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Notional
words
Form
words
In the 1st hundred of the most frequently occur-
ring words
66%
34%
In the 2nd hundred of the most frequently occur-
ring words
82%
18%
In the 3rd hundred of the most frequently occur-
ring words
90%
10%
In the 4th hundred of the most frequently occur-
ring words
93%
7%
In the 1st thousand of the most frequently occur-
ring words
93%
7%
we observe that the verbs
(to) keep
and
(to) turn
develop meanings pecu-
liar to form words without breaking with the class of notional words.
All notional lexical units are traditionally subdivided into parts of
speech, i.e. lexical-grammatical classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.
Nouns numerically make the largest class — about 39%, verbs come sec-
ond — 25% of all notional words, they are followed by adjectives — 17%
and adverbs making 12%, the smallest group of notional words.
The frequency value of words’ show that the form words, though in-
significant in terms of absolute figures, constitute the most frequent group
of words inseparably bound up with almost all patterns notional words are
used in. It is interesting to note that the first ten words in order of fre-
quency are:
the, of, and, to, a, in, that, is, was, he.
The high frequency
value of these 150 function words accounts for the fact that this small
group makes up approximately half the lexical items of any English text.
The frequency value of different lexical-grammatical classes of no-
tional words also shows a different distribution as compared with the ab-
solute figures for the same classes, as it is the verbs that prove to be words
of highest frequency and greatest potential collocability.
The interdependence of various features of
the word may be easily observed through a
comparative analysis of these aspects in rela-
tion to any chosen individual feature. Thus choosing, for example, the se-
mantic structure as a starting point we observe that there is a certain inter-
dependence between the number of meanings in a word and its structural
and derivational type, its etymological character, its stylistic reference.
The analysis may start with any other aspect of the word — its structure,
style or origin — it will generally reveal the same type of interdependence
of all the aspects. Words of highest frequency, those that come into the
first 2000 of most frequently occurring words all tend to be polysemantic
and structurally simple. It should be noted, however, that structure and
etymology by themselves are not
177
§ 2. Frequency, Polysemy and
Structure
always indicative of other aspects of the word — simple words are not
necessarily polysemantic, words that etymologically belong to late borrow-
ings may be simple in structure. Frequency most clearly reflects the close
interconnection between p o l y s e m y a n d t h e s t r u c ture of the
word. The higher the frequency, the more polysemantic is the word, the
simpler it is in structure. The latest data of linguistic investigation show
that the number of meanings is inversely proportional to the number of
morphemes the word consists of. Derived and compound words rarely
have high frequency of occurrence and are rarely polysemantic. Compari-
son of the words, members of the same word-cluster, for example
heart —
hearty — heartily — heartless — heartiness-heartsick
shows that it is
the simple word of the cluster
heart
that
is
marked by the highest fre-
quency (it belongs to the first 500 most frequently occurring words). We
also find that the word is highly polysemantic,
heart
has 6 meanings.
1
Other members of the cluster which are all polymorphic and complex have
fewer meanings and many of them are practically monosemantic, e.g.
hearty
has 3 meanings,
heartily
— 2
and
the rest only 1. All of these
words have much lower frequences as compared with the simple member
of the cluster —
heartily
belongs to the
6th
thousand,
heartless
to the
13th,
heartiness
and
heartsick to the 20th
thousand.
The same is observed in the simple word
man
having 9 meanings and
polymorphic derived words
manful, manly, manliness
which have only
one meaning, etc. Thus the interdependence of frequency, polysemy and
structure manifests itself not only in the morphemic structure of the word,
but also in its derivational structure. Derived words are as a
rule poorer
in
the number of meanings and have much lower frequencies than the corre-
sponding simple words though they may be morphemically identical It
may be very well exemplified by nouns and verbs formed by conversion,
e.g. the simple noun
hand
has 15 meanings while the derived verb
(to)
hand
has only one meaning and covers only 4% of
the
total occurrences
of both.
2
Frequency is also indicative of the interde-
pendence between p o l y s e m y , s t y -
l i s t i c r e f e r e n c e and e m o -
t i v e c h a r g e . It can easily be observed in any group of synonyms.
Analysing synonymic groupings like
make — manufacture — fabricate;
heavy — ponderous — weighty — cumbrous; gather — assemble; face
— countenance
—
mug
we find that the neutral member of the syn-
onymic group, e.g.
make
(the first 500 words)
has
28 meanings, whereas
its literary synonyms
manufacture
(the
2nd
thousand) has
2
and
fabricate
(the 14th thousand) which has a narrow, specific stylistic reference has
only one meaning. A similar relation is observed in other synonymic
groups. The inference, consequently, is that
1
Here and below the number of meanings is given according to A. Hornby,
The
Ox-
ford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English,
and the frequency values accord-
ing to the
Thorndike Teacher’s Word Book of 30,000 Words.
2
According to
M. West.
A General Service List of English Words. Longmans, 1959,
178
§ 3. Frequency and Stylistic
Refer-
stylistically neutral vocabulary units tend to be polysemantic and to have
higher frequency value, whereas words of narrow or specific stylistic ref-
erence or non-literary vocabulary units are mostly monosemantic and have
a low frequency value. The following examples may serve as illustration:
the neutral word
horse,
in addition to its basic meaning, has the meanings
— ‘a frame’, ‘a rope’, ‘cavalry’; its poetic synonym
steed
has only one
meaning. The neutral word
face
forms a variety of word-groups in its ba-
sic meaning, in addition, it has at least 3 more meanings — ‘boldness’,
‘impudence’, e.g.
to have the face to do smth; ‘
an outer part’, ‘a surface’,
e.g.
the face of a coin, the face of a clock.
The word
face
also enters a
number of phraseological units, e.g.
to put a new face on a matter, on
the face of it.
Its literary bookish synonym
countenance
has only two
meanings and a much poorer collocability; its third synonym
mug
belongs
to slang, has a heavy emotive charge, is monosemantic and its lexical
valency is greatly restricted. The frequency values of these words speak
for themselves —
face
belongs to the first 500 words,
countenance
to the
4th thousand and
mug
to the 6th thousand of the most frequently occur-
ring words.
Frequency value may also serve as a clue to
t h e e t y m o l o g i c a l c h a r a c t e r of
the
word
and
its
interrelation
with
p o l y s e m y . The most frequently used words as we have seen are
characterised by polysemy, structural simplicity and neutral stylistic refer-
ence. They generally belong either to the native words or to the early bor-
rowings, which are already fully assimilated in English. Late borrowings
like
regime, bourgeoisie, genre, kuru
(a fatal disease of the human nerv-
ous system),
duka
(a retail shop in Kenya), etc. are generally marked by
low frequency and are very seldom polysemantic. The interrelation of
meaning and etymological factors, more specifically the period and the
degree of assimilation, makes itself felt above all in the stylistic reference
and emotive charge proper to words and is clearly observed in synonymic
groups which in most cases consist of both native and borrowed mem-
bers.
1
The analysis of the synonymic group, for example
small, little, di-
minutive, petite, wee, tiny, minute, miniature, microscopic,
shows that
they come from different sources:
small
from
OE.
smæl; little
from
OE.
lỹtel; diminutive
from
Fr.< L.
diminutivus; petite
from
Fr.
petite; wee
(Scand.
origin) from
ME.
wei, wee, we; tiny
(origin dubious) from
ME.
tine; minute
from
Fr.<
L.
minuta; microscopic
from
Gr.
mikrós +
Gr.
scopós; miniature
from
It.< L.
miniatura.
Of these words only
small
and
little
are polysemantic
(small
has 8 meanings and
little
— 7 meanings)
and are widely used in Modern English (both belong to the first 500 most
frequently occurring words). All the others are monosemantic and by far
of lesser practical value. For example
petite,
a late French borrowing, is
scarcely ever used in English and is felt as a “foreign element” in the Eng-
lish vocabulary,
minute
lies outside the 20,000 most frequently occurring
words,
miniature, diminutive
belong to the 8th thousand. Their lexical
valency is very low. It may also be
1
See ‘Semasiology’, § 49, p. 58.
179
§ 4. Frequency, Polysemy and
Etymology
easily seen that words of this synonymic group differ greatly in their sty-
listic reference. Only the two native words
small
and
little
belong to the
neutral literary layer; the rest have a specific stylistic reference:
micro-
scopic
coined in recent times from Greek morphemes is used more or less
as a term,
diminutive
is bookish,
wee
(which for the most part occurs in
Scottish dialects) has a poetic tinge in literary English.
Frequency also reflects the interdependence
and comparative importance of individual
meanings within the word. For example, the
adjective
exact
has two meanings 'entirely correct, precise', eg.
the exact
time, smb's exact words,
etc. and 'capable of being precise', e.g.
exact
observer, exact memory.
The comparison of the frequences of these indi-
vidual meanings shows that they are not
of
equal importance in the seman-
tic structure of the word; it is the first meaning of this word that is much
more important than the second as it accounts for 78% of total occurrences
of the word, leaving only 18% to the second meaning.
The adjective
blue
which is a polysemantic unit of a high frequency
value may serve as another example. On comparing the frequencies of in-
dividual meanings of this word we find that its neutral meaning 'the colour
of the sky' accounts for 92% of the occurrences of the word, whereas the
meaning 'sad' (cf.
to look (to feel) blue)
and the meaning 'indecent, ob-
scene' (cf.
to tell blue stories, to talk blue)
are both marked by a heavy
emotive charge and make only 2% and 0.5% of the occurrence of this
word respectively.
Thus, as we see, the semantic frequencies of individual meanings give
a better and a more objective insight into the semantic structure of words.
We may now conclude by pointing out that frequency value of the
word is as a rule a most reliable and objective factor indicating the relative
value of the word in the language in general and conditioning the gram-
matical and lexical valency of the word. The frequency value of the word
alone is in many cases sufficient to judge of its structural, stylistic, seman-
tic and etymological peculiarities, i e. if the word has a high frequency of
occurrence one may suppose that it is monomorphic, simple, polysemantic
and stylistically neutral. Etymologically it
is
likely to be native or to be-
long to early borrowings. The interdependence so markedly reflected by
frequency can be presented graphically. Below we show the analysis of
two groups of synonyms. (See the table, p.
181.)
REPLENISHMENT OF MODERN ENGLISH
VOCABULARY
As has been already mentioned, no vocabulary
of any living language is ever stable but is con-
stantly changing, growing and decaying. The changes occurring in the vo-
cabulary are due both to linguistic and non-linguistic causes, but in most
cases to the combination of both. Words may drop out altogether as a re-
sult of the disappearance of the actual objects they denote, e.g. the
OE.
wunden-stefna
— 'a curved-stemmed ship';
зãг
—
180
§ 5. Frequency and Semantic
Structure
§ 6. Development of Vocabulary
’spear, dart’; some words were ousted
1
as a result of the influence of
Scandinavian and French borrowings, e.g. the Scandinavian
take
and
die
ousted the
OE:
niman
and
sweltan,
the French
army
and
place
replaced
the
OE.
hēre
and
staÞs.
Sometimes words do not actually drop out but be-
come obsolete, sinking to the level of vocabulary units used in narrow,
specialised fields of human intercourse making a group of archaisms: e g.
billow — ‘
wave’;
welkin
— ’sky’;
steed
— ‘horse’;
slay
— ‘kill’ are
practically never used except in poetry; words like
halberd, visor, gaunt-
let
are used only as historical terms.
Yet the number of new words that appear in the language is so much
greater than those that drop out or become obsolete, that the development
of vocabularies may be described as a process of never-ending growth.
2
Groups of
Synonyms
Freq
uenc
y
V
al
u
e
Structure
The Number
of Meanings
Style
Etymol-
ogy
Morphemic
Deriva-
tional
1
me
ani
ng
2
me
ani
ngs
3
an
d mo
re
meani
ngs
Neut
ra
l, stan
da
rd
colloq
uial
Booki
sh
,
non
-liter
ary
Native
, ea
rl
y
bo
rrow-
ings
Late
bo
rrowi
ngs
Mono
m
orp
hic
Poly
mo
rph
ic
Si
mple
Deri
ved
Co
m
p
ound
I
Fair Just Impar-
tial Unbiased
Equitable
Dispassionate II
Cool
Composed Un-
ruffled
Imperturbable
Nonchalant
1
+
+
+
+
+
1
+
+
+
+
+
7
+
—
+
+
+
+
11
+
+
-
4-
+
13
+
+
+
+
14
+
+
+
+
+
+
1
+
+
+
+
15
+
+
+
+
+
17
+
+
+
—
+
+
17
+
+
+
+
+
19
+
—
+
+
+
+
1
See ‘Etymological Survey...’, § 12, p. 172.
2
It is of interest to note that the number of vocabulary units in Old English did not ex-
ceed 30 — 40 thousand words, the vocabulary of Modern English is at least ten times larger
and contains about 400 — 500 thousand words.
181