1. Write about the dominant synonym and give examples.

All synonymic groups have a central word of this kind whose meaning is equal to the denotation common to all the synonymic group. This word is called the dominant synonym. E.g. to surprise-to astonish, to amaze; to tremble, to shiver, to shudder, to shake. In each group of synonyms there is a word with the most general meaning, which can substitute any word in the group.

2. Systematize the problems of lexicography and contrast your point.

SOME BASIC PROBLEMS OF LEXICOGRAPHY

To get maximum efficiency from dictionaries, to secure all the information afforded by them it is useful to have an insight into the experience of lexicographers and some of the main problems underlying their work.

The work at a dictionary consists of the following main stages: the collection of material, the selection of entries and their arrangement, the setting of each entry.

At different stages of his work the lexicographer is confronted with different problems. Some of these refer to any type of dictionary, others are specific of only some or even one type. The most important of the former are 1) the selection of lexical units for inclusion, 2) their arrangement, 3) the setting of the entries, 4) the selection and arrangement (grouping) of word-meanings, 5) the definition of meanings, 6) illustrative material, 7) supplementary material.

3. Define about monosemy and polysemy, give examples.

Monosemantic words, i.e. words having only one meaning are comparatively few in number, these are mainly scientific terms, such -as hydrogen, molecule and the like. The bulk of English words are polysemantic, that is to say possess more than one meaning. The actual number of meanings of the commonly used words ranges from five to about a hundred. In fact, the commoner the word the more meanings it has. The word table, e.g., has at least nine meanings in Modern English: 1. a piece of furniture; 2. the persons seated at a table; 3. sing. the food put on a table, meals; 4. a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood, etc.; 5. pl. slabs of stone; 6. words cut into them or written on them (the ten tables); ² 7. an orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.; 8. part of a machine-tool on which the work is put to be operated on; 9. a level area, a plateau. Each of the individual meanings can be described in terms of the types of meanings discussed above. We may, e.g., analyse the eighth meaning of the word table into the part-of-speech meaning — that of the noun (which presupposes the grammatical meanings of number and case) combined with the lexical meaning made up of two components The denotational semantic component which can be interpreted as the dictionary definition (part of a machine-tool on which the work is put) and the connotational component which can be identified as a specific stylistic reference of this particular meaning of the word table (technical terminology). Cf. the Russian планшайба, стол станка.

In polysemantic words, however, we are faced not with the problem of analysis of individual meanings, but primarily with the problem of the interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings in the semantic structure of one and the same word.

4. Write about conversion and suggest the parts of speech especially affected by conversion.

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. Conversion is treated differently by different scientists, e.g. prof. A.I.Smirnitsky treats conversion as a morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech by changing its paradigm, e.g. to form the verb “to dial” from the noun “dial” we change the paradigm of the noun (a dial, dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed).

Marchant treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because we have not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of the syntactic function, e.g. I need some good paper for my room. I paper my room every year.

Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings because of that, e.g.

a) verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of a human body, e.g. to eye, to finger, to shoulder. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to rifle, to nail

b) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf, to ape

c) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to paper

d) verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to pocket, to corner

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e) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to winter, to week-end

Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs. Converted nouns can denote:

a) instant of an action, e.g. a jump, a move

b) process or state, e.g. sleep, walk

c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a help, a scold

d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase

e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk

5. Evaluate the problems of terms.

There are several controversial problems in the field of terminology.

1) whether a term loses its terminological status when it comes into common usage. Under the circumstances numerous terms pass into general usage without losing connection with their specific fields.

2) there are linguists in whose opinion terms are only those words which have retained their exclusiveness and are not known or recognized outside their specific sphere.

3) according to some linguists, an ideal term should be monosemantic. Polysemantic terms may lead to misunderstanding and that is a serious problem in professional communication.

Being mostly independent of the context a term can have no contextual meaning whatever. The only meaning possible is a denotational free meaning. No emotional colouring or evaluation are possible when the term is used within its proper sphere. A term can obtain a figurative or emotionally coloured meaning only when takes out of its sphere and used in literary or colloquial speech.

6. Define the main functions of synonyms and its classification types.

Lexical units may also be classified by semantic similarity and semantic contrasts. The terms generally used to denote these two types of semantic relatedness synonymy and antonymy. Synonymy is often understood as semantic equivalence. It can exist between words and word-groups, word-groups and sentences, sentences and sentences. Synonyms may be found in different parts of speech and both among notional and function words. They are phonemically different words but similar in their denotational meaning. Synonyms are traditionally described as words different in sound-form but identical or similar in meaning. Synonyms are one of the language’s most important expressive means, they add precision to each detail of description and show how the correct choice of a word from a group of synonyms may colour the certain whole text. The principal function of synonyms is to represent the same phenomenon in different aspects, shades and variations. More often synonyms are used for stylistic purposes. After some detailed analysis synonyms are frequently said to be vocabulary’s colours, tints and hues. In terms of componential analysis synonyms may be defined as words with the same denotation or the same denotative component (ideographic synonyms), but differing in connotations or in connotative components (stylistic reference) or ideographic –stylistic synonyms. Quite number of words in synonymic sets are usually of Latin or French origin. Synonymy is still an object of controversy, one of the theoretical problems, the most controversial is the problem of criteria of synonymy. Traditional linguistics solved this problem with the conceptual criterion and defined synonyms as words of the same category of parts of speech conveying the same concept but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics. In contemporary research on synonymy semantic criterion is frequently used. In terms of componential analysis synonyms may be defined as words with the same denotation, or the same denotative component, but differing in connotations or in connotative components. In modern research on synonyms the criterion of interchangeability is sometimes applied. According to this synonyms are defined as words which are interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning.

Sources of synonyms:

1. desynonymization (when words are borrowed it undergo desynonymization)

2. abbreviation (in most cases the abbreviated form belongs to the colloquial style, and the full form to the neutral style)

3. formation of phrasal verbs (to give up –to abandon, to cut down –to diminish)

By classification system for synonyms by academician V.V.Vinogradov, the famous Russian scholar there are three types of synonyms:

1. ideographic (which he defined as words conveying the same concept but differing in shades of meaning)

2. stylistic (differing in stylistic characteristics), sometimes one of the absolute synonyms is specialized in its usage and we get stylistic synonyms, e.g. to begin-native, to commence-borrowing. Stylistic synonyms can also appear by means of abbreviation. In most cases the abbreviated form belong to the colloquial style, and the full form to the neutral style, e.g. examination-exam. Among stylistic synonyms we can point out a special group of words which are called euphemisms. These are words used to substitute some unpleasant or offensive words, e.g. the late instead dead, to perspire instead to sweat

3. absolute (coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics), they have exactly the same meaning and belong to the same style, e.g. to moan, to groan; homeland, motherland.

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By the connotational side synonyms are divided:

1) the connotation of degree or intensity, e.g. to like-to admire, to love, to adore, to worship

2) the connotation of duration in their semantic structure, e.g. to shudder (brief)-to shiver (lasting), to say (brief)-to speak, to talk (lasting)

3) by emotive connotations (or by the nature of the emotion they imply), e.g. alone-single-lonely-solitary (the adj lonely has an emotive connotation, it means desolation resulting from being alone)

4) the evaluative connotation conveys the speaker’s attitude towards the referent, labeling it as good or bad, e.g. well-known-famous, notorious-celebrated – the adj notorious beans a negative evaluative connotation and celebrated a positive one, a notorious murderer, robber, lady-killer, a celebrated scholar, singer, man-of-letters

5) the causative connotation, e.g. to blush and to redden represent people mostly blush from modesty, shame or embarrassment (positive), but usually redden from anger, indignation

6) the connotation of manner, synonyms of this type denote different ways and types, length, tempo, purposefulness or lack of purpose, e.g. to love, to admire, to worship, to like

7) the connotation of attendant circumstances in the semantic structure of words are encoded circumstances preventing one from seeing clearly to peer, to peep- peer at smb or smth in darkness, through the fog, from a great distance, through dimmed glasses of windows.

8) the connotation of attendant features describes a special type of human activities.

9) stylistic connotations we deal with stylistically marked words (colloquial, slang, dialect, learned, poetic, terminological).

7. Contrast the types of formal vocabulary.

Formal vocabulary (learned words, fiction, poetry).

Formal style is restricted to formal situations. In general formal words fall into two main groups: words associated with professional communication and a less exclusive group of so called learned words. Formal vocabulary is used to cover varieties of English vocabulary that occur in books and magazines, that we hear from a lecturer, a public speaker, a radio announcer or possibly in official talk. These types of communication are characterised as monologues addressed by one person to many, and often prepared in advance.

Learned words are mainly associated with the printed page. Their main resources are poetry and fiction (or also called literary). We said that learned words are mainly used with the printed page, but sometimes any educated English-speaking individual is sure to use many learned words not only in his formal letters and professional communication but also in his everyday speech. Generally speaking, educated people in both modern fiction and real life use learned words quite naturally and their speech is certainly the richer for it. Writers and poets use these words for stylistic purposes with vivid points and colours, not only their humorous effects. Even we may say that learned words are the selection of words which makes the description serious, devoid of cheap sentimentality and yet charged with grave forebodings and tense expectation. What role do learned words play in the language –learning? Should they be taught? The answer is clear without knowing some learned words, it is even impossible to read fiction or listen to lectures delivered in the foreign language or to understand scientific articles. But of course they should be carefully selected and activized to become part of the students’ functional vocabulary. The language a poet who writes poetry, a writer who writes different stories uses is closely bound with his outlook and experience, with his subject-matter and the message he wants to express. That is why it is important to know the learned words and try to use them in speech.

Professional terminology means the set of words which belong to special scientific, professional or trade systems and are not used or even understood by people outside the particular speciality. Every field of modern activity has its specialized vocabulary.

8. Write about compound words and their main types.

Compound words and their types.

Composition is the way of word-building when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends upon the unity of stress, solid or hyphenated spelling, semantic unity, unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. These are characteristic features of compound words in all languages.

There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

1. both components in an English compound are free stems, that is they can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The sound pattern will be the same except for the stresses.

2. English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g. middle-of-the-road, off-the-record

Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Traditionally three types are distinguished: neutral, morphological and syntactic.

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In neutral compounds the process of compounding is realized without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition of two stems. There are three subtypes of neutral compounds depending on the structure of the constituent stems. 1) simple neutral compounds, they consist of simple affixless stems. 2) derived or derivational neutral compounds, they have affixes in their structure. 3) contracted neutral compounds, they have a shortened stem in their structure.

Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non-productive. It is represented by words in which two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant.

In syntactic compounds we once more find a feature of specifically English word structure. These words are formed from segments of speech, preserving in their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs.

The compounds whose meaning do not correspond to the separate meanings of their constituent parts are called idiomatic compounds. F : blackboard, blackbird, lady-killer, chatterbox, in these compounds one of the components or both has changed its meaning: a blackboard is neither a board nor necessarily black, a chatterbox not a box but a person, and a lady-killer kills no one but is merely a man who fascinates women, a blackbird is some kind of bird.

9. Evaluate the functions of phraseological units and thematic classification

The thematic or etymological classification of phraseological units suggested by L.P.Smith.

On this principle, idioms are classified according to their sorce of origin, things referring to the particular sphere of human activity, of life, of nature, of natural phenomena. L.P.Smith gives in his classification groups of idioms used by sailors, fishermen, soldiers, hunters and associated with the phenomena and conditions of their occupations. This principle of classification is sometimes called etymological. He also makes a special study of idioms borrowed from other languages, but that is only a relatively small part of his classification system.

Here the phraseological units are grouped according to the names of domestic and wild animals, arts, culture, birds, sport, cooking, agriculture, fishermen, sailors.

The thematic principle of classifying phraseological units has real merit but it does not take into consideration the linguistic characteristic features of the phraseological units.

The main functions of phraseological units in comparison with proverbs

Sometimes people also confuse proverbs as phraseological units. But they are different. If one compares proverbs and phraseological units in the semantic aspect, proverbs sum up the collective experience of the community, for example they moralize, give advice, give warning, criticize, admonish. No phraseological unit ever does any of these things. They do not stand for whole statements as proverbs do but for a single concept. The function of phraseological units in speech is purely nominative (they denote an object, an act, etc.), the function of proverbs in speech is communicative (they impart certain information). Professor A.V.Koonin includes proverbs in his classification and calls them communicative phraseological units. From this point of view one of the main criteria of a phraseological unit is its stability. If the quotient of phraseological stability in a word-group is not below the minimum. It means that we are dealing with a phraseological unit. That is why we may say that there does not seem to exist any rigid or permanent borderline between proverbs and phraseological units as the latter rather frequently originate from the former.

10. Compare the emotionally neutral and emotionally coloured types of English vocabulary grouping.

Emotionally neutral and emotionally coloured (marked) grouping.

Emotionally coloured words are contrasted to the emotionally neutral ones. The words of this type express notions but do not say anything about the state of the speaker or his mood. F: copy, report, reach, say, well are all emotionally neutral. Many words are neutral in their direct meaning and emotional under special conditions of context.

1) Interjections. They express emotions without naming them. F: Alas! Heavens! Hell! Nonsense! Pooh! Some of them are primary interjections, others are derived from other parts of speech. The second type of emotional words are composed with the help of special morphemes or patterns or combinations. F: daddy, darling, deari, blackie, oldie; combinations: old chap, old fellow, little chap, poor devil; semi-affix – monger: panicmonger, scandalmonger, scaremonger. To express emotion the utterance must be smth not quite ordinary. Very often it is a kind of echo-conversion, nonce-words. Emotional nonce-words are created in angry back-chat by transforming whole phrases into verbs to express irritation. F: Now well! Don’t now-well me! How on earth? Don’t begin how-on-earthing! Oh, bloody hell! You don’t bloody hell me!

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2) Intensifiers. They convey special intensities to what is said, they indicate the special importance of the thing expressed. The simplest and most often used of these are such words as ever, even, all, so. There is also a big group of intensifying adverbs: awfully, dreadfully, frightfully, marvellously, terribly, tremendously and others.

3) Evaluatory words. They are words when used in a sentence pass a value judgement differ from other emotional words in that they can not only indicate the presence of emotion but specify it. When using the evaluatory words, the speaker is not different to the fact but expresses his scorn, irony or disgust. Usually the names of animals when used metaphorically have a strong evaluatory force. F: silly ass, parrot, pig, snake, wolf.

The pattern a+(A)+N1+of+a+N2 is often used to express emotion and emphasis. F: a devil of a time, a hell of a success, an absolute jewel of a report, a mere button of a nose.

4) Emotive speech. Speech has numerous functions as to make statements, to express the speaker’s attitude to what he is talking about, his emotional reaction, his relations with his audience. He may wish to express his approval or disapproval.

11. Define the types of dictionaries.

There are many different types of English dictionaries. First of all they may all be roughly divided into two groups — encyclopaedic and linguistic.

The two groups of reference books differ essentially in the choice of items included and in the sort of information given about them. Linguistic dictionaries are wоrd-books, their subject’ matter is lexical units and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation, meaning, peculiarities of use, etc. The encyclopaedic dictionaries, the biggest of which are sometimes called simply encyclopaedias are thing-books, that give information about the extra-linguistic world, they deal with concepts (objects and phenomena), their relations to other objects and phenomena, etc.

For dictionaries in which the words and their definitions belong to the same language the term unilingual or explanatory is used, whereas bilingual or translation dictionaries are those that explain words by giving their equivalents in another language. Multilingual or polyglot dictionaries are not numerous, they serve chiefly the purpose of comparing synonyms and terminology in various languages. Both bilingual and unilingual dictionaries can be general and special. General dictionaries represent the vocabulary as a whole with a degree of completeness depending upon the scope and bulk of the book in question. The group includes the thirteen volumes of “The Oxford English Dictionary” alongside with any miniature pocket dictionary. Some general dictionaries may have very specific aims and still be considered general due to their coverage. They include, for instance, frequency dictionaries, i.e. lists of words, each of which is followed by a record of its frequency of occurrence in one or several sets of reading matter. A rhyming dictionary is also a general dictionary, though arranged in inverse order, and so is a thesaurus in spite of its unusual arrangement. General dictionaries are contrasted to special dictionaries whose stated aim is to cover only a certain specific part of the vocabulary.

Special dictionaries may be further subdivided depending on whether the words are chosen according to the sphere of human activity in which they are used (technical dictionaries), the type of the units themselves (e. g. phraseological dictionaries) or the relationships existing between them (e. g. dictionaries of synonyms).

Dictionaries may be classified into linguistic and non-linguistic. The latter are dictionaries giving information on all branches of knowledge, the encyclopaedias. They deal not with words, but with facts and concepts. The ideographic type of dictionary is in a way the converse of the usual type: the purpose of the latter is to explain the meaning when the word is given.

12. Compare the synonyms and antonyms.

Antonyms are words to indicate the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings. If synonyms from whole, often numerous groups, antonyms appear in pairs. Yet, this is not quite true in reality. Most antonyms are adjectives which is only natural because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted. Verbs take the second place, verbal pairs – to lose-to find, to lose-to win. Nouns are not rich in antonyms, friend-enemy, heaven-earth. Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided a) adverbs derived from adjectives, e.g. warmly-coldly; b) adverbs proper, now-then, here-there, ever-never.

Antonyms may be defined as two or rarely more words of the same language belonging to the same part-of-speech, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and used together so that their denotative meanings render contrary or contradictory notions.

Lexical units may also be classified by semantic similarity and semantic contrasts. The terms generally used to denote these two types of semantic relatedness synonymy and antonymy. Synonymy is often understood as semantic equivalence. It can exist between words and word-groups, word-groups and sentences, sentences and sentences. Synonyms may be found in different parts of speech and both among notional and function words. They are phonemically different words but similar in their denotational meaning. Synonyms are traditionally described as words different in sound-form but identical or similar in meaning. Synonyms are one of the language’s most important expressive means, they add precision to each detail of description and show how the correct choice of a word from a group of synonyms may colour the certain whole text. The principal function of synonyms is to represent the same phenomenon in different aspects, shades and variations. More often synonyms are used for stylistic purposes. After some detailed analysis synonyms are frequently said to be vocabulary’s colours, tints and hues. In terms of componential analysis synonyms may be defined as words with the same denotation or the same denotative component (ideographic synonyms), but differing in connotations or in connotative components (stylistic reference) or ideographic –stylistic synonyms.

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