Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not. A sense of humour - to console him for what he is.

Lexicology and phonetics (sound and meaning):

Hip – hop – hope- heap- - hoop ;( substitution test)

Tip – top; tip – pit;

Import ::to import (position of stress);

Blackbird:: black bird

(Spoonerisms (W.A. Spooner) – jocular transposition of the initial sounds of two or more words) - Our queer old dean – our dear old queen, sin twister – twin sister

Historical phonetics and historical phonology:

Whole (unwounded, to make whole, heal), heal (healthy), hail (salutation to be healthy) are etymologically related words.

Lexicology and grammar:

Head of the committee – to head a committee (interdependence of lexical and grammatical meaning).

Examples of mixed context:

Come true, Fall ill, Go wrong, Turn red,

Run dry ‘become smth’ (only verbs of motion are used) It is not poetry, but prose run mad.(A.Pope).

Syntactical context: “The house is gone. (absence)

You are not going to sit there saying nothing, are you?”

(an action in future)

“…how a novel that has now had a fairly long life, as novels go, has come to be written” (Maugham) (comparison with the average)

Frighten, amuse, awaken; say, talk, think (only with animate nouns(human subjects) - W.Chafe.

Lexicology and etymology

Brothers (family relationship);

Brethren (arch.) (members of the club or society);

Genius – geniuses (of exceptional intellect) – genii (evil or good spirit).

Arm – arms :‘To take arms against the sea of troubles’ – lexicalization: authorities, colours, customs, looks, manners, pictures, works.

Futurity: shall – will come, going to, future, tomorrow, by and by, time to come, hereafter;

Plurality: Houses, boys, books; crowd, party, company, group.

What you do is nothing to do with me, it doesn’t interest me.

Lexicology and Word Formation:

wooden (adj), strengthen (v), oxen(n), dis(s): ’Are you dissing me?’(disagreement, disillusion, distress); workaholic, computerholic, shopaholic, chocoholic, eco-friendly, jobhunt, WWW, etc.

The main branches of lexicology:

1. The morphological structure of words, their phonetic, structural and semantic characteristics;

2. Etymology of words, the sources of borrowing. Whole – heal – hail (etymologically related) “unharmed, unwounded, made whole, heal’’ = hail! (Be healthy> call).

3. Semantic and thematic classification of the word stock. Say – talk – think (human being);awesome ’stunning’, cool(daring, clever, exiting, stylish, approval)

4. Word formation (post-impressionists) and phraseology (to take the bull by the horns, to see red, birds of a feather).

5. Stylistic differentiation of the vocabulary. brothers – brethren (arch.);

The theoretical problems of a word:

• the theory of meaning,

• semantic groups and fields,

• Functional differentiation of the vocabulary, etc.)

The paradigmatic relations (interdependence of words within a vocabulary) :

• synonymy,

• antonymy,

• hyponymy,

• functional styles:

head, chief, director;

work:: labour;

refuse:: reject:: decline;

busy – idle;

man:: chap:: guy:: bloke.

Miss, v.n. (homonyms)”not catch”, “a title for a girl”

Syntagmatic relations are based on linear character of speech (contextual, valency, distributional, transformational, etc. analysis) Ex.: A Farewell to Arms (arm-arms), the hat on her head, and the head of the department

Diachronic interdependence of words within the lexical subsystem:

harvest, v.n.-“ the gathering of grain”, “the season for reaping, autumn”

Autumne (Romance word)> “the season for reaping, autumn”

Syntagmatic relations and paradigmatic relations are functional.

Referential (onomasiological) approach (theory of nomination):

Meaning is studied as interdependence btw words and their referents (things or concepts).

The theory of oppositions

(N.S. Trubetzkoy):

A lexical opposition is a semantically relevant relationship of partial difference btw two partially similar words.(I.V. Arnold)

The basis of a lexical opposition: common features of two contrasted words.

Lexical distinctive features and the basis of opposition:

doubt :: doubtful (morphological distinctive features);

skilled:: unskilled;

unable:: unaccountable:: unaffected;

man:: boy(age);

Lad :: boy(semantic distinctive feature –stylistic colouring) .

Polydimentional opposition: comprises many elements of the system forming a correlation:

Skilled :: unskilled;

Able :: unable;

Accountable :: unaccountable;

Affected:: unaffected;

Armed:: unarmed;

Man ::boy (age –distinctive feature)

Boy :: lad (stylistic colouring)