Shcherba, L.R. Zinder, M.I. Matusevich), speech sounds in a phonologically neutral position belong to that phoneme with whose principal variant they completely or nearly coincide. Thus, the sound [c] in [кос] should be assigned to the phoneme /с/ because it fully coincides with the latter's principal variant, which is free from the influence of neighboring speech sounds. The vowel [А] in [вАлы] should be assigned to the phoneme /a/ because it nearly coincides with the latter's principal variant [a]. The vowel [ъ] in [въдАвос] does not even resemble either [o] or [a] or [А] but it is still assigned to the /a/ phoneme because both /o/ and /a/ are reduced to [ъ].

According to the third school of thought, there exist types of phonemes higher than the unit phoneme. Different linguists call them differently. One of the terms for them introduced by Prague Linguistic Circle, namely by N.S. Trubetzkoy and R. Jacobson, is archiphoneme. According to them, the archiphoneme is a combination of distinctive features common to two phonemes. Thus each of the speech sounds [c], [з] represents the phonemes /c/, /з/. These two phonemes differ from each other only in matter of voice, while both of them possess the other two distinctive features: (1) forelingual (2) fricative articulation. These two features together constitute the archiphoneme to which both [c] and [з] belong. This archiphoneme is, therefore, neither voiceless nor voiced. It designated by Russian capital letter C. The sound [c] in [кос] in both На лугу кос нет and На лугу коз нет belongs to this archiphoneme and not to the phoneme /c/ or /з/.

The phoneme /а/ and /о/ belong to archiphoneme which is realized in the sound [A], as in [вАлы] meaning both валы and волы.

Practical Task1. Какие аллофоны фонемы /d/ вы можете назвать? Приведите примеры.2. Проанализируйте аллофоны фонемы /t/ в следующих словах: town, tool, team,

that, written, bottle, stable, at the door, white coat, tram.3. Приведите примеры, иллюстрирующие случаи, в которых один звук является

аллофоном разных фонем.6. На каких различиях основаны оппозиции между следующими фонемами: a) /k/ —/t/;

б) /k/ —/G/; в) /k/ — /z/? Приведите свои примеры одинарных, двойных и множественных оппозиций.

Занятие № 3The system of the English phonemesOutline

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1. The system of consonant phonemes. Problem of affricates2. The system of vowel phonemes. Problems of diphthongs and vowel lengthThe phonological analysis of English consonant sounds helps to distinguish 24 phonemes: [p,

b, t, d, k, g, f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ∫, ж(не нашла ничего лучше ), h, t∫, dж, m, n, ŋ, w, r, 1, j]. Principles of classification suggested by Russian phoneticians provide the basis for establishing of the following distinctive oppositions in the system of English consonants:

There are some problems of phonological character in the English consonantal system; it is the problem of affricates - their phonological status and their number. The question is: what kind of facts a phonological theory has to explain.

1) Are the English [t∫, dж] sounds monophonemic entities or biphonemic combinations (sequences, clusters)?

2) If they are monophonemic, how many phonemes of the same kind exist in English, or, in other words, can such clusters as [tr, dr] and [tθ, dð] be considered affricates?

To define it is not an easy matter. One thing is clear: these sounds are complexes because articulatory we can distinguish two elements. Considering phonemic duality of affricates, it is necessary to analyze the relation of affricates to other consonant phonemes to be able to define their status in the system.

The problem of affricates is a point of considerable controversy among phoneticians. According to Russian specialists in English phonetics, there are two affricates in English: [t∫, dж]. D. Jones points out there are six of them: [t∫, dж], [ts, dz], and [tr, dr]. A.C. Gimson increases their number adding two more affricates: [tθ, tð]. Russian phoneticians look at English affricates through the eyes of a phoneme theory, according to which a phoneme has three aspects: articulatory, acoustic and functional, the latter being the most significant one. As to British phoneticians, their primary concern is the articulatory-acoustic unity of these complexes.

Before looking at these complexes from a functional point of view it is necessary to define their articulatory indivisibility.

According to N.S. Trubetzkoy's point of view a sound complex may be considered monophonemic if: a) its elements belong to the same syllable; b) it is produced by one articulatory effort; c) its duration should not exceed normal duration of elements. Let us apply these criteria to the sound complexes.

1. Syllabic indivisibilitybutcher [but∫ -ə] lightship [lait-∫ip]mattress [mætr-is] footrest [fut-rest]curtsey [kз:-tsi] out-set [aut-set]eighth [eitθ] whitethorn [wait-θo:n]In the words in the left column the sounds [t∫], [tr], [ts], [tθ] belong to one syllable and cannot

be divided into two elements by a syllable dividing line.2. Articulatory indivisibility. Special instrumental analysis shows that all the sound

complexes are homogeneous and produced by one articulatory effort.3. Duration. With G.P. Torsuyev we could state that length of sounds depends on the

position in the phonetic context, therefore it cannot serve a reliable basis in phonological analysis. He writes that the length of English [t∫] in the words chair and match is different; [t∫] in match is considerably longer than |t| in mat and may be even longer than [∫] in mash. This does not prove, however, that [t∫] is biphonemic.

According to morphological criterion a sound complex is considered to be monophonemic if a morpheme boundary cannot pass within it because it is generally assumed that a phoneme is morphologically indivisible. If we consider [t∫], [dж] from this point of view we could be secure to grant them a monophonemic status, since they are indispensable. As to [ts], [dz] and [tθ], [dð] complexes their last elements are separate morphemes [s], [z], [θ], [ð] so these elements are easily singled out by the native speaker in any kind of phonetic context. These complexes do not

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correspond to the phonological models of the English language and cannot exist in the system of phonemes. The case with [tr], [dr] complexes is still more difficult.

By way of conclusion we could say that the two approaches have been adopted towards this phenomenon are as follows: the finding that there are eight affricates in English [t∫], [dж], [tr], [dr], [ts], [dz], [tð], [dθ] is consistent with articulatory and acoustic point of view, because in this respect the entities are indivisible. This is the way the British phoneticians see the situation. On the other hand, Russian phoneticians are consistent in looking at the phenomenon from the morphological and the phonological point of view which allows them to define [t∫], [dж] as monophonemic units and [tr], [dr], [ts], [dz], [tð], [dθ] as biphonemic complexes. However, this point of view reveals the possibility of ignoring the articulatory and acoustic indivisibility.

2. The system of vowel phonemes. Problems of diphthongs and vowel lengthThe following 20 vowel phonemes are distinguished in BBC English (RP): [i:, a:, o:, u:, з:, i,

e, æ, σ, υ, л(типа крышка домика), ə; ei, ai, oi, аυ, eυ, υə, iə].Principles of classification provide the basis for the establishment of the following distinctive

oppositions:1. Stability of articulation1.1. monophthongs vs. diphthongsbit - bait, kit - kite, John - join, debt — doubt1.2. diphthongs vs. diphthongoids bile - bee, boat — boot, raid - rude2. Position of the tongue2.1. horizontal movement of the tongue a) front vs. central cab — curb, bed — bird b) back vs. central pull – pearl, cart - curl, call - curl 2.2. vertical movement of the tonguea) close (high) vs. mid-open (mid)

bid — bird, week - workb) open (low) vs. mid-open (mid)

lark - lurk, call — curl, bard-bird3. Position of the lips rounded vs. unrounded don — darn, pot - partThe English diphthongs are, like the affricates, the object of a sharp phonological

controversy, whose essence is the same as in the case of affricates are the English diphthongs biphonemic sound complexes or composite monophonemic entities?

Diphthongs are defined differently by different authors. One definition is based on the ability of a vowel to form a syllable. Since in a diphthong only one element serves as a syllabic nucleus, a diphthong is a single sound. Another definition of a diphthong as a single sound is based on the instability of the second element. The 3d group of scientists defines a diphthong from the accentual point of view: since only one element is accented and the other is unaccented, a diphthong is a single sound.

D. Jones defines diphthongs as unisyllabic gliding sounds in the articulation of which the organs of speech start from one position and then glide to another position.

N.S. Trubetzkoy states that a diphthong should be (a) unisyllabic, that is the parts of a diphthong cannot belong to two syllables; (b) monophonemic with gliding articulation; (c) its length should not exceed the length of a single phoneme.

In accordance with the principle of structural simplicity and economy American descriptivists liquidated the diphthongs in English as unit phonemes.

The same phonological criteria may be used for justifying the monophonemic treatment of the English diphthongs as those applicable to the English affricates. They are the criteria of articulatory, morphophonological (and, in the case of diphthongs, also syllabic)

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indivisibility, commutability and duration. Applied to the English diphthongs, all these criteria support the view of their monophonemic status.

Problem of length. There are long vowel phonemes in English and short. However, the length of the vowels is not the only distinctive feature of minimal pairs like Pete -pit, beet - bit, etc. In other words the difference between i: i. u: - υ is not only quantitative but also qualitative, which is conditioned by different positions of the bulk of the tongue. For example, in words bead- bid not only the length of the vowels is different but in the [i:] articulation the bulk of the tongue occupies more front and high position then in the articulation of [i].

Qualitative difference is the main relevant feature that serves to differentiate long and short vowel phonemes because quantitative characteristics of long vowels depend on the position they occupy in a word:

(a) they are the longest in the terminal position: bee, bar, her; (b) they are shorter before voiced consonants: bead, hard, cord;(c) they are the shortest before voiceless consonants: beet, cart.СРС Practical tasks:1.Circle the words that begin with a bilabial consonant:a) Mat gnat sat bat rat patCircle the words that begin with a velar consonant:b) Knot got lot cot hot potCircle the words that begin with a labio-dental consonant:c) Fat cat that mat chat vatCircle the words that begin with a dental consonant:d) Pie guy shy thigh thy high Circle the words that begin with a palato-alveolar consonant:a) Sigh shy tie thigh thy lieCircle the words that end with a nasal:b) Rain rang dumb deafCircle the words that begin with a lateral:c) Nut lull bar rob oneCircle the words in which the consonant in the middle is voiced:d) tracking mother robber leisure massive stomach razorCircle the words that begin with an alveolar consonant:a) Zip nip lip sip tip dip Circle the words that end with an affricate:b) much back edge oozeCircle the words that end with a stop:c ) pill lip lit graph crab dog hide laugh backCircle the words in which the consonant in the middle is voiced:d) tracking mother robber leisure massive stomach razor2. Characterize the given sounds according to the model:Model: [ k] - back lingual, occlusive voiceless consonant [g] – , [z] –, [v] -, [æ ] -, [ŋ] -, [b], [e ] 3. Transcribe and intone, paying attention to the position of the nucleus:This is a good book.That is a nice thing.It is a short way.It’s a deep lake.4. Define the type of the phonetic phenomena in the next expressions:It’ll be, it cost, play with toys,

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Mrs. Myrtle is always flirtingWho is this, on the radio, In the morning, in the middle, under the tree, let it be a riddle of some kind

Занятие № 4Topic: The Syllabic Structure of the English LanguageThe Outline1. The problem of definition of a syllable.2. Functional characteristics of the syllable.3. Classification of syllables.4. Some theories on syllable formation.5. The syllabic structure of English. 6.Особенности слогораздела и места ударения в английском языке (доклад). Плоткин

В.Я. Строй английского языка. – М., 1989, 239 с. (с. 197-199).Speech can be broken into minimal pronounceable units into which sounds show a tendency

to cluster or group. These smallest phonetic groups arc generally given the name of syllables. Being the smallest pronounceable units, syllables form morphemes, words and phrases. Each of these units is characterized by a certain syllabic structure. Thus a meaningful language unit phonetically may be considered from the point of view of syllable formation and syllable division.

The syllable is a complicated phenomenon and like a phoneme it can be studied on four levels - articulatory, acoustic, auditory and functional. The complexity of the phenomenon gave rise to many theories.

We could start with the so-called expiratory (chest pulse or pressure) theory by R.H. Stetson. This theory is based on the assumption that expiration in speech is a pulsating process and each syllable should correspond to a single expiration. So the number of syllables in an utterance is determined by the number of expirations made in the production of the utterance. This theory was strongly criticized by Russian and foreign linguists. G.P. Torsuyev, for example, wrote that in a phrase a number of words and consequently a number of syllables can be pronounced with a single expiration. This fact makes the validity of the theory doubtful.

Another theory of syllable put forward by O. Jespersen is generally called the sonority theory. According to O. Jespersen, each sound is characterized by a certain degree of sonority which is understood us acoustic property of a sound that determines its perceptibility. According to this sound property a ranking of speech sounds could be established: <the least sonorous> voiceless plosives voiced fricatives voiced plosives voiced fricatives sonorants close vowels open vowels <the most sonorous>. In the word plant for example we may use the following wave of sonority: [pla:nt]. According to V.A. Vasssilyev the most serious drawback of this theory is that it fails to explain the actual mechanism of syllable formation and syllable division. Besides, the concept of sonority is not very clearly defined.

Further experimental work aimed to description of the syllable resulted in lot of other theories. However the question of articulatory mechanism of syllable in a still an open question in phonetics. We might suppose that this mechanism is similar in all languages and could be regarded as phonetic universal.

In Russian linguistics there has been adopted the theory of syllable by LV Shcherba. It is called the theory of muscular tension. In most languages there is the syllabic phoneme in the centre of the syllable which is usually a vowel phoneme or, in some languages, a sonorant. The phonemes preceding or following the syllabic peak are called marginal. The tense of articulation increases

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within the range of prevocalic consonants and then decreases within the range of postvocalic consonants.

Russian linguist and psychologist N.I. Zhinkin has suggested the so-called loudness theory which seems to combine both production and perception levels. The experiments carried out by N.I. Zhinkin showed that the arc of loudness of perception level is formed due to variations of the volume pharyngeal passage which is modified by contractions of its walls. The narrowing of the passage and the increase in muscular tension which results from it reinforce the actual loudness of a vowel thus forming the peak of the syllabic. So the syllable is the arc оf loudness which correlates with the arc of articulatory effort on the speed production level since variations in loudness are due to the work of all speech mechanisms.

It is perfectly obvious that no phonetician has succeeded so far in giving an adequate explanation of what the syllable is. The difficulties seem to arise from the various possibilities of approach to the unit. There exist two points of view:

1. Sоme linguists consider the syllable to be a purely articulatory unit which lacks any functional value. This point of view is defended on the ground that the boundaries of syllables do not always coincide with those of morphemes.

2. However the majority of linguists treat the syllable as the smallest pronounceable unit which can reveal some linguistic function.

Trying to define the syllable from articulatory point of view we may talk about universals. When we mean the functional aspect of the syllable it should be defined with the reference to the structure of one particular language.

The definition of the syllable from the functional point of view tends to single out the following features of the syllable:

a) a syllable is a chain of phonemes of varying length;b) a syllable is constructed on the basis of contrast of its constituents (which is usually of

vowel - consonant type);c) the nucleus of a syllable is a vowel, the presence of consonants is optional; there are

no languages in which vowels are not used as syllable nuclei, however, there are languages in which this function is performed by consonants;

d) the distribution of phonemes in the syllabic structure follows by the rules which are specific enough for a particular language.

2. The structure and functions of syllables in EnglishSyllable formation in English is based on the phonological opposition vowel - consonant.

Vowels are usually syllabic while consonants are not with the exceptions of [l], [m], [n], which become syllabic in a final position preceded by a

noise consonant: bottle [bσtl], bottom [bσtm], button [b/\tn] and [r] (in those accents which pronounce [r]) perhaps [præps].

The structure of English syllables can be summarized as follows:• Many syllables have one or more consonants preceding the nucleus. These

make up the syllable onset: me, so, plow.The English language has developed the closed type of syllable as the fundamental one while

in Russian it is the open type that forms the basis of syllable formation.The other aspect of this component is syllable division. The problem of syllable division in

case of intervocalic consonants and their clusters, like in such words as city, extra, standing and others.

Let us consider the first word ['sit.i]. There exist two possibilities:a) the point of syllable division is after the intervocalic consonant:b) the point of syllable division is inside the consonant.In both cases the first syllable remains closed because the shot vowel should remains check

The result of instrumentally analyses show, that the point of syllable division in such words is inside the intervocalic consonant. EPD indicates the point of division after the consonant.

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The second case. There are two syllables in the word extra but where should the boundary between them fall?

1) [e - kstrə]. It is unlike that people would opt for a division between [e] and [kstrə] because there are no syllables in English which begin with consonant sequence [kstr].

2) Similarly, a division between [ekstr] and [ə] would be unnatural.3) [ek - strə], [eks - trə], [ekst - rə] are possible. People usually prefer either of the first two

options here, but there no obvious way of deciding between them.In some cases we may take into account the morphemic structure of words. For example,

standing consists of two syllables; on phonetic grounds [stæn - diŋ). on grammatical grounds [stænd - iŋ].

Now we shall consider two functions of the syllable.The first is constitutive function. It lies in its ability to be a part of a word itself. The syllables

form language units of greater magnitude that is words, morphemes, and utterances. It this respect two things should be emphasized. First, the syllable is the unit within which the relations between distinctive features of phonemes and their acoustic correlates are revealed. Second, within a syllable (or syllables) prosodic characteristics of speech are realized, which form the stress pattern of a word and the intonation structure of an utterance. In sum, the syllable is a specific minimal structure of both segmental and suprasegmental features.

The other function is distinctive one. In this respect the syllable is characterized by its ability to differentiate words and word-forms. One minimal pare has been found in English to illustrate the word distinctive function in the syllabic: nitrate — night-rate. There analogical distinction between word combinations can be illustrated by many more examples: an aim - a name; an ice house - a nice house, etc. Sometimes the difference in syllable division may be the basic ground for differentiation in such pairs as I saw her rise.- I saw her eyes; I saw the meat — I saw them eat.

Practical tasks1. Transcribe the words. Define how many syllables are there in the given words and define

its boundaries. Prove your decision.catfish melt carpet natureeagle metal announced mileagefunny proper syllable mile

1. Read, transcribe these words with two equal stresses and translate them:Unaided non-payment misspellUnalienable non-resident misuseUnaltered ex-minister misruleUnarmed non-stop misplaceUnaspirated reopen underofficerUnclean reorganize underdressedAnti-national repack vice-admiralAnticyclonic prepaid pre-history

3 Read and transcribe these compound words denoting a single idea and translate them:Butterfly, newcomer, butter-fingers, blacksmith, greatcoat, airplane, bluebottle, butter-boat,

butter dish, bookmark4. Put down the stress marks in the words below:Centralization, modification, composition, nationalization, organization, anticipation,

intersession, satisfactory, sentimentality, overbalance, justification, hospitability, distribution, representation, unaccountable, artificial, fundamental, administration, characteristic

Занятие № 5

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Topic: Word stress in English Outline1. Nature of word stress2. Place of word stress in English. Degrees of stress3. Functions and tendencies of the English stress4. Typology of accentual structuresНа лабораторно-практических занятиях разбираются теоретические вопросы, а также

обсуждаются выводы, к которым студенты пришли в результате выполнения практического задания.

При подготовке к лабораторно-практическому занятию рекомендуется использовать следующий дополнительный материал.

1. Nature of word stressThe sequence of syllables in the word is not pronounced identically. The syllable or syllables

which are uttered with more prominence than the other syllables of the word are said to be stressed or accented. Stress in the isolated word is termed word stress; stress in connected speech is termed sentence stress.

Stress is defined differently by different authors. B.A. Bogoroditsky, for instance, defined stress as an increase of energy, accompanied by an increase of expiratory and articulatory activity. D. Jones defined stress as the degree of force, which is accompanied by a strong force of exhalation and gives an impression of loudness. H. Sweet also stated that stress, is connected with the force of breath. According to A.C. Gimson, the effect of prominence is achieved by any or all of four factors: force, tone, length and vowel colour.

If we compare stressed and unstressed syllables in the words contract ['kσntrækt], to contract [kən'trækt], we may note that in the stressed syllable:

(a) the force is greater, which is connected with more energetic articulation;(b) the pitch of voice is higher, which is connected with stronger tenseness of the vocal cords

and the walls of the resonance chamber;(c) the quantity of the vowel [æ] in [kən'trækt] is greater, the vowel becomes longer;(d) the quality of the vowel [æ] in the stressed syllable is different from the quality of this

vowel in the unstressed position, in which it is more narrow than ['æ].On the auditory level a stressed syllable is the part of the word which has a special

prominence. It is produced by a greater loudness and length, modifications in the pitch and quality. The physical correlates are: intensity, duration, frequency and the formant structure. All these features can be analyzed on the acoustic level. Word stress can be defined as the singling out of one or more syllables in a word, which is accompanied by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the sound, which is usually a vowel. In different languages one of the factors constituting word stress is usually more significant than the others. According to the most important feature different types, of word stress are distinguished in different languages.

1) If special prominence in a stressed syllable or syllables is achieved mainly through the intensity of articulation, such type of stress is called dynamic, or force stress.

2) If special prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved mainly through the change of pitch, or musical tone, such accent is called musical, or tonic. It is characteristic of the Japanese, Korean and other oriental languages.

3) If special prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved through the changes in the quantity of the vowels, which are longer in the stressed syllables than in the unstressed ones, such type of stress is called quantitative.

4) Qualitative type of stress is achieved through the changes in the quality of the vowel under stress.

English word stress is traditionally defined as dynamic, but in fact, the special prominence of the stressed syllables is manifested in the English language not only through the increase of

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intensity, but also through the changes in the vowel quantity, consonant and vowel quality and pitch of the voice.

Russian word stress is not only dynamic but mostly quantitative and qualitative. The length of Russian vowels always depends on the position in a word.

Now we should like to distinguish the notions of word stress and sentence stress. They are first of all different in their sphere of application as they are applied to different language units: word stress is naturally applied to a word, as a linguistic unit, sentence stress is applied to a phrase. Secondly, the distinction of the rhythmic structure of a word and a phrase is clearly observed in the cases when the word stress in notional words is omitted in a phrase, e.g. I 'don't think he is 'right or when the rhythmic structure of the isolated word does not coincide with that of a phrase, e.g. 'Fifteen. 'Room Fifteen. 'Fifteen 'pages.

So in a speech chain the phonetic structure of a word obtains additional characteristics connected with rhythm, melody, and tempo. Though the sentence stress falls on the syllable marked by the word stress it is not realized in the stressed syllable of an isolated word but in a word within speech continuum. Since the spheres of word stress and sentence stress fall apart their functions are actually different. Sentence stress organizes a sentence into a linguistic unit, helps to form its rhythmic and intonation pattern, and performs its distinctive function on the level of a phrase.

Stress difficulties peculiar to the accentual structure of the English language are connected with the vowel special and inherent prominence. In identical positions the intensity of English vowels is different. The highest in intensity is /a:/, then go /о:, з:, i:, u:, æ, σ, e, υ, i/.

All English vowels may occur in accented syllables, the only exception is /ə/, which is never stressed. English vowels /i, и, ə υ/ tend to occur in unstressed syllables. Syllables with the syllabic /1, m, n/ are never stressed. Unstressed diphthongs may partially lose their glide quality. In stressed syllables English stops have complete closure, fricatives have full friction, and features of fortis/lenis distinction are clearly defined.

2. Place of word stress in English. Degrees of stressLanguages are also differentiated according to the place of word stress. The traditional

classification of languages concerning place of stress in a word is into those with a fixed stress and those with a free stress. In languages with a fixed stress the occurrence of the word stress is limited to a particular syllable in a polysyllabic word. For instance, in French the stress falls on the last syllable of the word (if pronounced in isolation), in Finnish and Czech it is fixed on the first syllable, in Polish on the one but last syllable. In languages with a free stress its place is not confined to a specific position in the word. In one word it may fall on the first syllable, in another on the second syllable, in the third word — on the last syllable, etc. The free placement of stress is exemplified in the English and Russian languages, e.g. English: 'appetite - be'ginning - ba'lloon; Russian: озеро - погода - молоко.

The word stress in English as well as in Russian is not only free but it may also be shifting, performing the semantic function of differentiating lexical units, parts of speech, grammatical forms. In English word stress is used as a means of word-building; in Russian it marks both word-building and word formation, e.g. 'contrast — con'trast; 'habit — habitual 'music — mu'sician; дома — дома; чудная — чудная, воды — воды.

There are actually as many degrees of stress in a word as there are syllables. The opinions of phoneticians differ as to how many degrees of stress are linguistically relevant in a word. The British linguists usually distinguish three degrees of stress in the word. A.C. Gimson, for example, shows the distribution of the degrees of stress in the word examination. The primary stress is the strongest, it is marked by number 1, the secondary stress is the second strongest marked by 2. All the other degrees are termed weak stress. Unstressed syllables are supposed to have weak stress. The American scholars B. Bloch and G. Trager find four contrastive degrees of word stress, namely: loud, reduced loud, medial and weak stresses. Other American linguists also distinguish four degrees of word stress but term them: primary stress, secondary stress, tertiary stress and weak stress. The difference between the secondary and tertiary stresses is very subtle and seems

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subjective. The criteria of their difference are very vague. The second pretonic syllables of such words as libe'ration, recog'nition are marked by secondary stress in BrE, in AmE they are said to have tertiary stress. In AmE tertiary stress also affects the suffixes -ory, -ary, -ony of nouns and the suffixes –ate, -ize, -y of verbs, which are considered unstressed in BrE, e.g. 'territory, 'ceremony, 'dictionary; 'demonstrate, 'organize, 'simplify.

British linguists do not always deny the existence of tertiary stress as a tendency to use a tertiary stress on a post-tonic syllable in RP is also traced.

3. Functions and tendencies of the English stressWord stress in a language performs three functions.1. Word stress constitutes a word, it organizes the syllables of a word into a language unit

having a definite accentual structure, that is a pattern of relationship among the syllables; a word does not exist without the word stress Thus the word stress performs the constitutive function. Sound continuum becomes a phrase when it is divided into units organized by word stress into words.

2. Word stress enables a person to identify a succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word. This function of word stress is known as identificatoiy(у него так в лекции) (or recognitive). Correct accentuation helps the listener to make the process of communication easier, whereas the distorted accentual pattern of words, misplaced word stresses prevent normal understanding.

3. Word stress alone is capable of differentiating the meaning of words or their forms, thus performing its distinctive function. The accentual patterns of words or the degrees of word stress and their positions form oppositions, e.g. 'import — im'port, 'billow — below.

The accentual structure of English words is liable to instability due to the different origin of several layers in the Modern English word-stock. In Germanic languages the word stress originally fell on the initial syllable or the second syllable, the root syllable in the English words with prefixes. This tendency was called recessive. Most English words of Anglo-Saxon origin as well as the French borrowings (dated back to the 15th century) are subjected to this recessive tendency. Unrestricted recessive tendency is observed in the native English words having no prefix, e.g. mother, daughter, brother, swallow, ,in assimilated French borrowings, e.g. reason, colour, restaurant. Restricted recessive tendency marks English words with prefixes, e.g. foresee, begin, withdraw, apart. A great number of words of Anglo-Saxon origin are monosyllabic or disyllabic, both notional words and form words. They tend to alternate in the flow of speech, e.g. 'don't be'lieve he's 'right.

The rhythm of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables gave birth to the rhythmical tendency in the present-day English which caused the appearance of the secondary stress in the multisyllabic French borrowings, e.g. revolution, organi'sation, assimilation, etc. It also explains the placement of primary stress on the third syllable from the end in three- and four-syllable words, e.g. 'cinema, 'situate, ar'ticulate. The interrelation of both the recessive and the rhythmical tendencies is traced in the process of accentual assimilation of the French-borrowed word personal on the diachronic level, e.g. perso'nal — 'perso'nal — 'personal.

The appearance of the stress on the first syllable is the result of the recessive tendency and at the same time adaptation to the rhythmical tendency. The recessive tendency being stronger, the trisyllabic words like personal gained the only stress on the third syllable from the end, e.g. 'family, 'library, faculty, 'possible.

The accentual patterns of the words territory, dictionary, necessary in AmE with the primary stress on the first syllable and the tertiary stress on the third are other examples illustrating the correlation of the recessive and rhythmical tendencies. Nowadays we witness a great number of variations in the accentual structure of English multisyllabic words as a result of the interrelation of the tendencies. The stress on the initial syllable is caused by the diachronical recessive tendency or the stress on the second syllable under the influence of the strong rhythmical tendency of the

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present day, e.g. 'hospitable — ho'spitable, 'distribute — dis'tribute, 'aristocrat — a'ristocrat, 'laryngoscope — la'ryngoscope.

A third tendency was traced in the instability of the accentual structure of English word stress, the retentive tendency: a derivative often retains the stress of the original or parent word, e.g. 'similar — as'simitate, recom'mend — recommen 'dation.

4. Typology of accentual structuresThe numerous variations of English word stress are systematized in the typology of accentual

structure of English words worked out by G.P. Torsuyev. He classifies them according to the number of stressed syllables, their degree or character (the main and the secondary stress). The distribution of stressed syllables within the word accentual types forms accentual structures of words. Accentual types and accentual structures are closely connected with the morphological type of words, with the number of syllables, the semantic value of the root and the prefix of the word.

The accentual types are:1. ['___]. This accentual type marks both simple and compound words. The accentual

structures of this type may include two and more syllables, e.g. 'fafher, 'possibly, 'mother-in-law, 'gas-pipe.

2. [ '_ '_ ]. The accentual type is commonly realized in compound words, most of them are with separable prefixes, e.g. 'radio-'active, 're'write, 'diso'bey.

3. [ '_' _ '_ ] and 4. ['_' _ '_ '_]. The accentual types are met in initial compound abbreviations like 'U'S'A, 'U'S'S'R.

5. ['_ ,___]. The type is realized both in simple and compound words, verycommon among compound words, e.g. 'hair-,dresser, 'substructure.6. [, _'___]. The accentual type marks a great number of simple words and some compound

words as well. In simple words the stresses fall onto:1. the prefix and the root: maga'zine;2. the root and the suffix: ,hospi'tality;3. the prefix and the suffix: disorganization.The other five types are rare and found in small number of words.The data given above suggest an idea of the great variability in the accentual structure of

English words. The most widely spread among the enumerated accentual types are supposed to be Type 1, Type 2, Type 5 and Type 6. Each type includes varieties of definite accentual structures with different numbers of syllables and marks thousands of words. So the four of them cover the main bulk of most common English words and are therefore most typical for the English vocabulary.

The variability of the word accentual structure is multiplied in connected speech. The accentual structure of words may be altered under the influence of rhythm, e.g. An 'unpolished 'stone but: The 'stone was un'polished.

The tempo of speech may influence the accentual pattern of words. With the quickening of the speed the carefulness of articulation is diminished, the vowels are reduced or elided, the secondary stress may be dropped, e.g. The 'whole organi'zation of the 'meeting was 'faulty.

СРС Practical tasks:1. Define the number of syllables in the given words: Female, window, profile, under, over, cotton, table, husband, important, excessive, relation,

satisfactory, aristocracy, melancholy, caterpillar, consideration, circumlocution, variability, industrialization, unintelligibility, metereorological, administrative, autobiographic, unreliability,

2. Provide these words with necessary stress marks:Air -raid, birdcage, coalmine, washstand, mailbag, music-dance, grandfather, handwriting,

shopkeeper, dinner-jacket, shop-window, hot-water- bottle, post-graduate, second-hand, vice-chancellor

3. Transcribe and put down the stress marks in these verbs and nounsAbsent n- absent v

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Compress n – compress vProduce n - produce vCombine n – combine vConcert n –concert vOutlay n –outlay vInfix n –infix vDesert n –desert vTheme 1 Grammar in the systemic conception of language 1.The definition of language. The distinction between language and speech. 2. Language as a semiotic system: its functions, elements and structure. 3.The systemic character of grammar. Morphology and syntax - the two main sections of

grammarLanguage is a multifaceted, complex phenomenon which can be studied and described from

various points of view: as a psychological or cognitive phenomenon, as a social phenomenon, from the point of view of its historic changes, etc. But first and foremost language is treated as a semiotic system (system of signs). A system is a structured set of elements united by a common function. Language is a system of specific interconnected and interdependent lingual signs united by their common function of forming, storing and exchanging ideas in the process of human intercourse.

The foundations of systemic language description were formulated at the turn of the 20th

century in the works of many linguists, among them the Russian linguists I. A. Baudoin de Courtenay, A. A. Potebnya and others. The originator of the systemic approach in linguistics is considered to be a Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure. He was the first to divide the phenomenon of language in general (in French: ‘language’) into two sides: an ‘executive’ side (‘parole’), concerned with the production, transmission, and reception of speech, and an underlying language system (‘langue’). This is one of the basic postulates of modern systemic linguistics: language in general comprises two aspects: the system of special lingual units, language proper, and the use of the lingual units, speech proper. In other words, language in the narrow sense of the term is a system of means of expression, while speech is the manifestation of the system of language in the process of intercourse. The system of language comprises the body of lingual units and the rules of their use, while speech includes the act of producing utterances and the result of it (the utterances themselves, or the text).

Other terms are used in linguistics by different authors to denote the two basic aspects of language (which, however, do not always coincide with the ‘language – speech’ dichotomy): ‘language competence’ and ‘language performance’ (N. Chomsky), ‘ linguistic schema’ – ‘linguistic usage’, ‘linguistic system’ – ‘linguistic process’ (‘text’) (L. Hjelmslev), ‘code’ – ‘message’ (R. Jacobson), etc. Still, the terms ‘language’ and ‘speech’ are the most widely used.

Ferdinand de Saussure was also among the first scholars who defined lingual units as specific signs - bilateral (two-sided) units that have both form and meaning. Ferdinand de Saussure spoke about an indissoluble link between a phonetic ‘signifier’ (French: ‘signifiant’), and a ‘signified’ (‘signifie’). In the system of language, a lingual sign has only a potential meaning; in speech, in the process of communication, this potential meaning is “actualized”, connected with a particular referent. That is why a lingual sign is graphically presented in the form of a triangle, including the material form, the meaning and the referent. For example, the word ‘elephant’ is a sign, consisting of a signifier, or form – the sequence of phonemes (or, in written presentation, of letters), and a signified, or meaning – the image of the animal in our mind; the referent is the ‘real’ animal in the outside world, which may or may not be physically present.

form meaning

referent

‘elephant’

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The units of language are of two types: segmental and supra-segmental. Segmental lingual units consist of phonemes, which are the smallest material segments of the language; segmental units form different strings of phonemes (morphemes, words, sentences, etc.). Supra-segmental lingual units do not exist by themselves, their forms are realized together with the forms of segmental units; nevertheless, they render meanings of various kinds, including grammatical meanings; they are: intonation contours, accents, pauses, patterns of word-order, etc. Cf., the change of word-order and intonation pattern in the following examples: He is at home (statement). – Is he at home? (question). Supra-segmental lingual units form the secondary line of speech, accompanying its primary phonemic line.

Segmental lingual units form a hierarchy of levels. The term ‘hierarchy’ denotes a structure in which the units of any higher level are formed by the units of the lower level; the units of each level are characterized by their own specific functional features and cannot be seen as a mechanical composition of the lower level units.

The 1st level is formed by phonemes, the smallest material lingual elements, or segments. They have form, but they have no meaning. Phonemes differentiate the meanings of morphemes and words. E.g.: man – men.

The 2nd level is composed of morphemes, the smallest meaningful elements built up by phonemes. The shortest morpheme can consist of one phoneme, e.g.: step-s; -s renders the meaning of the 3rd person singular form of the verb, or, the plural form of the noun. The meaning of the morpheme is abstract and significative: it does not name the referent, but only signifies it.

The 3rd level consists of words, or lexemes, nominative lingual units, which express direct, nominative meanings: they name, or nominate various referents. The words consist of morphemes, and the shortest word can include only one morpheme, e.g.: cat. The difference is in the quality of the meaning.

The 4th level is formed by word-combinations, or phrasemes, the combinations of two or more notional words, which represent complex nominations of various referents (things, actions, qualities, and even situations) in a sentence,

e.g.: a beautiful girl, their sudden departure. In a more advanced treatment, phrases along with separate words can be seen as the constituents of sentences, notional parts of the sentence, which make the fourth language level and can be called “denotemes”.

The 5th level is the level of sentences, or proposemes, lingual units which name certain situations, or events, and at the same time express predication, i.e. they show the relations of the event named to reality - whether the event is real or unreal, desirable or obligatory, stated as a fact or asked about, affirmed or negated, etc., e.g.: Their departure was sudden (a real event, which took place in the past, stated as a fact, etc.). Thus, the sentence is often defined as a predicative lingual unit. The minimal sentence can consist of just one word, e.g.: Fire!

The 6th level is formed by sentences in a text or in actual speech. Textual units are traditionally called supra-phrasal unities; we will call such supra-sentential constructions, which

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are produced in speech, dictemes (from Latin ‘dicto’ ‘I speak’). Dictemes are characterized by a number of features, the main one of which is the unity of topic. As with all lingual units, dictemes are reducible to one unit of the lower level; e.g., the text of an advertisement slogan can consist of just one sentence: Just do it!; or, a paragraph in a written text can be formed by a single independent sentence, being topically significant.

Not all lingual units are meaningful and, thus, they can not be defined as signs: phonemes and syllables (which are also distinguished as an optional lingual level by some linguists) participate in the expression of the meaning of the units of upper levels; they are called “cortemes” (from Lat. cortex: ‘bark, crust, shell’) as opposed to the majority of meaningful lingual units, called “signemes”.

Crucial for the systemic description of language are the two fundamental types of relations between lingual units: paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations. The term “syntagmatic relations” is derived from the word “syntagma”, i.e. a linear combination of units of the same level. Lingual units form various lingual strings, sequences, or constructions; in other words, lingual units co-occur in the same actual sequences. E.g.: He started laughing. The morphemes are also connected syntagmatically within words: start+ed = started; laugh+ing = laughing; the combinations of words form syntagmas within phrases and sentences: He + started; started + laughing. Besides, the sentence can be connected with other sentences by syntagmatic relations in the process of communication, in speech, e.g.: He started laughing. Everybody thought it was rather odd. Since these relations can be observed in actual utterances, they are also defined by the Latin term “in praesentia” (“in the presence”, present in the same sequence).

The other type of relations, opposed to syntagmatic, are called paradigmatic. The term is derived from the word “paradigm” and denotes the relations between elements in paradigms in the system of language. Ferdinand de Saussure called these relations ‘associative relations’, implying the way different linguistic units are arranged and associated with each other in human minds. Classical grammatical paradigms are those making up grammatical categories of words, or, morphological categories, e.g., the category of number or case of the noun: in Russian – стол – стола – столу – столом – на столе; in English – toy – toys; tooth – teeth; children – children’s, etc. Paradigm, in most general terms, is a system of variants of the same unit, which is called ‘the invariant’; paradigmatic relations are the relations between the variants of the lingual unit within a paradigm Not only words, but all lingual units are organized in the system of language paradigmatically according to their own categories; for example, sentences may be organized in paradigms according to the category “the purpose of communication”, in such paradigms declarative, interrogative and imperative sentence patterns of the same sentence invariant are opposed, e.g.: He laughed. – Did he laugh? – Let him laugh. Since these relations can’t be observed in actual speech they are also described as relations “in absentia” (“in the absence”).

Paradigmatic relations exist not only in grammar, but in the phonetical and lexical systems of language as well. For example, paradigmatic relations exist between vowels and consonants, voiced and voiceless consonants, etc.; between synonyms and antonyms, in topical groups of words, word-building models, etc. But paradigmatic relations are of primary importance for grammar, as the grammar of language is above all systemic.

As a system, language is subdivided into three basic subsystems, each of which is a system in its own turn. They are the phonetical (phonological), lexical and grammatical systems. The phonetical system includes the material units of which language is made up: sounds, phonemes, different intonation models, and accent models. The phonetical system of language is studied by a separate branch of linguistics called phonology. The lexical system includes all the nominative (naming) means of language – words and stable word-combinations. The lexical system is studied by lexicology. The grammatical system includes the rules and regularities of using lingual units in the construction of utterances in the process of human communication. The grammatical system is described by grammar as a branch of linguistics.

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The study of grammar may be either practical (practical grammar), which describes grammar as a set of rules and regulations to follow, or theoretical (theoretical grammar), aiming at the explanation of how and why the grammatical system works.

Within the grammatical system we single out parts of speech and sentence patterns. The parts of speech are further subdivided into nouns, verbs, adjective, adverbs, functional parts of speech; this subdivision of grammar is known as morphology. Sentences are further subdivided into simple and composite: composite sentences are subdivided into complex and compound, etc.; this subdivision of grammar is known as syntax.

In the history of linguistics, there were attempts to separate grammar, as the description of linguistic forms and structures, from semantics, the description of meanings. This is absolutely impossible, since grammatical forms and regularities are meaningful, though, of course, the quality of grammatical meanings is different from the quality of lexical meanings. Grammatical meanings are connected with the most abstract and general parts of information, rendered by lingual units. For example, the word hands, apart from its immediate lexical meaning (the referent of the word), bears some grammatical meanings, in particular, ‘thingness’ (the categorical grammatical meaning of nouns), ‘plurality’ (more than one objects are denoted) and others.

A lingual unit has been described above as a sign – a bilateral unit, which has its form and its meaning. Thus, two language planes can be distinguished - the plane of content and the plane of expression: the plane of content comprises all the meaningful, semantic elements contained in the language, while the plane of expression comprises all the material, formal units of the language. Each lingual unit, including grammatical units, is a unity of meaning and form, of content and the means of its expression. But the correspondence between the two planes is not one-to-one; the relations between the units of content and the units of expression are more complex. In cases of polysemy and homonymy two or more units of the plane of content correspond to one unit of the plane of expression, for example, the lexical homonyms: seal, hand, etc. In cases of synonymy, just the other way round, two or more units of the plane of expression correspond to one unit of the plane of content, for example, the lexical synonyms: pretty, nice, beautiful, etc. The relations of homonymy and synonymy can be distinguished in the grammatical system too. For example, homonymy in grammar: the grammatical suffix -(e)s denotes the 3rd person singular of the verb, the genitive case of the noun, or the plural of the noun, as in breaks, bird’s, birds; synonymy in grammar: future action can be expressed with the help of the future indefinite, the present indefinite, or the present continuous form of the verb, as in We’ll fly tomorrow; We fly tomorrow; We are flying tomorrow.

Another major contribution to the systemic description of language by Ferdinand de Saussure and Beaudoin de Courtenay was the doctrine that the synchronic study of a particular ‘state’ of a language in its development should be separated from the diachronic study of the language changes from one state to another. So, one more fundamental type of relation between language elements is to be distinguished: synchronic relations between language elements coexisting at a certain period of time, and diachronic relations between lingual elements of a certain type at different time periods. Language and each of its subsystems are synchronic systems of co-existing elements; in each system it is also possible to analyze diachronic relations between its elements. For example, synchronic relations in New English: hard –harder–hardest; synchronic relations in Old English: heard - Heardra - heardost; diachronic relations: hard – heard; harder – heardra; hardest – heardost.

Theme 2 Morphemic and categorial structures of the word1. The word and the morpheme, their correlation in the level structure of the language. 2. Lexical (derivational, word-building) and grammatical (functional, word-changing) affixes.3. The "allo-emic" theory in morphology: morphs, allomorphs and morphemes. 4. Grammatical category as a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning.

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5. The theory of oppositions. The types of oppositions: binary and supra-binary (ternary, quaternary, etc.) oppositions; privative, gradual, and equipollent oppositions.

1. The morpheme is the elementary meaningful lingual unit built up from phonemes and used to make words. It has meaning, but its meaning is abstract, significative, not concrete, or nominative, as is that of the word. Morphemes constitute the words; they do not exist outside the words. Studying the morpheme we actually study the word: its inner structure, its functions, and the ways it enters speech.

Stating the differences between the word and the morpheme, we have to admit that the correlation between the word and the morpheme is problematic. The borderlines between the morpheme and the word are by no means rigid and there is a set of intermediary units (half-words - half-morphemes), which form an area of transitions (a continuum) between the word and the morpheme as the polar phenomena. This includes the so-called “morpheme-like” functional, or auxiliary words, for example, auxiliary verbs and adverbs, articles, particles, prepositions and conjunctions: they are realized as isolated, separate units (their separateness being fixed in written practice) but perform various grammatical functions; in other words, they function like morphemes and are dependent semantically to a greater or lesser extent. Cf..: Jack’s, a boy, have done.

In traditional grammar, the study of the morphemic structure of the word is based on two criteria: the positional criterion - the location of the morphemes with regard to each other, and the semantic (or functional ) criterion - the contribution of the morphemes to the general meaning of the word.

2. According to these criteria morphemes are divided into root-morphemes (roots) and affixal morphemes (affixes). Roots express the concrete, “material” part of the meaning of the word and constitute its central part. Affixes express the specificational part of the meaning of the word: they specify, or transform the meaning of the root. Affixal specification may be of two kinds: of lexical or grammatical character. So, according to the semantic criterion affixes are further subdivided into lexical , or word-building (derivational) affixes, which together with the root constitute the stem of the word, and grammatical, or word-changing affixes, expressing different morphological categories, such as number, case, tense and others. With the help of lexical affixes new words are derived, or built; with the help of grammatical affixes the form of the word is changed.

According to the positional criterion affixes are divided into prefixes, situated before the root in the word, e.g.: under-estimate, and suffixes, situated after the root, e.g.: underestim-ate. Prefixes in English are only lexical: the word underestimate is derived from the word estimate with the help of the prefix under-. Suffixes in English may be either lexical or grammatical; e.g. in the word underestimates -ate is a lexical suffix, because it is used to derive the verb estimate (v) from the noun esteem (n), and –s is a grammatical suffix making the 3rd person, singular form of the verb to underestimate. Grammatical suffixes are also called inflexions (inflections, inflectional endings).

Grammatical suffixes form word-changing, or morphological paradigms of words, which can be observed to their full extent in inflectional languages, such as Russian, e.g.: стол – стола – столу – столом - о столе; morphological paradigms exist, though not on the same scale, in English too, e.g., the number paradigm of the noun: boy - boys.

Lexical affixes are primarily studied by lexicology with regard to the meaning which they contribute to the general meaning of the whole word. In grammar word-building suffixes are studied as the formal marks of the words belonging to different parts of speech; they form lexical (word-building, derivational) paradigms of words united by a common root, cf.:

to decide - decision - decisive - decisivelyto incise - incision - incisive - incisivelyBesides prefixes and suffixes, some other positional types of affix are distinguished in

linguistics: for example, regular vowel interchange which takes place inside the root and transforms its meaning “from within” can be treated as an infix, e.g.: a lexical infix – blood – to bleed; a

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grammatical infix – tooth – teeth. Grammatical infixes are also defined as inner inflections as opposed to grammatical suffixes which are called outer inflections.

3. When studying morphemes, we should distinguish morphemes as generalized lingual units from their concrete manifestations, or variants in specific textual environments; variants of morphemes are called “allo-morphs”.

The so-called allo-emic theory was developed in phonetics: in phonetics, phonemes, as the generalized, invariant phonological units, are distinguished from their concrete realizations, the allophones. For example, one phoneme is pronounced in a different way in different environments, cf.: you [ju:] - you know [ju]; in Russian, vowels are also pronounced in a different way in stressed and unstressed syllables, cf.: дом - домой. The same applies to the morpheme, which is a generalized unit, an invariant, and may be represented by different variants, allo-morphs, in different textual environments.

The “allo-emic theory” in the study of morphemes was also developed within the framework of Descriptive Linguistics by means of the so-called distributional analysis: in the first stage of distributional analysis a syntagmatic chain of lingual units is divided into meaningful segments, morphs, e.g.: he/ start/ed/ laugh/ing/; then the recurrent segments are analyzed in various textual environments, and the following three types of distribution are established: contrastive distribution, non-contrastive distribution and complementary distribution. The morphs are said to be in contrastive distribution if they express different meanings in identical environments the compared morphs, e.g.: He started laughing – He starts laughing; such morphs constitute different morphemes. The morphs are said to be in non-contrastive distribution if they express identical meaning in identical environments; such morphs constitute ‘free variants’ of the same morpheme, e.g.: learned - learnt, ate [et] – ate [eit] (in Russian: трактора – тракторы). The morphs are said to be in complementary distribution if they express identical meanings in different environments, e.g.: He started laughing – He stopped laughing; such morphs constitute variants, or allo-morphs of the same morpheme.

Besides these traditional types of morphemes, in Descriptive Linguistics distributional morpheme types are distinguished; they immediately correlate with each other in the following pairs. Free morphemes, which can build up words by themselves, are opposed to bound morphemes, used only as parts of words; e.g.: in the word ‘hands’ hand- is a free morpheme and -s is a bound morpheme. Overt and covert morphemes are opposed to each other: the latter shows the meaningful absence of a morpheme distinguished in the opposition of grammatical forms in paradigms; it is also known as the “zero morpheme”, e.g.: in the number paradigm of the noun, hand – hands, the plural is built with the help of an overt morpheme, hand-s, while the singular - with the help of a zero or covert morpheme, handØ.

Segmental morphemes, consisting of phonemes, are opposed to supra-segmental morphemes, which leave the phonemic content of the word unchanged, but the meaning of the word is specified with the help of various supra-segmental lingual units, e.g.: `convert (a noun) - con`vert (a verb).

4. Grammatical meanings of notional words are rendered by their grammatical forms. For example, the meaning of the plural in English is regularly rendered by the grammatical suffix –(e)s: cats, books, clashes. Grammatical meanings of individual grammatical forms are established as such in paradigmatic correlations: the plural correlates with the singular (cat – cats), the genitive case of the noun correlates with the common case (cat – cat’s), the definite article determination correlates with the indefinite article determination (a cat – the cat), etc.

The generalized meaning rendered by paradigmatically correlated grammatical forms is called “categorial”. Category is a logical notion denoting the reflection of the most general properties of phenomena. Categorial meanings in grammar are expressed by grammatical paradigms. For example, within the system of the English noun the generalized, categorial meaning of “number” is

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expressed grammatically through the paradigmatic correlation (or, opposition in a paradigm) of two members, of two grammatical forms, each with its own grammatical meaning: the singular (e.g., cat) and the plural (cats).

Thus, the definition of grammatical category is as follows: grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized categorial meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. In other words, it is a unity of a generalized grammatical meaning and the forms of its expression.

5. Paradigmatic correlations, as shown above, are exposed by “oppositions” of grammatical forms - the members of a paradigm. Oppositions are analyzed linguistically with the help of a special method known as “oppositional analysis”. N. S. Trubetzkoy, a member of the Prague Linguistic Circle, developed it at the turn of the 20th century for the purposes of phonological research; later it became widely employed in the analysis of grammatical categories. Opposition members are characterized by two types of features: common features and differential features. Common features serve as the basis for uniting the grammatical forms within the same paradigm; in the example above, the two forms, cat and cats, are paradigmatically united as forms of one and the same word, sharing the categorical grammatical meaning of number. Differential features serve to differentiate the members of an opposition; for example, the grammatical form of the plural, cats, has an inflection, or a grammatical suffix, which the form of the singular, cat, has not.

On the basis of various combinations of common and differential features, several types of oppositions are distinguished. The prevalent type in English grammar is a binary privative opposition. The term “binary” means, that the opposition consists of two members, or forms; besides binary oppositions, there are oppositions, that may include more than two members (‘ternary’, ‘quaternary’, etc.). The term “privative” means that the members of the opposition are characterized by the presence/absence of a certain differential feature, which serves as the formal mark of one of its members; in the example above, cat – cats, the ending of the plural is its formal mark. The member of the opposition characterized by the presence of the differential mark is called “marked”, “strong”, or “positive” (commonly designated by the symbol +). The other member of the opposition, characterized by the absence of the differential feature, is called “unmarked”, “weak”, or “negative” (commonly designated by the symbol -). In the category of number the strong, marked member is the plural form, because it possesses a special formal mark (either the productive suffix -(e)s, or other formal means, such as -en in children, etc.), the weak, unmarked member of the opposition is the singular form, which possesses no special mark. To stress the negative marking of the weak member it is also defined in oppositional theory with “non-”terms: e.g., the singular is referred to as “non-plural”.

Besides the differences in the form, there are also regular semantic differences between the members of the privative oppositions: the meaning of the weak member is always more general and more abstract, while the meaning of the strong member is always more particular and concrete. Due to this difference in meaning, the weak member of the opposition is used in a wider range of contexts than the strong member and it can even regularly substitute the strong member in certain contexts. For example, the singular form of the noun can be used generically to denote all the objects belonging to a certain class: The rose is my favourite flower = (All) Roses are my favourite flowers.

Besides privative oppositions, there are gradual and equipollent oppositions, which are minor types in morphology. Gradual oppositions are formed by a series of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of a differential feature, but by the degree of it. A gradual morphological opposition in English can be identified only in the plane of content in the category of comparison, cf.: big – bigger - biggest. Equipollent oppositions are formed by members, which are distinguished by a number of their own features. An equipollent morphological opposition in English can be identified in the plane of expression in the paradigms of suppletive

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forms, for example, in the correlation of the person and number forms of the verb be: am – are – is (was – were).

Theme 3 Grammatical classes of words1. The notion of a part of speech as a lexico-grammatical class of words.2. Principles of grammatical classification of words. Polydifferential and monodifferential

(heterogeneous and homogeneous) classifications.3. The syntactico-distributional classification of words1.The traditional term “parts of speech” was developed in Ancient Greek linguistics and

reflects the fact that at that time there was no distinction between language as a system and speech, between the word as a part of an utterance and the word as a part of lexis. The term “parts of speech” is accepted by modern linguistics as a conventional, or “non-explanatory” term (“name-term”) to denote the lexico-grammatical classes of words correlating with each other in the general system of language on the basis of their grammatically relevant properties.

There are three types of grammatically relevant properties of words that differentiate classes of words called “parts of speech”: semantic, formal and functional properties. They traditionally make the criteria for the classification of parts of speech. The semantic criterion refers to the generalized semantic properties common to the whole class of words, e.g.: the generalized (or, categorial) meaning of nouns is “thingness”, of verbs process, of adjectives substantive property, of adverbs non-substantive property. The formal criterion embraces the formal features (word-building and word-changing) that are characteristic for a particular part of speech, e.g.: the noun is characterized by a specific set of word-building affixes, cf.: property, bitterness, worker, etc., and is changed according to the categories of number, case and article determination: boy-boys, boy – boy’s, boy – the boy – a boy, etc. Combinability is also a relevant formal feature for each particular part of speech; for example, verbs can be modified by adverbs, while nouns cannot (except in specific contexts). The functional criterion is based on the functions that the words of a particular class fulfill in the sentence, e.g.: the most characteristic functions of the noun are those of a subject and an object; the only function of the finite form of the verb is that of a predicate; the adjective functions in most contexts as an attribute; the adverb as an adverbial modifier.

2. Classifications in general may be based either on one criterion (such classifications are called homogeneous, or monodifferential), or on a combination of several criteria (such classifications are called heterogeneous, or polydifferential). The traditional classification of parts of speech is polydifferential (heterogeneous); it is based on the combination of all the three criteria mentioned above: ‘meaning – form – function’.

Traditionally, all parts of speech are subdivided on the upper level of classification into notional words and functional words. Notional words, which traditionally include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns and numerals, have complete nominative meanings, are in most cases changeable and fulfill self-dependent syntactic functions in the sentence. The noun, for example, as a part of speech, is traditionally characterized by 1) the categorial meaning of substance (“thingness”), 2) a specific set of word-building affixes, the grammatical categories of number, case and article determination, prepositional connections and modification by an adjective, and 3) the substantive functions of subject, object or predicative in the sentence. Functional words, which include conjunctions, prepositions, articles, interjections, particles, and modal words, have incomplete nominative value, are unchangeable and fulfill mediatory, constructional syntactic functions.

The employment of the three criteria combined, in present-day mainstream linguistics, was developed mainly by V. V. Vinogradov, L. V. Scherba, A. I. Smirnitsky, B. A. Ilyish and others.

There are certain limitations and controversial points in the traditional classification of parts of speech, which make some linguists doubt its scientific credibility. First of all, the three criteria turn out to be relevant only for the subdivision of notional words. As for functional words, these

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classes of words do not distinguish either common semantic, or formal, or functional properties, they are rather characterized by the absence of all three criteria in any generalized form. Second, the status of pronouns and the numerals, which in the traditional classification are listed as notional, is also questionable, since they do not have any syntactic functions of their own, but rather different groups inside these two classes resemble in their formal and functional properties different notional parts of speech: e.g., cardinal numerals function as substantives, while ordinal numerals function as adjectives; the same can be said about personal pronouns and possessive pronouns. Third, it is very difficult to draw rigorous borderlines between different classes of words, because there are always phenomena that are indistinguishable in their status. E.g., non-finite forms of verbs, such as the infinitive, the gerund, participles I and II are actually verbal forms, but lack some of the characteristics of the verb: they have no person or number forms, no tense or mood forms, and what is even more important, they never perform the characteristic verbal function, that of a predicate. There are even words that defy any classification at all; for example, many linguists doubt whether the words of agreement and disagreement, yes and no, can occupy any position in the classification of parts of speech.These, and a number of other problems, made linguists search for alternative ways to classify lexical units.

The first classification of parts of speech was homogeneous: in ancient Greek grammar the words were subdivided mainly on the basis of their formal properties into changeable and unchangeable; nouns, adjectives and numerals were treated jointly as a big class of “names” because they shared the same morphological forms. This classical linguistic tradition was followed by the first English grammars: Henry Sweet divided all the words in English into “declinables” and “indeclinables”. But the approach which worked well for the description of highly inflectional languages turned out to be less efficient for the description of other languages.

3. The syntactic approach, which establishes the word classes in accord with their functional characteristics, is more universal and applicable to languages of different morphological types. The principles of a monodifferential syntactico-distributional classification of words in English were developed by the representatives of American Descriptive Linguistics, L. Bloomfield, Z. Harris and Ch. Fries.

Ch. Fries selected the most widely used grammatical constructions and used them as substitution frames: the frames were parsed into parts, or positions, each of them got a separate number, and then Ch. Fries conducted a series of substitution tests to find out what words can be used in each of the positions. Some of the frames were as follows: The concert was good (always). The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly). The team went there. All the words that can be used in place of the article made one group, the ones that could be used instead of the word “clerk” another, etc. The results of his experiments were surprisingly similar to the traditional classification of parts of speech: four main positions were distinguished in the sentences; the words which can be used in these positions without affecting the meaning of the structures were united in four big classes of words, and generally speaking coincide with the four major notional parts of speech in the traditional classification: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Besides these “positional words” (“form-words”), Ch. Fries distinguished 15 limited groups of words, which cannot fill in the positions in the frames. These “function words” are practically the same as the functional words in the traditional classification.

The syntactico-distributional classification of words distinguished on a consistently syntactic basis testifies to the objective nature of the classification of parts of speech. More than that, in some respects the results of this approach turn out to be even more confusing than the allegedly “non-scientific” traditional classification: for example, Group A, embracing words that can substitute for the article “the” in the above given frames, includes words as diverse as “the, no, your, their, both, few, much, John’s, twenty”, or one word might be found in different distributional classes. Thus, the syntactico-distributional classification cannot replace the traditional classification of parts of

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speech, but the major features of different classes of words revealed in syntactico-distributional classification can be used as an important supplement to traditional classification.

The combination of syntactico-distributional and traditional classifications strongly suggests the unconditional subdivision of the lexicon into two big supra-classes: notional and functional words. The major formal grammatical feature of this subdivision is their open or closed character. The notional parts of speech are open classes of words, with established basic semantic, formal and functional characteristics. There are only four notional classes of words, which correlate with the four main syntactic positions in the sentence: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They are interconnected by the four stages of the lexical paradigmatic series of derivation, e.g.: to decide – decision – decisive – decisively. The functional words are closed classes or words: they cannot be further enlarged and are given by lists. The closed character of the functional words is determined by their role in the structure of the sentence: the functional words expose various constructional functions of syntactic units, and this makes them closer to grammatical rather than to lexical means of the language.

As for pronouns and the numerals, according to the functional approach they form a separate supra-class of substitutional parts of speech, since they have no function of their own in the sentence, but substitute for notional parts of speech and perform their characteristic functions. The difference between the four notional parts of speech and substitutional parts of speech is also supported by the fact that the latter are closed groups of words like functional parts of speech.

The three supra-classes are further subdivided into classes (the parts of speech proper) and sub-classes (groups inside the parts of speech). For example, nouns are divided into personal and common, animate and inanimate, countable and uncountable, etc.; pronouns are subdivided into personal, possessive (conjoint and absolute), objective pronouns, demonstrative, reflexive, relative, etc.; numerals are subdivided into cardinal and ordinal, etc.

The field approach, which was outlined in the previous units, also helps clarify many disputable points in the traditional classification of parts of speech. The borderlines between the classes of words are not rigid; instead of borderlines there is a continuum of numerous intermediary phenomena, combining the features of two or more major classes of words. Field theory states that in each class of words there is a core, the bulk of its members that possess all the characteristic features of the class, and a periphery (marginal part), which includes the words of mixed, dubious character, intermediary between this class and other classes. For example, the non-finite forms of the verb (the infinitive, the gerund, participles I and II) make up the periphery of the verbal class: they lack some of the features of a verb, but possess certain features characteristic to either nouns, or adjectives, or adverbs. There are numerous intermediary phenomena that form a continuum between the notional and functional supra-classes; for example, there are adverbs whose functioning is close to that of conjunctions and prepositions, e.g.: however, nevertheless, besides, etc. Notional words of broad meaning are similar in their functioning to the substitutive functioning of the pronouns, e.g.: He speaks English better than I do; Have you seen my pen? I can’t find the wretched thing. Together with the regular pronouns they form the stages of the paradigmatic series, in which the four notional parts of speech are substitutively represented, cf.: one, it, thing, matter, way… - do, make, act…- such, similar same… - thus, so, there…

The implementation of the field approach to the distribution of words in parts of speech was formulated by the Russian linguists G. S. Schur and V. G. Admoni.

4 Noun: gender1. Noun as the central nominative lexemic unit of language. Categorial meaning of the noun.2. Grammatically relevant subclasses of the noun.3. The problem of gender category in English. 4. Gender oppositions and gender classes of nouns.

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1. The categorial meaning of the noun is “substance” or “thingness”. Nouns directly name various phenomena of reality and have the strongest nominative force among notional parts of speech: practically every phenomenon can be presented by a noun as an independent referent, or, can be substantivized. Nouns denote things and objects proper (tree), abstract notions (love), various qualities (bitterness), and even actions (movement). All these words function in speech in the same way as nouns denoting things proper.

The most characteristic functions of the noun in a sentence are the function of a subject and an object, since they commonly denote persons and things as components of the situation, e.g.: The teacher took the book. Besides, the noun can function as a predicative (part of a compound predicate), e.g.: He is a teacher; and as an adverbial modifier, e.g.: It happened last summer. The noun in English can also function as an attribute in the following cases: when it is used in the genitive case (the teacher’s book), when it is used with a preposition (the book of the teacher), or in contact groups of two nouns the first of which qualifies the second (cannon ball, space exploration, sea breeze, the Bush administration, etc.).

2. As with any other part of speech, the noun is further subdivided into subclasses, or groups, in accord with various particular semantico-functional and formal features of the constituent words. The main grammatically relevant subclasses of nouns are distinguished in the following correlations.

On the basis of “type of nomination” proper nouns are opposed to common nouns. Common nouns present a general name of any thing belonging to a certain class of things, e.g.: river – any river, boy – any boy, while the proper nouns have no generalized meaning; they serve as a label, a nickname of a separate individual being or thing, e.g.: Mississippi, John, New York, etc. This semantic subdivision of nouns is grammatically manifested through the differences in their formal features of the category of article determination and of the category of number. The use of proper nouns in the plural or with the articles is restricted to a limited number of contexts: normally, one cannot use the plural form of the word New York, though it is possible to say There are two Lenas in our group, or The Joneses are to visit us. If proper nouns are used with articles or other determiners and/or in the plural, in most contexts it signifies their transposition from the group of proper nouns into the group of common nouns, e.g.: You are my Romeo!; I can’t approve of young Casanovas like you.

On the basis of “form of existence” of the referents animate nouns are opposed to inanimate nouns, the former denoting living beings (man, woman, dog), the latter denoting things and phenomena (tree, table). This semantic difference is formally exposed through the category of case forms, as animate nouns are predominantly used in the genitive case, cf.: John’s leg, but the leg of the table. This subdivision of nouns is semantically closely connected with the following one.

On the basis of “personal quality” human animate nouns (person nouns), denoting human beings, or persons, are opposed to non-human (animate and inanimate) nouns (non-person nouns), denoting all the other referents. This lexico-semantic subdivision of nouns is traditionally overlooked in practical and theoretical courses on grammar, but it is grammatically relevant because only human nouns in English can distinguish masculine or feminine genders, e.g.: man – he, woman – she, while the non-human nouns, both animate and inanimate, are substituted by the neuter gender pronoun ‘it’. The exceptions take place only in cases of transposition of the noun from one group into another, e.g., in cases of personification, e.g.: the sun - he, the moon - she, etc.

On the basis of “quantitative structure” of the referent countable (variable) nouns are opposed to uncountable (invariable) nouns, the former denoting discrete, separate things which can be counted and form discrete multitudes, e.g.: table – tables, the latter denoting either substances (sugar), or multitudes as a whole (police), or abstract notions (anger), and some others entities. This subdivision is formally manifested in the category of number.

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Besides the formal features enumerated above, the semantic differences between different groups of nouns are manifested through their selectional syntagmatic combinability; e.g., it is possible to say The dog is sleeping, but impossible to say *The table is sleeping.

3. The category of gender in English is a highly controversial subject in grammar. The overwhelming majority of linguists stick to the opinion that the category of gender existed only in Old English. They claim that, since formal gender marks disappeared by the end of the Middle English period and nouns no longer agree in gender with adjacent adjectives or verbs, there is no grammatical category of gender in modern English. They maintain that in modern English, the biological division of masculine and feminine genders is rendered only by lexical means: special words and lexical affixes, e.g.: man – woman, tiger – tigress, he-goat – she-goat, male nurse, etc.

The fact is, the category of gender in English differs from the category of gender in many other languages, for example, in Russian, in French or in German. The category of gender linguistically may be either meaningful (or, natural), rendering the actual sex-based features of the referents, or formal (arbitrary). In Russian and some other languages the category of gender is meaningful only for human (person) nouns, but for the non-human (non-person) nouns it is formal; i.e., it does not correspond with the actual biological sense, cf.: рука is feminine, палец is masculine, тело is neuter, though all of them denote parts of the human body. In English gender is a meaningful category for the whole class of the nouns, because it reflects the real gender attributes (or their absence/ irrelevance) of the referent denoted. It is realized through obligatory correspondence of every noun with the 3rd person singular pronouns - he, she, or it: man – he, woman – she, tree, dog – it. For example: A woman was standing on the platform. She was wearing a hat. It was decorated with ribbons and flowers… Personal pronouns are grammatical gender classifiers in English.

4. The category of gender is formed by two oppositions organized hierarchically. The first opposition is general and opposes human, or person nouns, distinguishing masculine and feminine gender (man – he, woman – she) and all the other, non-human, non-person nouns, belonging to the neuter gender (tree, dog – it). The second opposition is formed by the human nouns only: on the lower level of the opposition the nouns of masculine gender and of feminine gender are opposed.

Gender

+ _ Person nouns Non-person nouns (tree - it)

+ -

Feminine nouns (woman - she) Masculine nouns (man -he)

Gender is a constant feature category: it is expressed not through variable forms of words, but through nounal classification; each noun belongs to only one of the three genders. In addition, there is a group of nouns in English which can denote either a female or a male in different contexts; these nouns can be substituted by either ‘he’ or ‘she’, e.g.: president, professor, friend, etc. They constitute a separate group of nouns – the common gender nouns. For them the category of gender is a variable feature category.

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There are no formal marks to distinguish the strong and the weak members in either of the gender oppositions. They can be distinguished semantically: nouns of the neuter gender in the upper level of the opposition is more abstract compared to masculine and feminine gender nouns; they are the weak member of the opposition and are naturally used in the position of neutralization. For example: The girl was a sweet little thing; “What is it over there: a man or just a tree?” On the lower level of the opposition, masculine gender nouns are the weak member of the opposition and can be used to denote all human beings irrespective of sex, e.g.: Man must change in the changing world. When there is no contextual need to specify the sex of the referent, common gender nouns are also neutrally substituted by the masculine pronoun, e.g.: Every student must do his best.

Besides the cases of neutralization, the most obvious examples of oppositional reduction in the category of gender are the cases when the weak member of the opposition, nouns of neuter gender, are used as if they denote female or male beings, when substituted by the pronouns ‘he’ or ‘she’. In most cases such use is stylistically colored and is encountered in emotionally loaded speech. It is known as the stylistic device of personification and takes place either in some traditionally fixed contexts, e.g.: a vessel – she; or in high-flown speech, e.g., Britain – she, the sea – she. In fairy-tales and poetic texts weak creatures are referred to as she, and strong or evil creature as he, e.g.: Death is the only freedom I will know. I hear His black wings beating about me! (Isles)

Theme 5 Verb: general

1. The verb as a notional word denoting process. Its formal and functional properties.2. Grammatically relevant subclasses of the verb; notional, functional, and semi-functional

verbs.3. Actional and statal verbs, limitive and unlimitive verbs, transitive and intransitive verbs,

supplementive and complementive verbs.1.The verb as a notional part of speech has the categorial meaning of dynamic process, or

process developing in time, including not only actions as such (to work, to build), but also states, forms of existence (to be, to become, to lie), various types of attitude, feelings (to love, to appreciate), etc.

Formally, the verb is characterized by a set of specific word-building affixes, e.g.: to activate, to widen, to classify, to synchronize, to overestimate, to reread, etc.; there are some other means of building verbs, among them sound-replacive and stress-shifting models, e.g.: blood – to bleed, 'import – to im'port. There is a peculiar means of rendering the meaning of the process, which occupies an intermediary position between the word and the word-combination: the so-called “phrasal verbs”, consisting of a verb and a postpositional element. Some phrasal verbs are closer to the word, because their meaning cannot be deduced from the meaning of the verb or the meaning of the postposition separately, e.g.: to give up, to give in, etc.; others are semantically closer to the word-combination, e.g.: to stand up, to sit down, etc. A separate group of phrasal verbs is made by combinations of broad meaning verbs to have, to give, to take and nouns, e.g.: to give a look, to have rest, to have a bite, etc.

The verb is usually characterized as the most complex part of speech, because it has more word-changing categories than any other notional part of speech. It is changed according to the categories of person and number, tense, aspect, voice and mood. Besides, each verb has a specific set of non-finite forms (the infinitive, the gerund, participles I and II), otherwise called “verbals”, or “verbids”, opposed to the finite forms of the verb, otherwise called “finites”; their opposition is treated as “the category of finitude”.

Such a wide range of forms is mainly due to the importance of the function that the verb performs in the sentence: its primary function (and the only function of its finite forms) is the function of a predicate – the central, organizing member of the sentence, expressing its crucial predicative meanings, or the relations of the event denoted by the sentence to actual reality. The non-finite forms of the verbs, verbids, perform functions characteristic of other notional parts of

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speech – nouns, adjectives, or adverbs, but still, they can express partial predication and share a number of other important verbal features with the finites.

2. The complexity of the verb is also manifested in the intricate system of its grammatically relevant subclasses.

On the upper level, all the verbs according to their semantic (nominative) value fall into two big sub-classes: the sub-class of notional verbs and the sub-class of functional and semi-functional verbs. Notional verbs have full nominative value and are independent in the expression of the process, e.g.: to work, to build, to lie, to love, etc.; these verbs comprise the bulk of the class and constitute an open group of words. Functional and semi-functional (or, semi-notional) verbs make a closed group of verbs of partial nominative value. They are dependent on other words in the denotation of the process, but through their forms the predicative semantics of the sentence is expressed (they function as predicators).

Functional and semi-functional verbs are further subdivided into a number of groups. Auxiliary functional verbs are used to build the analytical grammatical forms of notional verbs, e.g.: have done, was lost, etc. Link verbs connect the nominative part of the predicate (the predicative) with the subject. They can be of two types: pure and specifying link verbs. Pure link verbs perform a purely predicative-linking function in the sentence; in English there is only one pure link verb to be; specifying link verbs specify the connections between the subject and its property, cf.: He was pale. – He grew pale. The specification of the connections may be either “perceptional”, e.g.: to seem, to look, to feel, etc., or “factual”, e.g.: to grow, to become, to get, etc. The semi-functional link verbs should be distinguished from homonymous notional verbs, e.g.: to grow can be a notional verb or a specifying link verb, cf.: The child grew quickly. – He grew pale. Modal verbs are predicators denoting various subject attitudes to the action, for example, obligation, ability, permission, advisability, etc.: can, must, may, etc. A group of semi-notional verbs function as verbid introducers, i.e., they introduce non-finite forms of verbs into the structure of the sentence: they are grammatically inseparable from the verbids and these two lexemes jointly make the predicate of the sentence, e.g.: He happened to know all about it.

3. Notional verbs are subdivided into several groups as follows.On the basis of subject-process relations the verbs are subdivided into actional and statal

verbs. The terms are self-explanatory: actional verbs denote the actions performed by the subject as an active doer, e.g.: to go, to make, to build, to look, etc.; statal verbs denote various states of the subject or present the subject as the recipient of an outward activity, e.g.: to love, to be, to worry, to enjoy, to see, etc. Mental and sensual processes can be presented as actional or statal; they can be denoted either by correlated pairs of different verbs, or by the same verbal lexeme, e.g.: to know (mental perception) – to think (mental activity), to see, to hear (physical perception as such) - to look, to listen (physical perceptional activity); The cake tastes nice (taste denotes physical perception, it is used as a statal verb). – I always taste food before adding salt (taste denotes perceptional activity, it is used as an actional verb).

Another subdivision of notional verbs is based on their aspective meaning, which exposes the inner character of the process denoted, or, its mode of realization. Thus, all the verbs into two big groups: the so-called limitive verbs and unlimitive verbs. Limitive verbs present a process as potentially limited, directed towards reaching a certain border point, beyond which the process denoted by the verb is stopped or ceases to exist, e.g.: to come, to sit down, to bring, to drop, etc. Unlimitive verbs present the process as potentially not limited by any border point, e.g.: to go, to sit, to carry, to exist, etc. Some limitive and unlimitive verbs form semantically opposed pairs, denoting roughly the same actual process presented as either potentially limited or unlimited, cf.: to come – to go, to sit down – to sit, to bring – to carry; other verbs have no aspective counterparts, e.g.: to be, to exist (unlimitive), to drop (limitive).

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The next subdivision of the notional verbs is based on their combinability features, or their valency. In traditional grammar studies, on the basis of combinability, verbs are divided into transitive and intransitive: transitive verbs denote an action directed toward a certain object; in a sentence they are obligatorily used with a direct object. Constructions with transitive verbs are easily transformed from active into passive, e.g.: He wrote a letter. – The letter was written by him.

The valency of the word can be either obligatory (required), or optional (permitted). The obligatory adjuncts (the valents required by the verb) are called “complements” and the verb itself is called “complementive”; without a complement a syntactic construction with a complementive verb is grammatically incomplete and semantically deficient, cf.: He is a writer. - *He is…. The optional valents are called “supplements” and the verb is called “uncomplementive” (or, “supplementive”).

Uncomplementive verbs are further subdivided into two groups of verbs: personal and impersonal verbs. Personal verbs imply the subject of the action denoted (animate or inanimate, human or non-human), e.g.: to work, to laugh, to grow, to start, etc., as in I’m working; The concert started. Impersonal verbs usually denote natural phenomena, e.g.: to rain, to snow, to drizzle, etc.; the number of impersonal verbs is limited; in English they are combined with a formal subject, e.g.: It’s raining (in Russian impersonal uncomplementive verbs can be used without any subject at all, cf.: Моросит; Смеркается).

Complementive verbs are further subdivided according to the members of the sentence which they must be obligatorily used with. Predicative complementive verbs are link verbs obligatorily combined in a sentence with their predicatives, e.g.: He is a writer. Adverbial complementive verbs are verbs which are obligatorily combined with adverbial modifiers of time, or space, or manner, e.g.: He lives in Paris; He lived in the eighteenth century; The married and lived happily ever since. Objective complementive verbs require either one object-complement (monocomplementive verbs) or two compliments (bicomplementive verbs). The following verbs are monocomplementive: to have – the possession objective verb, non-passivized; to take, to grasp, to enjoy, etc. – direct objective verbs, e.g.: Take the book; to look at, to point to, to send for, etc. – prepositional objective verbs; in spite of their prepositional use they are easily passivized in English, e.g.: Everyone looked at her; She was looked at.; to cost, to weigh, to fail, to become, etc. – direct objective verbs, non-passivized; to belong to, to abound in, to merge with, etc. – prepositional objective verbs, non-passivized.

In conclusion, it should be stressed once again that many verbs in English in different contexts migrate easily from one group to another, and the boundaries between the subclasses are less rigid than in Russian. For example: to work is an uncomplementive verb, but in modern English, especially in its American variant, one can use it with a direct object too, e.g.: She worked her team hard; She worked the phones. Such cases, as well as all other notional “sub-class migration” cases, are treated as syntactic variants (‘uses’) of the same verbal lexemes. But lexemes which coincide as notional and functional or semi-functional verbs should be treated as homonymous verbs, because different grammatical functions underlie these subdivisions.

3 САМОСТОЯТЕЛЬНАЯ РАБОТА СТУДЕНТА

3.1 Some general theoretical problems to the problem of the word


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3.2 Characteristic of the word as basic unit of language


3.3 The branches of lexicology


3.4 Types of lexical units: a word, a morpheme and a phrase


3.5 Types of word meaning


3.6 Semasiology as a branch of lexicology


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3.7 Word meaning in morphemes


3.8 The lexical meaning of a word


3.9 The grammatical meaning of words


3.10 Phraseological unitRecommended literature:1. Antrushina Modern English Lexicology - M.,19992. Arnold I.V. The English Word - M.,19863. Ginzburg Modern English Lexicology – M.,19794. Koonin A. English Lexicology - M.,19785. Смирницкий А.И. Лексикология английского языка - M.,19776. Харитончик З.А. Лексикология английского языка - M.,1987

edu.semgu.kz€¦ · web vieware words that were once common but are now replaced by synonyms....

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