19. Polysemy and Context. Types of Context.

We distinguish btw lexical meaning of a w. in speech and its semantic structure in the language. The meaning in speech is contextual. Any actually usd w. has only one meaning (it is monosemantic in context), but the bulk of english w-s is polysemantic, i.e. they posess more than one meaning. The commoner the w., the more meanings it has. Polysemy exists only in the language, not in speech. The meaning of a w. form its semantic structure.

By the semantic structure of the w. we mean the interdependance and interconnection of all the meanings that the w. has. The sem. structure of a word is a fact of language not of speech. It’s developed and fixed in the course of the language history.

The context shows as the real meaning of the word.

Polysemy doesn’t interfere with the communicative function of the language because in every particular case the situation and the context in which the word occurs cancels all the meanings but one and make speech clear, unequivocal. Polysemy is more characteristic of English vocabulary as compared with Russian, due to the monosyllabic character of English and the predominance of root words.

Every time we have polysemy we have 2 types of ties/connection btw the meanings of one and the same word. One of them is concatenation – every next meaning is connected with the previous one (e.g. board), and radiation – we have one meaning. Every meaning is connected with the primary meaning of a word (eye).

The term context is defined as the minuimum stretch of speech, necessary and sufficient to determine which of the possible meanings of a polysemantic word is used.

We have 2 main types of linguistic context, which are:

Lexical c. and grammatical c.

Lexical context of a w. is the minimum environment of lexical units which is sufficient to determine the individual lexical meaning of the word (e.g. black – velvet, thoughts, days; heavy – book, rain, artillery; take – book, train).

All lexical contexts are subdivided into lex contexts of the first degree and lexical contexts of the second degree. In the lex. c. of the first degree there is a direct syntactical connection btw. the indicator and the dependent: he took the train in 9:30. in lex. c. of the second degree there is no direct syntactical connection btw a dependent and the indicator: I move that Mr N. addresses the meeting. The dependent move (meaning suggest) is not directly connected to the indicating minimum adresses the meeting.

In grammatical context it’s the grammatical structure (mainly the syntactic) of the context that serves to determine various individual meanings of the polysemantic word (make smb do sth = to cause; make a good wife).

20. Synonymic groupings of words. Types of synonyms. Sources of synonyms.

Words are grouped according to their semantic similarity or polarity. Semantic similarity is observed in synonyms and sem. polarity in antonyms.

Lexical synonyms are words of the same part of speech which belong to the same range of idea but are different in form. Words which are the same in the plan of content but different in the plan of expression (beautifuln – handsome, nice, good-looking, gorgeous).

There are several groups (types) of synonyms:

1. Absolute synonyms – which coincide in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic charscteristics (preface, foreword).

2. Most synonyms differ in their material form. They are called ideographic synonyms – conveying the same concept but different in shades of meaning (event, incedent, case). Each syn. Expresses a certain different shade of meaning.

3. Stylistic synonyms differ in their stylistic characteristics - connotational meaning, degrees of emotional colouring or stylistic differences btw words (try, attempt, strive, endeavour).

In every group of ideographic and stylistic synonyms we can find the so called synonymic dominant which usu expresses the most general shade of meaning.

Look – stare, gaze, observe, glance. The word “look” is the synonymic dominant, because it expresses the general meaning that is present in all the other members of this synonymic group.

The english word-stock is extremely rich in synonyms, which can be largely explained by the abundance of borrowings (begin – start (native), commence (french), initiate (latin)).

There are no clear boarders btw ideographic and stylistic synonyms and often in one and the same synonymic group we can find both ideographic and stylistic synonyms (hearty- cordial).

The important thing is that not only borrowings from the different languages but other sources as well contributed to the stock of English synonyms.

There are, for instance, words that come from dialects (lass (girl); whiskey /Irish/ (liquor)), and, in the last years, from American English in particular (gimmick (USA) (trick), radio (wireless), etc.

Synonyms are also created by means of all word-forming processes productive in the language. The words already existing in the lang. develop new meanings. New words may be formed by affixation (effectivity – effectiveness) or loss of affixes (amongst – among), by conversion (laughter – laugh (converted from to laugh), compounding, shortening (mike –microphone; vegs (vegetables) and so on.

In polysemantic words each meaning belongs to different synonymic groups (handsome – beautiful, handsome –considerable (sum of money)).

There is a special group of synonyms called euphemisms. They are synonimic substitutes for words which are considered vulgar, indecent or rude, thus their function may be defined as making the expression of a notion nobler, softer and refined.

We distinguish btw religious and every day euphemisms.

Among religious euphamisms we classify w-expressions that are used for religious notions and notions of death (to die – to pass away, to join the majority, to be no more; God – the Lord, the one above; devil – dickins, deuce, father of lies).

Everyday euphemisms replace w-s which express notions about which it is considered indecent to speak ( spit – expectorate; sweat – perspire; pregnant – in a family way).

Sometimes eu-s are used with political purposes to distort the real state of things and to deceive the people (crisis – depression; uprising – tention; starvation – undernourishment).

Thus we can define synonyms as words different in their sound form but similar in their denotational or connotational meanings and interchangable in some contexts.

21. Productive types of word-building. The concept of word-building model. Productive models of affixation.

Word – formation – is the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic patterns.

We have productive and unproductive types of word-formation.

Productive types are affixation, composition and conversion.

The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root ‘morpheme.

Composition is a type of word-building in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems.

Conversion is a morphological (newly-coined w. has a new paradigme), syntactic (syntactical position in the sent. is different) and semantic (the word acquires a new meaning) word-building means.

Affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation.

Suffixes are derivational affixes following the root morpheme (brotherhood, kingdom).

Prefixes are derivational affixes preceding the root (reread, predominate).

The difference btw these two kinds of affixes is that prefixes only modfy the lexical meaning of a word without changing the part of speech to which the word belongs. But suffixes not only modify the lexical meaning of a word but form a word belonging to a different part of speech.

We’ve living(noun forming: -ness, -dom, -hood, -age, -ment, -ship; adj forming: -en, -ous, -ful, -y) and dead affixes.

Affixes which are used to form new w-s are called productive.

From the etymological point of view affixes are classified into the same large groups as words: native and borrowed.

Words that are made up of elements derived from 2 or more different languages are called hybrids, i.e. a word consisted of a native stem and a borrowed affix (answerable) or vice versa (colourless, doubtless).

By productive affixes (-er, -ness, -ist, -ish, etc thinnish, baldish) 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. w-s coined and used only for this particular occasion. We should not confuse the productivity of an affix with its frequency (frequently-used –hood, -some, -en, -tion, -ant are non-productive).

The term word-building pattern is used to denote a meaningful combination of stems and affixes that occur regularly enough to indicate the part of speech, the lexico-semantic category and semantic peculiarities common to most words with this particular arrangement of morphemes.

N + -ish – when added to noun stems, it forms adj-s of the type ‘having the nature of’ with slightly critical colouring (childish, boyish, womanish).

With adj. stems (Adj + -ish) the meaning is not derogatory, the adj renders a moderate degree of the quality named (greenish, thinnish, blackish).

It would be also wrong to say that there exists a definite meaning associated with this or that pattern, as they are often polysemantic, and the affixex homonymous.

e.g. a very productive opattern is out + V = V the meaning is ‘to do sth faster, better than smb or sth’ (outdo, out-grow, outnumber). When formed not on verbs but on names of persons it means ‘to surpass this person in sth that is known as his special property’ (to out-Herod Herod). On the other hand out + V=N may occur with the locative out- and produce nouns (outbreak, outburst). OUT- may be used with verbal stems and theis derivaties (outstanding), with substantives (outfield), adj. (outbound),etc.

the more productive an affix is the more probable the existence alongside the usual pattern of some semantic variation.

-ee is freely added to verbal stems to form nouns meaning ‘one who is V-ed’ as employee, examinee, often paralleling agent nouns in –er, as employer, examoner. However, sometimes it is added to intransitive verbs; in this case the pattern V+-ee means ‘one who V-s or one who has V-ed’ as in escapee.