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2) by a large group of phraseological units was formed free word groups by transforming their meaning, e.g. “granny farm”- пансионат для престарелых, “troyan horse”- компьютерная программа преднамеренно составленная для повреждения компьтера
3) by means of alliteration, e.g. “a sad sack”- несчастный случай , “culture vulture”- человек интересующийся искусством, “fudge and nudge”- уклончивость
4) by means of expressiveness, especially it is characteristic for forming interjections, e.g. My aunt! Hear, hear!
5) by means of distorting a word group, e.g. odds and ends was formed from odd ends
6) by using archaisms, e.g. in brown study – in gloomy meditation, here both components preserve their archaic meanings
7) by using a sentence in a different sphere of life, e.g. that cock won’t fight can be used as a free word-group when it is used in sports (cock fighting), it becomes a phraseological unit it is used in everyday life, because it is used metaphorically
8) when we use some unreal images, e.g. to have butterflies in the stomach – испытывть волнение, to have green fingers- преуспевать как садоводлюбитель
9) by using expressions of writers or polititions in everyday life, the winds of change –(McMillan), American dream (Alby), corridors of power (Snow)
Ways of formation. Secondary ways of formation.
1) by means of conversion, e.g. to vote with one’s feet was converted into vote with one’s feet
2) by changing the grammar form, e.g. make hay while the sun shines is transferred into a verbal phrase – to make hay while the sun shines.
3) by analogy, e.g. curiosity killed the cat was transferred into care killed the cat.
4) by contrast, e.g. cold surgery – a planned before operation was formed by contrasting it with acute surgery, thin cat – a poor person was formed by contrasting it with fat cat.
5) by shortening of proverbs or sayings, e.g.
6) by borrowing phraseological units from other languages, e.g. to take the bull by horns (Latin), living space (German)
28. Give the common criteria distinguishing free word combinations and phraseological units.
Free word-groups are so called not because of any absolute freedom in using them but simply because they are each time built up a new in the speech process whereas idioms are used as ready-made units with fixed and constant structures. There are two major criteria for distinguishing between phraseological units and free word-groups. 1) structural; 2) semantic.
F: isn’t it rather carrying coals to Newcastle? This cargo ship is carrying coal to Liverpool.
Here we see the semantic difference of the two word-groups consisting of the same essential constituents. In the second sentence the free word-groups is used in the direct sense, the first context quite obviously has nothing to do either with coal or with transporting it, and the meaning of the whole word-group is smth entirely new and far removed from the current meanings of the constituents. Academician V.V.Vinogradov spoke of the semantic change in phraseological units as “a meaning resulting from a peculiar chemical combination of words”. In the traditional approach, phraseological units have been defined as word-groups conveying a single concept (in free word-groups each meaningful component stands for a separate concept). Most Russian scholars today accept the semantic criterion of distinguishing phraseological units from free word-groups as the major one and base their research work in the field of phraseology on the definition of a phraseological unit offered by professor A.V.Koonin, the leading authority on problems of English phraseology in our country: “a phraseological unit is a stable word-group characterized by a completely or partially transferred meaning”. It means that the degree of semantic change in a phraseological unit may vary completely or partially. In actual fact the semantic change may affect either the whole word-group or only of its components. Partially changed meanings are not also the same as semi-fixed or non-phraseological word-groups. The term “idiom” is mostly applied to phraseological units with completely transferred meaning. There are many scholars who regard idioms as the essence of phraseology and the major focus of interest in phraseology research.
The structural criterion or structural invariability is an essential feature of phraseological units, though, some of them possess it to a lesser degree than others. This criterion finds expression in a number of restrictions. 1) restriction in substitution. As a rule, no word can be substituted for any meaningful component of a phraseological unit without destroying its sence, at the same time in free word-groups substitution does not present any dangers and does not lead to any serious consequences, all components can be changed; F: the ship (vessel) boat carries (transports, takes, brings) coal to (any part). 2) restriction in introducing any additional components into the structure of a phraseological unit. In the phraseological unit to carry coals to Newcastle no additional components can be introduced. In oral speech phraseological units mostly preserve their traditional structures and resist the introduction of additional components. 3) restriction in grammatical invariability. Students make mistakes if they use in the following phraseological unit the plural form of fault. F: to find fault with smb (we can’t say faults). It is a mistake in terms of the grammatical invariability of phraseological units. F: from head to foot (feet is mistake).
Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot be made in the process of speech, they exist in the language as ready-made units. Phraseological units express a single notion and are used in a sentence as one part of it. Phraseological units can be classified according to the ways they are formed, according to the degree of the motivation of their meaning, according to their structure and according to their part-of-speech meaning.
29. Write about non-semantic grouping of English vocabulary and its types.
The majority of linguists nowadays agree that the vocabulary should be studied as a system. Why, because we should make different functions, structures so as to be fit for a new use, a new environment or a new situation. Being as a system the vocabulary is constantly adjusting itself to the changing requirements and conditions of human communications and cultural and other needs. The speaker chooses from the existing stock of words such words that in his opinion can adequately express his thought and feeling. To find the expression he needs he coins a new one, but here we should take into account the influence of extra-linguistic reality. That is why when we speak about the English vocabulary as a system we should differentiate different types of lexical groupings: 1) non-semantic grouping; 2) morphological grouping; 3) lexico-grammatical grouping; 4) emotionally neutral and emotionally coloured grouping; 5) stylistically neutral and stylistically coloured grouping.
Non-semantic grouping
1) The simplest, most obvious non-semantic grouping, extensively used in all branches of applied linguistics is the alphabetical organization of written words, as represented in most dictionaries. 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. Only in exceptional cases some additional information can be obtained on a different the etymological level. F: words beginning with W are mostly native, and those beginning with ph borrowed from Greek. But such cases are few.
2) The second type of non-semantic grouping of written words is the rhyming, here the words are arranged according to similarity of their ends. 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.
3) A third type of non-semantic grouping of written words is based on their length, the number of letters they contain. This type, worked out with some addititional details, may prove useful for communication engineering, for automatic reading of messages and correction of mistakes.
4) A fourth type of non-semantic grouping of written words is 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 enable the lexicographer to attach to each word a number showing its importance and range of occurrence.
(the alphabetical organization, rhyming, length of written words, frequency of lexical items)
30. Write about lexico-grammatical grouping of English vocabulary and its types.
Lexico-grammatical grouping
By this group 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. This group is also observed or characterised by generalization or specialization of meanings of the words and by a high percentage of emotionally coloured ways. F: baby-a person who behaves like a baby, witch-an ugly and unkind woman, or metaphorical expressive names for people possessing qualities rightly or wrongly attributed to the respective animals: cow, fox, ass, bitch
Within the lexico-grammatical grouping there are two types of vocabulary. The basis of grouping is not only linguistic but also extra-linguistic; the words are associated because the things they name occur together and are closely connected in reality. These words constitute quite definitely articulated spheres held together by differences, oppositions, distinctive values. F: the adjectives are subdivided into qualitative and relative. Adjectives characterise a substance for shape, colour, physical or mental qualities, speed, size.
1) Thematic group. Words such as names for parts of the human body, colour terms, military terms.
2) Ideographic group. Words belonging to different parts of speech , here the grammatical meaning is not taken into consideration, words and expressions are classed not according to their lexico-grammatical meaning, but according to their signification, to the system of logical notions. F: light (n)- bright (adj)-shine (v)
These two groups resemble the theory of semantic fields. Jost Trier German linguist tries to investigate the semantic field on the basis of Saussure’s theory of language as a synchronous system of networks held together by differences, oppositions and distinctive values. His definition to linguistic, conceptual or lexical field is “fields are linguistic realities existing between single words and the total vocabulary’; they are parts of a whole and resemble words in that way they combine some higher unit, and the vocabulary in that they resolve themselves into smaller units”. But later the notion semantic or lexical field is closely connected with the Moscow structuralist group. From their point of view, the detailed syntactic properties of the word are its meaning. Sharply defined extensive semantic fields are found in terminological systems. We shall call a term any word or word-group used to name a notion characteristic of some special field of knowledge, industry or culture. There are several controversial problems in the field of terminology.
1) whether a term loses its terminological status when it comes nto 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.
31. Write about emotionally neutral and emotionally coloured grouping of English vocabulary and its types.
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!
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.
32. Write about stylistically neutral and stylistically coloured grouping of English vocabulary and its types.
Stylistically neutral and stylistically coloured (marked) group.
The extralinguistic factors influencing usage and development of language constitute one of the critical problems of linguistics. They are dealt with in sociolinguistics and linguostylistics. Sociolinguistics is interested in variations in language depending on social, educational, sex, age in social evaluation of speech habits in correlation of linguistic facts with the life and attitudes of the speaking community. Lingustylistics studies the correlation of speech situation and linguistic means used by speakers and different functional styles of speech and language. On various occasions a speaker makes use of different combinations open him in the vocabulary, parts of the words he uses will be independent of the sphere of communication. There are words equally fit to be used in a lecture, a poem or when speaking to a child. These are said to be stylistically neutral. The rest may consist of stylistically marked words, they not only does the speaker’s entire experience determine the words he knows and uses but also his knowledge of his audience and the relationship in which he stands to them governs his choice of words. Stylistically coloured or marked are words suitable only on certain definite occasions in specific spheres and suggestive of specific conditions of communication. These words is divided into formal and informal (also called colloquial) English or in other words stylistic characteristics of words we call functional style. The term functional style is generally accepted in modern linguistics. Professor I.V.Arnold defines it as a system of expressive means peculiar to a specific sphere of communication. When placed in different situations, people choose different kinds of words and structures to express their thoughts.
1) 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.
2) Informal vocabulary (slang, dialect words, colloquial words)
Informal vocabulary is used in personal two-way everyday communication. It is in the form of dialogue where the speaker has the qualities of voice, gesture, the speaker has an opportunity to know whether he is understood, the listener can always interrupt him and demand additional information. It is used in one’s immediate circle: family, relatives, friends. Informal style is relaxed, free and easy, familiar and unpretentious. The choice of words is determined in each particular case not only by an informal (or formal) situation, but also by the speaker’s educational and cultural backgrounds, age group, his occupation and regional characteristics.
33. Give characteristic features of etymology of English words.
It is true that English vocabulary, which is one of the most extensive amongst the world’s languages contains an immense number of words of foreign origin. Explanations for this should be sought in the history of the language which is closely connected with the history of the nation speaking the language. An important distinctive feature that Lexicology deals with is etymology. Etymology is the origin of the words. According to origin the word stock may be subdivided into two main sets. The elements of one are native, the elements of the other are borrowed.
A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock, as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. A loan word, borrowed word or borrowings is a word taken over another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the English language.
The native words are further subdivided by diachronic linguistics into the Indo-European stock and Common Germanic origin. The words having cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer. Words belonging to the subsets of the native word-stock are for the most part characterized by a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency, high frequency value and a developed polysemy, they are often monosyllabic, show great word-building power and enter a number of set expressions.
The part played by borrowings in the vocabulary of a language depends upon the history of each given language, being conditioned by direct linguistic contacts and political, economic and cultural relationships between nations. It is the vocabulary system of each language that is particularly responsive to every change in the life of the speaking community. The source, the scope and the semantic sphere of the loan words are all dependent upon historical factors. The very fact that up to 70% of the English vocabulary consist of loan words, and only 30% of the words are native is due not to an inherent tolerance of foreign elements but to specific conditions of the English language development.
34. Compare and contrast informal types of words and their classification
Informal words fall into the grouping as: colloquial, slang and dialect words.
Colloquial words are used by everybody and their sphere of used in everyday conversational speech both by cultivated and uneducated people of all age groups. Colloquial words are subdivided into literary colloquial, familiar colloquial and low colloquial. Literary colloquial words are used not only everyday speech but also include the printed page. The borderline of literary colloquial words is not limited. As the examples of literary colloquial words may be
a) a number of shortenings, e.g. pram, exam, fridge, flu, math, movie
b) verb with post-positional adverbs: put up, make up, make out, do away, turn up, turn in
Familiar- colloquial words. The circle of speakers using familiar colloquial is more limited: these words are used mostly by the young and the semi-educated. This vocabulary group closely verges on slang and has smth of its coarse flavour.
Low colloquial words are usually characteristic of the speech of persons who may be broadly described as uncultivated. This group is stocked with words of illiterate English which do not present much interest for our purposes.
The term colloquial is old enough. Dr.Johnson, the great English lexicographer used it. Colloquial English is very emotional. In all the groups of colloquialisms and in familiar colloquial especially, words easily acquire new meanings and new valency.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines slang as “language of a highly colloquial style, considered as below the level of standard educated speech and consisting either new words or of current words employed in some special sense”. Slang, informal, non-standard words and phrases, generally shorter lived than the expressions of ordinary colloquial speech, and typically formed by creative, often witty juxtapositions of words or images. Slang can be contrasted with jargon (technical language of occupational or other groups) and with argot or cant (secret vocabulary of underworld groups), but borderlines separating these categories from slang are greatly blurred, and some writers use the terms cant, argot and jargon in a general way to include all the foregoing meanings. Slang tends to originate in subcultures within a society. Occupational groups (F: loggers, police, medical professionals and computer specialists) are prominent originators of both jargon and slang; other groups creating slang include the armed forces, teenagers, racial minorities, ghetto residents, labor unions, citizens-band radiobroadcasters, sports groups, drug addicts, criminals and even religious denominations. In addition to occupational and professional groups, there are many other types of subcultures that supply slang. These include sexual deviants, narcotic addicts, ghetto groups, institutional populations, agricultural subsocieties, political organizations, the armed forces, Gypsies, and sports groups of many varieties. Some of the most fruitful sources of slang are the subcultures of professional criminals who have migrated to the New World since the 16th century. In some cases slang may provide a needed name for an object or actionor it may offer an emotional outlet or a satirical or patronizing reference. It may provide euphemisms and it may allow its user to create a shock effect by using a pungent slang expression in an unexpected context. Slang has provided myriad synonyms for parts of the body, for food, for drunkenness. Slang words are expressive, mostly ironical words serving to create fresh names for some things that are frequent topics of discourse. They sound somewhat vulgar, cynical and harsh. This is not surprising, for slang words and idioms are short-lived and very soon either disappear or lose their peculiar colouring and become either colloquial or stylistically neutral lexical units. Most slang words are metaphors. The circle of users of slang is more narrow than that of colloquialisms. It is mainly used by the young and uneducated. Slang’s colourful and humorous quality makes it catching, so a considerable part of slang may become accepted by nearly all the groups of speakers. Slang words are clearly motivated. The lexical meaning of a slang word contains not only the denotational component but also an emotive component (most often it expresses irony) and all the other possible types of connotation – it is expressive, evaluatory and stylistically coloured and is the marked member of a stylistic opposition. Some of these are the employment of metaphor, simile, folk etymology, distortion of sounds in words, generalization, specialization, clipping, the use of acronyms, elevation and degeneration, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole, borrowings from foreign languages, and the play of euphemism against taboo.
According to sphere of usage slangs are subdivided into general and special slang.
General slang includes words that are not specific for any social or professional group. Special slang is peculiar for some such group: teenager slang, university slang, football slang.
H.W.Fowler defines a dialect as “a variety of a language which prevails in a district, with local peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation and phrase”. So dialects are regional forms of English. Dialects have no normalized literary form. The study of dialects has been made on the basis of information obtained with the help of special techniques: interviews, questionnaires, recording by phonograph and tape recorder. This collection show the territorial distribution of certain key words and pronunciations which vary from region to region. Dialects are chiefly preserved in rural communities, in the speech of elderly people. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema. Dialects are varieties of a language used as a means of oral communication in small localities, they are set off from other varieties by some distinctive features of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. F: variants of the English language, British and American, the differences between the English language as spoken in Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada, New Zealand. Dialect words can be differentiate by 1) lexical differences – using different words for the same objects or sometimes equivalents of the words, connected with semantic structure or variant of words or typical characteristics of the word in certain local place, specific to the British or American or Canadian variant of their meanings, lexical units showing the spheres of life, some words which have become common property of the English-speaking community. 2) derivational variants of words, having the same root and identical in lexical meaning though differing in derivational affixes.