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way through different structures of the word-groups
keen+
N
, — keen
sight (hearing,
etc.),
keen + on +
N
— keen on sports (on tennis, etc.),
keen+V(
inf
.) — keen to know (to find out,
etc.).
From this point of view word-groups may be regarded as minimal syn-
tactic (or syntagmatic) structures that operate as distinguishing clues for
different meanings of a polysemantic word.
STRUCTURE OF WORD-GROUPS
Structurally word-groups may be approached
in various ways. We know that word-groups
may be described through the order and ar-
rangement of the component members. The word-group
to see something
can be classified as a verbal — nominal group,
to see to smth
as verbal —
prepositional — nominal, etc.
All word-groups may be also analysed by the criterion of distribution
into two big classes. If the word-group has the same linguistic distribution
as one of its members, it is described as endocentric, i.e. having one central
member functionally equivalent to the whole word-group. The word-
groups, e.g.,
red flower, bravery of all kinds,
are distributionally identi-
cal with their central components
flower
and
bravery (cf., e.g.,-I saw a
red flower — I saw a flower).
If the distribution of the word-group is different from either of its
members, it is regarded as exocentric, i.e. as having no such central mem-
ber, for instance
side by side
or
grow smaller
and others where the com-
ponent words are not syntactically substitutable for the whole word-group.
In endocentric word-groups the central component that has the same
distribution as the whole group is clearly the dominant member or the head
to which all other members of the group are subordinated. In the word-
group
red flower,
e.g., the head is the noun
flower
and in the word-group
kind to people
the head is the adjective
kind,
etc.
It follows that word-groups may be classified according to their head-
words into n o m i n a l groups or phrases (e.g.
red flower),
a d j e c -
t i v a l , groups (e.g.
kind to people),
v e r b a l groups (e.g.
to speak
well),
etc. The head is not necessarily the component that occurs first in
the word-group. In such nominal word-groups as, e.g.,
very great brav-
ery, bravery in the struggle
the noun
bravery
is the head whether fol-
lowed or preceded by other words.
Word-groups are also classified according to their syntactic pattern into
predicative and non-predicative groups. Such word-groups as, e.g.,
John
works, he went
that have a syntactic structure similar to that of a sen-
tence, are classified as predicative, and all others as non-predicative.
1
Non-
predicative word-groups may be subdivided according to the type
1
This classification was the issue of heated discussion in Soviet linguistics. It was ar-
gued that the so-called predicative word-groups actually comprise the subject and the
predicate, i.e’, the main components of the sentence and should be regarded as syntactical
rather than lexical units. Here we are concerned only with non-predicative word-groups.
67
§ 3. Distribution as the Crite-
rion of Classi-
of syntactic relations between the components into subordinative and co-
ordinative. Such word-groups as
red flower, a man of wisdom
and the
like are termed s u b o r d i n a t i v e because the words
red
and
of
wisdom
are subordinated to
flower
and
man
respectively and function as
their attributes. Such phrases as
women and children, day and night, do
or die
are classified as c o o r d i n a t i v e .
MEANING OF WORD-GROUPS
As with word-meaning, the meaning of word-groups may be analysed
into l e x i c a l and g r a m m a t i c a l components.
The lexical meaning of the word-group may
be defined as the combined lexical meaning
of the component words. Thus the lexical meaning of the word-group
red
flower may be described denotationally as the combined meaning of the
words
red
and
flower.
It should be pointed out, however, that the term
c o m b i n e d l e x i c a l m e a n i n g is not to imply that the mean-
ing of the word-group is a mere additive result of all the lexical meanings
of the component members. As a rule, the meanings of the component
words are mutually dependent and the meaning of the word-group natu-
rally predominates over the lexical meaning of its constituents.
Even in word-groups made up of technical terms which are tradition-
ally held to be monosemantic the meaning of the word-group cannot be
described as the sum total of the meanings of its components. For example,
though the same adjective
atomic
is a component of a number of termino-
logical word-groups, e.g.
atomic weight, atomic warfare,
etc., the lexical
meaning of the adjective is different and to a certain degree subordinated
to the meaning of the noun in each individual word-group and conse-
quently the meaning of the whole group is modified.
Interdependence of the lexical meanings of the constituent members of
word-groups can be readily observed in word-groups made up of polyse-
mantic words. For example, in the nominal group
blind man (cat, horse)
only one meaning of the adjective
blind,
i.e. ‘unable to see’, is combined
with the lexical meaning of the noun man (cat,
horse)
and it is only one of
the meanings of the noun
man
— ‘human being’ that is perceived in com-
bination with the lexical meaning of this adjective. The meaning of the
same adjective in
blind type (print, handwriting)
is different.
As can be seen from the above examples, polysemantic words are used
in word-groups only in one of their meanings. These meanings of the com-
ponent words in such word-groups are mutually interdependent and in-
separable. Semantic inseparability of word-groups that allows us to treat
them as self-contained lexical units is also clearly perceived in the analysis
of the connotational component of their lexical meaning. Stylistic refer-
ence of word-groups, for example, may be essentially different from that
of the words making up these groups. There is nothing colloquial or slangy
about such words as
old, boy, bag, fun,
etc. when taken in isolation. The
word-groups made up of these words,
e.g. old boy, bags of fun, are
rec-
ognisably colloquial.
68
§ 4. Lexical Meaning
As with polymorphemic words word-groups
possess not only the lexical meaning, but also
the meaning conveyed mainly by the pattern of arrangement of their con-
stituents. A certain parallel can be drawn between the meaning conveyed
by the arrangement of morphemes in words and the structural meaning of
word-groups.
1
It will be recalled that two compound words made up of
lexically identical stems may be different in meaning because of the dif-
ference in the pattern of arrangement of the stems. For example, the mean-
ing of such words as
dog-house
and
house-dog
is different though the
lexical meaning of the components is identical. This is also true of word-
groups. Such word-groups as
school grammar
and
grammar school
are
semantically different because of the difference in the pattern of arrange-
ment of the component words. It is assumed that the structural pattern of
word-groups is the carrier of a certain semantic component not necessarily
dependent on the actual lexical meaning of its members. In the example
discussed above
(school grammar)
the structural meaning of the word-
group may be abstracted from the group and described as ‘quality-
substance’ meaning. This is the meaning expressed by the pattern of the
word-group but not by either the word
school
or the word
grammar. It
follows that we have to distinguish between the structural meaning of a
given type of word-group as such and the lexical meaning of its constitu-
ents.
The lexical and structural components of
meaning in word-groups are interdependent
and inseparable. The inseparability of these
two semantic components in word-groups can, perhaps, be best illustrated
by the semantic analysis of individual word-groups in which the norms of
conventional collocability of words seem to be deliberately overstepped.
For instance, in the word-group
all the sun long
we observe a departure
from the norm of lexical valency represented by such word-groups as
all
the day long, all the night long, all the week long,
and a few others. The
structural pattern of these word-groups in ordinary usage and the word-
group
all the sun long
is identical. The generalised meaning of the pattern
may be described as ‘a unit of time’. Replacing
day, night, week
by an-
other noun
the sun
we do not find any change in the structural meaning of
the pattern. The group
all the sun long
functions semantically as a unit of
time. The noun
sun,
however, included in the group continues to carry the
semantic value or, to be more exact, the lexical meaning that it has in
word-groups of other structural patterns (cf.
the sun rays, African sun,
etc.). This is also true of the word-group
a grief ago
made up by analogy
with the patterns
a week ago, a year ago,
etc. It follows that the meaning
of the word-group is derived from the combined lexical meanings of its
constituents and is inseparable from the meaning of the pattern of their
arrangement. Comparing two nominal phrases
a factory hand
— ‘a fac-
tory worker’ and
a hand bag
— ‘a bag carried in the hand’ we see that
though the word
hand
makes part of both its lexical meaning and the role
it plays
1
See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 15, 16, p. p. 24, 25.
69
§ 5. Structural Meaning
§ 6. Interrelation of Lexical
and Structural Meaning in
Word-Groups
in the structure of word-groups is different which accounts for the differ-
ence in the lexical and structural meaning of the word-groups under dis-
cussion.
It is often argued that the meaning of word-groups is also dependent on
some extra-linguistic factors, i.e. on the situation in which word-groups are
habitually used by native speakers. For example, the meaning of the nomi-
nal group
wrong number
is linguistically defined by the combined lexical
meaning of the component words and the structural meaning of the pat-
tern. Proceeding from the linguistic meaning this group can denote any
number that is wrong. Actually, however, it is habitually used by English
speakers in answering telephone calls and, as a rule, denotes the wrong
telephone number.
INTERDEPENDENCE OF STRUCTURE
AND MEANING IN WORD-GROUPS
As both structure and meaning are parts of the word-group as a linguis-
tic unit, the interdependence of these two facets is naturally the subject
matter of lexicological analysis.
In connection with the problem under discus-
sion the term s y n t a c t i c (or s y n -
t a g m a t i c )
s t r u c t u r e
requires
some clarification. We know that word-groups may be generally described
through the pattern of arrangement of the constituent members. The term
s y n t a c t i c s t r u c t u r e (formula) properly speaking implies the de-
scription of the order and arrangement of member-words as parts of
speech. We may, for instance, describe the word-group as made up of
an
Adjective
and
a Noun
(clever man, red flower,
etc.),
a Verb
—
a Noun
(take books, build houses,
etc.), or
a Noun, a Preposition
and
a Noun
(a
touch of colour, a matter of importance,
etc.). The syntactic structure
(formula) of the nominal groups
clever man
and
red flower
may be repre-
sented as
A + N,
that of the verbal groups
take books
and
build houses
as
V + N,
and so on.
These formulas can be used to describe all the possible structures of
English word-groups. We can say, e.g., that the verbal groups comprise the
following structural formulas:
V+N
(to build houses),
V+prp+N
(to rely
on somebody),
V+N+prp+N
(to hold something against somebody),
V+N+V(inf.)
(to make somebody work),
V+ V(inf.)
(to get to know),
and
so on.
The structure of word-groups may be also described in relation to the
head-word, e.g. the structure of the same verbal groups
(to build houses,
to rely on somebody)
is represented as
to build
+
N,
to rely
+
on
+
N.
In
this case it is usual to speak of t h e p a t t e r n s of word-groups but not
of formulas. The term p a t t e r n implies that we are speaking of the
structure of the word-group in which a given word is used as its head.
The interdependence of the pattern and meaning of head-words can be
easily perceived by comparing word-groups of different patterns in which
the same head-word is used. For example, in verbal groups the head-
70
§ 7. Syntactic Structure
(Formula) and Pattern
of Word-Groups
word mean is semantically different in the patterns mean+iV (mean some-
thing) and
mean
+ V(inf.)
(mean to do something). Three patterns with the
verb get as the head-word represent three different meanings of this verb,
e.g. get+
N
(
get a letter, information, money,
etc.), get+ +to
+N
(
get to
Moscow, to the Institute,
etc.),
get+N+V(inf.)
(
get somebody to come,
to do the work,
etc.). This is also true of adjectival word-groups, e.g.
clever
+
N
(
clever man
) and clever+at+
N
(
clever at arithmetic), keen
+
N
(
keen sight, hearing), keen+on
+N
(
keen on sports, tennis).
Notional
member-words in such patterns are habitually represented in conventional
symbols whereas prepositions and other form-words are given in their
usual graphic form. This is accounted for by the fact that individual form-
words may modify or change the meaning of the word with which it is
combined, as in, e.g., anxious+for+
N
(
anxious for news
), anx-
ious+about+
N
(
anxious about his health
). Broadly speaking we may con-
clude that as a rule the difference in the meaning of the head-word is con-
ditioned by a difference in the pattern of the word-group in which this
word is used.
If the structure of word-groups is different,
we have ample grounds to infer that the dif-
ference in the syntactic (or syntagmatic)
structure is indicative of a difference in the meaning of the head-word of
word-groups.
So we assume that verbal groups represented by d i f f e r e n t
s t r u c t u r a l f o r m u l a s , e.g.
V+N
and
V+V(inf.)
are as a rule
semantically different because of the difference in the grammatical com-
ponent of meaning. This is also true of d i f f e r e n t p a t t e r n s of
word-groups, e.g. get
+N
and get+V(
inf
.).
It should be pointed out,’ however, that although difference in the pat-
tern signals as a rule difference in the meaning of the head-word, identity
of pattern cannot be regarded as a reliable criterion for identity of mean-
ing.
1
Thus structurally identical patterns, e.g. heavy+
N
, may be representa-
tive of different meanings of the adjective heavy which is perceived in the
word-groups
heavy rain (snow, storm), cf. heavy smoker (drinker),
heavy weight (table),
etc. all of which have the same pattern — heavy
+N
.
Structurally simple patterns are as a rule polysemantic, i.e. representative
of several meanings of a polysemantic head-word, whereas structurally
complex patterns are monosemantic and condition just one meaning of the
head-member. The simplest verbal structure
V+N
and the corresponding
pattern are as a rule polysemantic (compare, e.g. take
+
N
(take tea, cof-
fee); take the bus, the tram, take measures, precautions,
etc.), whereas
a more complex pattern, e.g. take+to+
N
is monosemantic (e.g.
take to
sports, to somebody
).
Word-groups like words may also be analysed
from the point of view of their motivation.
2
Word-
groups may be described as l e x i c a l l y m o t i -
v a t e d if the combined lexical mean-
1
See 'Semasiology', §§ 41-45, p. 48-53,
2
See 'Semasiology', § 17, p. 25.
71
§ 8. Polysemantic and Monose-
mantic Patterns
§ 9. Motivation in
Word-Groups