Linguistic metonymy may be described as the semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely connected with it. This association is based upon subtle psychological links between different objects and phenomena, sometimes traced and identified with much difficulty. The two objects may be associated together because they often appear in common situations, and so the image of one is easily accompanied by the image of the other; or they may be associated on the principle of cause and effect, of common function, of some material and an object which is made of it.

42. Speak on the results of semantic change from the denotational and connotational points of view.

Results of semantic change can be generally observed in the changes of the denotational meaning of the word (extension and restriction of meaning) or in the alteration of its connotational component (amelioration and deterioration of meaning). Changes in the denotational meaning may result in the restriction of the types or range of referents denoted by the word. Restriction of meaning is called specialization of meaning or narrowing of meaning. It is gradual process when a word passes from a general sphere to some special sphere of communication. The meaning of a word can specialize when it remains in the general usage. It happens in the case of the conflict between two absolute synonyms when one of them must specialize in its meaning to remain in the language. F: the City –the business part of London, Oxford-university town in England, the Tower-originally a fortress and palace, later a prison, now-a museum, room – originally a space, now-dining room, sleeping room

Changes in the denotational meaning may also result in the application of the word to a wider variety of referents. This is commonly described as extension of meaning. If the word with the extended meaning passes from the specialized vocabulary into common use, we describe the result of the semantic change as the generalization of meaning or broadening of meaning. F: the word borrowed into Middle English from old French where it was persone and came from Latin persona “the mask used by an actor, one who plays a part, a character in a play”. The great theatre spaces in ancient Rome made it impossible for the spectators to see the actor’s face and facial changes. It was also difficult to hear his voice distinctly. That is why masks with a megaphonic effect were used (chairperson, policeperson, salesperson, workperson)

A change in the connotational meaning may be subdivided into pejoration or degradation of meaning and amelioration or elevation or improvement of the connotational component of meaning. Semantically speaking deterioration or pejoration means the second meaning develops a negative evaluative connotation which was absent in the first meaning. They seem to imply that meanings can become worse which is neither logical nor plausible. Amelioration or elevation is a transfer of the meaning when becomes better in the course of time.

Elevation or amelioration of meaning is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes better in the course of time, e.g. knight – originally meant a boy, then a young servant, then a military servant, then a noble man. Now it is a title of nobility given to outstanding people; marshal originally meant a horse man., now it is the highest military rank.

Degradation or pejoration of meaning is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes worse in the course of time. It is usually connected with nouns denoting common people, e.g. villain-originally meant working on a villa, now it means a scoundrel.

43. Say the characteristic features of dominant synonyms and 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.

44. Define the types of compound words.

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

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.

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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.

45. Find out the reason of borrowings and assimilation of borrowings.

The term “source of borrowing” should be distinguished from the term “origin of borrowing”. The first should be applied to the language from which the loan word was taken into English. The second, on the other hand, refers to the language to which the word may be traced. Borrowing resorted to the word-stock of other languages for words to express new concepts, to further differentiate the existing concepts and to name new objects, phenomena. The term loan word is equivalent to borrowing. Alongside loan words proper, we distinguish loan translation and semantic loans. Translation loans are words and expressions formed from the material already existing in the British language but according to patterns taken from another language, by way of literal morpheme-for-morpheme or word-for-word translation. The term “semantic loan” is used to denote the development in an English word of a new meaning due to the influence of a related word in another language.

The question of why words are borrowed by one language from another is still unanswered. According to surveys we can mention four main reasons of borrowings:

1) Sometimes it is done to fill a gap in vocabulary, they did it because their own vocabulary system lacked words for new objects.

2) It is borrowed because it represents the same notion in some new aspect, supplies a new shade of meaning or a different emotional colouring. This type of borrowing enlarges groups of synonyms and greatly provides to enrich the expressive resources of the vocabulary, there may be a word which express some particular object.

3) It is borrowed by historical circumstances. Each time two nations come into close contact, certain borrowings are a natural consequence. The nature of the contact may be different. It may be wars, invasions or conquests, trade, international cultural relations.

4) It is borrowed “accidentally”, it means words may be borrowed “blindly” so to speak for no obvious reason.

Assimilation of borrowings.

English history is very rich in different types of contacts with other countries, that is why it is very rich in borrowings. The Roman invasion, the adoption of Cristianity, Scandinavian and Norman conquests of the British Isles, the development of British colonialism and trade and cultural relations served to increase immensely the English vocabulary. The majority of these borrowings are fully assimilated in English in their pronunciation, grammar, spelling and can be hardly distinguished from native words.

Borrowings can be classified according to different criteria:

a) according to the aspect which is borrowed

b) according to the degree of assimilation

c) according to the language from which the word was borrowed

According to the borrowed aspect there are the following groups-phonetic borrowings, translation loans, semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings.

Phonetic borrowings are most characteristic in all languages, they are called loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and meaning. Then they undergo assimilation, each sound in the borrowed word is substituted by the corresponding sound of the borrowing language. In some cases the spelling is changed. The structure of the word can also be changed. The position of the stress is very often influenced by the phonetic system of the borrowing language. The paradigm of the word and sometimes the meaning of the borrowed word are also changed.

Translation loans are word-for-word (or morpheme-for-morpheme) translations of some foreign words or expressions. In such cases the notion is borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexical units.

Semantic borrowings are such units when a new meaning of the unit existing in the language is borrowed. It can happen when we have two relative languages which have common words with different meanings.

Morphemic borrowings are borrowings of affixes which occur in the language when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from one language into another, so that the morphemic structure of borrowed words becomes familiar to the people speaking the borrowing language.

The degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on the following factors:

a) from what group of languages the word was borrowed, if the word belongs to the same group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier

b) in what way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form, words borrowed orally are assimilated quicker

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c) how often the borrowing is used in the language, the greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated

d) how long the word lives in the language, the longer it lives, the more assimilated it is.

Accordingly borrowings are subdivided into-completely assimilated, partly assimilated, non-assimilated (barbarisms).

Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language. Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups: a) borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed, b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically, d) borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically.

Non-assimilated borrowings are borrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom and are non-assimilated.

Classification of borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed are Romanic borrowings (Latin, French, Italian), Germanic borrowings (Scandinavian, German, Holland, Russian).

46. Consider on semantic field and give examples.

Words may be classified according to the concepts underlying their meaning. This classification is closely connected with the theory of conceptual or semantic fields. By the term “semantic fields” we understand closely knit sectors of vocabulary each characterised by a common concept. For example, the words blue, red, yellow, black, etc. may be described as making up the semantic field of colours, the words mother, father, brother, cousin, etc. — as members of the semantic field

of kinship terms, the words joy, happiness, gaiety, enjoyment, etc. as belonging to the field of pleasurable emotions, and so on.

The members of the semantic fields are not synonyms but all of them are joined together by some common semantic component — the concept of colours or the concept of kinship, etc. This semantic component common to all the members of the field is sometimes described as the common denominator of meaning. All members of the field are semantically interdependent as each member helps to delimit and determine the meaning of its neighbours and is semantically delimited and determined by them. It follows that the word-meaning is to a great extent determined by the place it occupies in its semantic field.

47. Speak on the minor types of word-formation.

Blending

The term blending is used to designate the method of merging parts of words into one new word; the result is a blend, also known as a portmanteau word. Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two way of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component and the beginning of the second component. As a result we have a compound-shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word “smog” from two synonyms smoke and fog which means smoke mixed with fog. Cinemadict from cinema addict, chunnel from canal and channel, dramedy from drama and comedy, faction from fact fiction-fiction based on real facts, informecial from information commercial, medicare from medical care, slanguist from slang linguist.

Back-formation

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word (reversion). Instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation, a verb was produced from a noun by substraction. It is opposite to suffixation that is why it is called back-formation. At first it appeared in the language as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word. F: to collocate from collocation, to compute from computer, to emote from emotion, to televise from television, painter from to paint, to baby sit from baby sitter.

Back-formation is derivation of new words by substracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure.

Reduplication

New words are made by doubling a stem either without any phonetic changes or with a varation of the root vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat, bye-bye, stylistically speaking most words are made by reduplication represent informal groups colloquialisms and slang.

Reduplication is the morphological process by which a morpheme is repeated, thereby creating a new word with a different word class. There are two types of reduplication: partial which reduplicates only part of the morpheme and full in which the entire morpheme is reduplicated.

Sound-interchange

They may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. It means some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English, it was productive in old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages. In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants because in old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the word and in verbs in the intervocal position. F: life-to live, blood-to bleed, hot-to heat, to sing-song.

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Sound imitation

Words are made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimated objects. It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. a) sounds produced by human beings, to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle; b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo; c) sounds produced by nature and objects, to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to tinkle.

Stress interchange

They can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable. F: ‘accent-to ac’cent, to con’flict –‘conflict, to ex’port- ‘export.

48. Speak on the major types of word-formation.

Major types of word-formation.

Affixation and types of affixation.

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: roots (or radicals) and affixes. The latter, in their turn, fall into prefixes which precede the root in the structure of the word and suffixes which follow the root. Words which consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word-building known as affixation or derivation.

The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme. From the etymological point of view affixes are classified into the same two large groups as words: native and borrowed.

Affixes can also be classified into productive and non-productive types. By productive affixes we mean the ones, which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms and so-called nonce-words, i.e. words coined and used only for this particular occasion. Non-productive affixes which do not give any new coinages.

Some productive affixes

Noun-forming suffixes	-er, -ing, -ness, -ism, -ist, -ance
Adjective-forming suffixes	-y, -ish, -ed, -able, -less
Adverb-forming suffixes	-ly
Verb-forming suffixes	-ize, -ise, -ate
Prefixes	un-, re-, dis-

Some non-productive affixes

Noun-forming suffixes	-th, -hood
Adjective-forming suffixes	-ly, -some, -en, -ous
Verb-forming suffix	-en

Affix which is a type of morpheme, is generally defined as the smallest indivisible component of the word possessing a meaning of its own. Affixes have widely generalized meanings and refer the concept conveyed by the whole word to a certain category.

Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation. The main function of suffixes is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. There are different classifications of suffixes:

1. part-of-speech classification.

2. semantic classification.

3. lexical-grammatical character of the stem.

4. origin of suffixes.

5. productivity.

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead, over the table).

The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. Prefixes can be classified according to different principles:

1. semantic classification

a) prefixes of negative meaning, as in- , non-, un- (invaluable, nonformals, unfree)

b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, as: de-, re-, dis- (decolonize, revegetation, disconnect)

1. prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, as: inter-, hyper-, ex-, pre-, over- (interplanetary, hypertension, ex-student, preelection, overdrugging)

1. origin of prefixes:

1. native (Germanic) as: un-, over-, under-

2. Romanic as: in-, de-, ex-, re-

3. Greek as: sym-, hyper-

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.

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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

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

2. process or state, e.g. sleep, walk

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

4. 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

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

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.c

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

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.

Shortening (contraction)

Shortening is a comparatively new way of word-building has achieved a high degree of productivity, especially in American English.

Shortenings are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word of syllable of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone, fence from defence), its ending (as in hols from holidays, vac from vacation, ad from advertisement) or both the beginning and ending (as flu from influenza, fridge from refrigerator).

The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group: U.N.O., B.B.C., M.P. this type is called initial shortenings.

49. Formulate the difference of formal and informal vocabulary.

By the sphere of communication we mean the circumstances attending the process of speech in each particular case: professional communication, a lecture, an informal talk, a formal letter, a speech in court, etc. All these circumstances or situations can be roughly classified into two types: formal (a lecture, a speech in court, an official letter, professional communication) and informal (an informal talk, an intimate letter).

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