1.vocabulary as a system. vocabulary studies are provided by lexicology which is a Greek origin word denoting study of words. another word vocabulary is lexis. only recently vocabulary studies have become systematic because of the huge number of words existing in all developed languages exceeding more 1 million words, and all the words in any language seemed to bee disconnected because every word denotes a unique object or characteristic of reality. however, looking upon the vocabulary it's possible to organize its components into large or small groups based upon various relations. for example, one of the main and the simplest relation is binary oppositions. these oppositions are reflected in vocabulary in antonymous words studies by antonyms. another type of relation is similarity of a meaning or even identity studied by synonymy. not all English is everybody's english, that is, individual vocabulary is much poorer than the whole lexis. the richest personal concordance belongs to William Shakespeare and it includes about 23000 words. the average vocabulary of an educated english speaker is more then 10000 words. the vocabulary necessary to communicate 2000 words. so, people use individual vocabularies depending on social linguistic factors named education, social background, even gender aspect, age and occupational parameters. so, personal thesaurus includes all background knowledge of an individual. vocabulary can be organized according to the functional parameter or the usage of words in certain social spheres. for example, slang will be rarely used in scientific vocabulary, while the scientific words will be rarely used in everyday life speech, bookish and foreign will belong to literary style. Vocabulary is grouped according to the origin of words, studied by etymology which may be clear because modern form of the word betrays its origin. it may be faded. another approach to the vocabulary study is the research of the structure. this part of lexicology is called word building which is in between lexicology and grammar because the structure of the word consisting of morphemes which are minimal meaningful linear parts of the word indicated a part of speech and the concrete lexical meaning of the word. if morpheme form the words' paradigm, that is, the set of all possible structural characteristic of some grammatical category liek endings s, ed and ing in modern english, then such morphemes are homonymous and belong to word formation. word building is a complex system of forming new words including a system of prefixes and suffixes studied by affixation. it also has conversion, shortening, compounding and reversion which operate according to specific principals, for example, shortening may be partial, like examination - exam, it may be letter shortening, and we have acronyms, it may be shortening only in writing, like the days of the week or months, it may be both writing and oral shortening. within every type of word building there are also different principals based on the logic. the simplest principal is analogy which is formal similarity.long- deep - wide - broad. lexicology may be general and special. general lexicology studies the phenomena and problems typical of all languages of one language family. special lexicology studies the problems of only one language. lexicology is also a system of branches researching various parts of vocabulary, and many of the branches pretend and have become independent sciences. one of the most recent is phraseology which appeared in the Soviet Union and is still not acknowledged by many American and British linguists because the many lexicology presupposes the studying separate, while phraseological unit is a combination of two or more words. however, phraseological unit is a set phrase which is integral and equivalent to one sentence member, it very often has transformed configured meaning and has a synonym to a word.Lexicology is closely connected with other parts of language study including dialectology which studies the forms of the language according to the area and social groups. it's connected with translation which is a practical usage of words in interpreting and translating. lexicology is connected with stylistics because the vocabulary usage in a proper form gives the adequate text in written or oral forms. lexicology is connected with grammar and phonology because the three of them form the basic layers of any language. lexicology may be theoretical and practical, and both are very important.vocabulary when it is systematically organized is a complex and part of language indicating not only language development, but also the state of culture, society, economy and so on, where this language is used.

2. word theory. a word is the main unit of vocabulary study and language in general. there are more 300 definitions of a word, but all of them stress that it is not as simple unit, but a combination of verb reflections of the named objects including the sound form, the notional form and the graphic form in the languages with authority. the main problem of the word study is the of meaning which is a very complex notion and includes grammatical meaning which is more general and abstract than other types of meanings. grammatical meaning indicates all parts of speech and other grammatical categories of the words. lexical meaning is more concrete, individual and is applied to one word, not to a group. for example, the word student has a lexical meaning of a person aspiring knowledge in high or higher establishing educational institution. grammatical meaning of this word is a noun, animated, singular number, common case. how do we get the lexical meaning of a word? usually by component analysis when we outline the basic seems the minimum components of meaning and the result gives up the basic primary denotative meaning of the word. Practically apart from grammatical and lexical meanings the majority of words possess additional contextual dependent meanings which are less stable than the first two, but are very important in the system of the words meanings. there are more lexical than grammatical meanings and are called occasional meanings. such occasional meanings of the same words are called connotative meanings because they add new shades of meaning to a word(plus and minus connotations). many english words have not one primary meaning, but possess two or more meanings because language means are rather economical in comparison with phenomena of reality. the notion of polysemy is actual for english and the development of many meanings is a constant historically conditioned process according to which some meanings of a word appear while the others become outdated and disappeared. there are two basic types of polysemy. the first is radial. radial polysemy is the one in which new meanings of the word preserve the connection with the original meaning of this word.

the second type of polysemy is chain polysemy when new meanings appear when the new notion comes into being gradually and very often the chain may be broken, and the connection between the original word and the primary meaning and the new meanings is lost. for example: a piece of burning wood is called brand. Gradually brand was used to put a mark on cattle or slave not to lose them. with Christianity the word had a meaning of something evil marked by something malevolent, the mark of pain. still later the meaning of indicating some new product of craftsmen, later of industrial producers also developed, but the connection between initial brand and modern brand has been lost, and the words became homonyms. in english the majority of monosyllabic words, especially if they are notional, are polysemantic. the largest number of meaning is the characteristic of native english verbs, such as to get, to set, to be and to have.

meaning can be static and dynamic. static meaning is found in dictionaries, it is usually denotative, that is, naming an object or phenomenon, it is always isolated from other meanings, it is conventionalized and standardized by language norms and authority, it is predictable with perspective, generalized and impersonal. Dynamic meaning, on the other hand, is functioning in speech, written or oral. it is actively used, connotative, contextually dependent, and hence create unpredictable variant personalized, concrete and particular in usage. the program of the word meaning was and is crucial for linguistic, and several attempts to structuralize the word meaning and the word form were undertaken to show how names and objects are related. two scientists Ogden and Richards represented the relationship between an object and its name by a triangle, the epoxies of which are called called symbol, referent and the thought of referent. the symbol is a linguistic element, as a combination of sounds and morphemes and even phrases. the referent is an object of our experience which is realized by a symbol. a thought of reference is the concept, association of our brain that reflect a referent as something generalized and provides our understanding of this reference. the relationship between names and object is complex via concepts and their exception. in naming objects people proceed from experience and its perception, that's why in different societies reality is differently verbally reflected, and there are about 6000 languages. a very famous american linguist Edward sepia and Benjamin wharf much criticized for expressing radical views that language is authonomous phenomenon and called linguistic relativity proved that language facts are culturally dependent and vice versa.

word meaning may be direct and indirect, figurative. direct meaning corresponds to denotative, significative connectional meaning. white elephant is an impossible phrase taken literary. if the phrase white elephant is used in a transformed idea denoting a ruinous present then this idiom has a figurative meaning expressed in the integral combination of words used without variants or changes as a ready made set phrase. all the types of the word meaning make up a system of lexical and semantical variants grouped around one or several concepts into one conceptual space. the words within the space as reflections of naming reality form lexical and semantical fields the relations of units in which are based on hierarchy of central and periferic units. the central elements of such semantic fields are called hyperonyms. the other components are called hyponyms. for example: tree is a hyperonym for popper, aspen, birch, cypress, palm, willow, ash, oak, acacia, linden, cedar, elm. hyperonym bird includes hyponyms swallow, sparrow, eagle, hawk, owl, swift, mockingbird, oreol, seagull, raven.

3 .4transformations of lexical meaning.

word meaning is not fixed forever, it's usually open to changes and big or small transformation. the process of governing those changes conclude internal and external. external changes of the word meaning are historically, culturally and even geographically conditioned. one of the earliest external changes is euphimization of the word meaning. this is necessary in substituting rude, forbidden word or words called taboos which for some reason, religious, mystical, cultural, occupational, should be avoided from directed name, for example, all the hunting animals got euphemistic descriptive names. socially conditioned euphemism include not only political and military terms like freedom fighter instead of terrorsim, operation instead of attack, our man instead of spy. socially euphemistic are the names of disabilities, nationalities, for example, black is a milder term than negro, Indians are now called Amerindians, extremely skinny or obese people are called different sized, mentally handicapped people have more than 10 names.

another extrenal transformation process is pejoration - the worsening of the word meaning which may be found in many english words, the neutral meaning of which gradually acquired negative connotations and words are changed completely. for example, villain originates from a Latin villains, a person living in the countryside. people working and living in the contryside were not considered very reliable nad trustworthy and semi criminal misbehaving creature appeared. the transformation of the noun gyne gwenne - quenne - qqueen - quench. the first consonant shift changes the indoeuropean voice g to germanic unvoiced k. when Scandinavians invaded Britain, anglo-saxons borrowed noun wifman denoting woman which split into married woman and woman in geral. at the same time quenne improved and denoted a ruling woman. Which is called emiliaration. at the same in old dialect quenne turned into quench which denoted a fallen woman. another example of emiliaration is a word marshal which in old english denoted a stable man.

the meaning of the words can be widened or narrowed. when it is narrowed, the word tends to become a term. for example, the word state in english was only used only as a republican state, but the meaning widened, and any country can be called a state. pioneer that denoted historically and infantry man gradually widened its meaning and now it denoted anyone who's the first in some activity. terms in any language come very close to the notion of the object or phenomenon they denote. that is why terms have very few variants are often devoid of polysemy and they are more stable than other language units.

the mixture of external or internal reasons for changes of the word meaning produces metaphors and metonymies in a languages. these two phenomena are based on association, metaphor upon likeness, and metonymy on contiguity. metaphorical associations can be physical like soft hair, soft surface, soft voice, psychological and emotional: she barked in reply. metaphor may be new fresh, new original and tried which are not perceived as metaphors. for example, head of cabbage, the world of trouble. metaphor may be anthropomorphous and zoomorphous. for example, crane, caterpillar, butterfly, frog. anthropomorphous metaphor include: mouth of the river, foot of the ridge which are tried.

metonomy is another spread transformation of lexical meaning based on contiguous association. a type of metonymy is when container is used to denote a substance. another type of metonymy is a name of an invented as a name for their invention. another type is when a geographical name is given to an object, where it was produced or grown.

6. Metaphor

It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of comparison. Metaphor can bebased on different types of similarity:a) similarity of shape: head (of a cabbage), bottleneck, teeth (of a saw, acomb);b) similarity of position: foot (of a page, of a mountain), head (of

procession);c) similarity of function, behaviour: a whip (an official in the British

Parliament whose duty is to see that members were present at thevoting), a bookworm (a person who is fond of books);d) similarity of colour: orange, hazel, chestnut.A special type of metaphor is when proper names become common nouns,

e.g. philistine – a mercenary person, vandals – destructive people.

V. Metonymy

It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of contiguity. There are differenttypes of metonymy:

a) the material of which an object is made may become the name of the

object: a glass, boards;b) the name of the place may become the name of the people or of an object

placed there: the House – members of Parliement, the White House – the

Administration of the USA;c) names of musical instruments may become names of musicians when they are united in an orchestra: the violin, the saxophone;d) the name of some person may become a common noun, e.g. boycott was originally the name of an Irish family who were so muchdisliked by their neighbours that they did not mix with them.

e) names of inventors very often become terms to denote things they invented, e.g. watt, om, roentgen;

f) some geographical names can also become common nouns through

metonymy, e.g. holland (linen fabrics), Brussels (a special kind ofcarpets), china (porcelain). 6. Metaphor vs Metonymy

Metaphor and metonymy are similar in various aspects but the major difference is that if a metaphor substitutes a concept with another, a metonymy selects a related term. So, if metaphor is for substitution, metonymy is for association. For example, the sentence ‘he is a tiger in class’ is a metaphor. Here the word tiger is used in substitution for displaying an attribute of character of the person. The sentence ‘the tiger called his students to the meeting room’ is a metonymy. Here there is no substitution; instead the person is associated with a tiger for his nature.

So metonymy is a figure of speech. It is used in rhetoric where a thing is not referred by its name but with the associated word. A metaphor is an expression. This expression shows the similarity between two things on some aspects. In metonymy, the association of the word is based on contiguity, while in a metaphor; the substitution is based on similarity. If metaphor can be used to define the transference of relation between set of things to another, metonymy is used to define a word. Metonymy uses a single characteristic for the identification of a complex entity.

Another difference between metaphor and metonymy is that a metaphor acts by suppressing an idea while metonymy acts by combining ideas. But both metaphor and metonymy are used to express ideas which are greatly different from the original meaning in the psychic realm. When a person uses a metonymy, the qualities are not transferred from the original word to the metonymy. But in metaphor, when there is a comparison, the comparison is based on the qualities and some qualities are transferred from the original to the metaphor, in the process.

Metaphor is an extension to a word’s meaning on the account of similarity and metonymy is a way of extending the meaning of a word based on its association to another. Metaphor can be used to refer to a word in an object category to make it in the abstract semantic category. Metonymy can be used in informal or insulting situations as well. For example, the association of brain to a person means he is intelligent, and asshole is a metonymy for an idiotic person in an insulting manner.

So we can say that if metaphor is used for substitution and condensation, a metonymy is used for combination and displacement.

Summary:

1.Metaphor is used for substitution, while metonymy is used for association.

2.Metaphor can mean condensation and metonymy can mean displacement.

3.A metonymy acts by combining ideas while metaphor acts by suppressing ideas.

4.In a metaphor, the comparison is based on the similarities, while in metonymy the comparison is based on contiguity.

4. transformations of a word meaning.

The development and change of the semantic structure of a word is always a source of qualitative and quantitative development of the vocabulary. All the types of semantic change depend upon some comparison of the earlier (whether extinct or still in use) and the new meaning of the given word. This comparison may be based on the difference between the concepts expressed or referents in the real world that are pointed out, on the type of psychological association at work, on evaluation of the latter by the speaker, on lexico-grammatical categories or, possibly, on some other feature. in passing from general usage into some special sphere of communication a word as a rule undergoes some sort of specialisation of its meaning. The word case, for instance, alongside its general meaning of ‘circumstances in which a person or a thing is’ possesses special meanings: in law fa law suit’), in grammar (e. g. the Possessive case), in medicine (‘a patient’, ‘an illness’).

Example: One of Charles’s cases had been a child ill with a form of diphtheria (case = ‘a patient’)

The Solicitor whom I met at the Rolfords’ sent me a case which any young man at my stage would have thought himself lucky to get (case = ‘a question decided in a court of law, lawsuit).

In all the examples considered above a word which formerly represented a notion of a broader scope has come to render a notion of a narrower scope. When the meaning is specialised, the word can name fewer objects, i.e. have fewer referents. At the same time the content of the notion is being enriched, as it includes a greater number of relevant features by which the notion is characterised. Or, in other words, the word is now applicable to fewer things but tells us more about them. The reduction of scope accounts for the term “narrowing of the meaning” which is even more often used than the term “specialisation”. We shall avoid the term “narrowing", since it is somewhat misleading. Actually it is neither the meaning nor the notion, but the scope of the notion that is narrowed.

As a special group belonging to the same type one can mention the formation of proper nouns from common nouns chiefly in toponymies, i.e. place names. E. g.: the City — the business part of London; the Highlands — the mountainous part of Scotland; Oxford — University town in England (from ox + ford, i.e. a place where oxen could ford the river); the Tower (of London) —originally a fortress and palace, later a state prison, now a museum.

The process reverse to specialisation is termed generalisation and widening of meaning. In that case the scope of the new notion is wider than that of the original one (hence widening), whereas the content of the notion is poorer. In most cases generalisation is combined with a higher order of abstraction than in the notion expressed by the earlier meaning. The transition from a concrete meaning to an abstract one is a most frequent feature in the semantic history of words. The change may be explained as occasioned by situations in which not all the features of the notions rendered are of equal importance for the message.

Thus, ready, a derivative of the verb ridan ‘to ride’) meant ‘prepared for a ride’. Fly originally meant ‘to move through the air with wings’; now it denotes any kind of movement in the air or outer space and also very quick movement in any medium. See also pirate, originally ‘one who robs on the sea’, by generalisation it came to mean ‘any one who robs with violence’.

The process of generalisation went very far in the complicated history of the word thing. Its etymological meaning was ‘an assembly for deliberation on some judicial or business affair’, hence — ‘a matter brought before this assembly’ and ‘what was said or decided upon’, then ‘cause’, ‘object’, ‘decision’. Now it has become one of the most general words of the language, it can substitute almost any noun, especially non-personal noun and has received a pronominal force. Cf. something, nothing, anything, as in Nothing has happened yet.

Not every generic word comes into being solely by generalisation, other processes of semantic development may also be involved in words borrowed from one language into another. The word person, for instance, is now a generic term for a human being:

editor — a person who prepares written material for publication; pedestrian — a person who goes on foot;

refugee — a person who has been driven from his home country by war.

all the words belonging to the group of generic terms fall into this category of generalisation. By generic terms we mean non-specific terms applicable to a great number of individual members of a big class of words. The grammatical categoric meaning of this class of words becomes predominant in their semantic components.

A metaphor is a transfer of name based on the association of similarity and thus is actually a hidden comparison. It presents a method of description which likens one thing to another by referring to it as if it were some other one. A cunning person for instance is referred to as a fox. A woman may be called a peach, a lemon, a cat, a goose, a bitch, a lioness, etc.

In a metonymy, this referring to one thing as if it were some other one is based on association of contiguity (a woman —a skirt). Metaphor and metonymy differ from the two first types of semantic change, i.e. generalisation and specialisation, inasmuch as they do not result in hyponymy and do not originate as a result of gradual almost imperceptible change in many contexts, but come of a purposeful momentary transfer of a name from one object to another belonging to a different sphere of reality. In a linguistic metaphor, especially when it is dead as a result of long usage, the comparison is completely forgotten and the thing named often has no other name: foot (of a mountain), leg (of a table), eye (of a needle), nose (of an aeroplane), back (of a book).Changes depending on the social attitude to the object named, connected with social evaluation and emotional tone, are called amelioration and pejoration of meaning. Examples of amelioration are OE cwen ‘a woman’ >ModE queen, OE cniht ‘a young servant’ > ModE knight. The meaning of some adjectives has been elevated through associations with aristocratic life or town life. The word gentle had already acquired an evaluation of approval by the time it was borrowed into English from French in the meaning ‘well-born’. Later its meaning included those characteristics that the high-born considered appropriate to their social status: good breeding, gracious behaviour, affability. Hence the noun gentleman, a kind of key-word in the history of English, that originally meant ‘a man of gentle (high) birth’ came to mean ‘an honourable and well-bred person’. The meaning of the adjective gentle which at first included only social values now belongs to the ethical domain and denotes ‘kind’, ‘not rough’, ‘polite’. A similar process of amelioration in the direction of high moral qualities is observed in the adjective noble — originally ‘belonging to the nobility’.

The reverse process is called pejoration or degradation; it involves a lowering in social scale connected with the appearance of a derogatory and scornful emotive tone reflecting the disdain of the upper classes towards the lower ones. E. g.: ModE knave<OE cnafa || Germ Knabe meant at first ‘boy’, then ‘servant’, and finally became a term of abuse and scorn. Another example of the same kind is blackguard. In the lord’s retinue of Middle Ages served among others the guard of iron pots and other kitchen utensils, black with soot. From the immoral features attributed to these servants by their masters comes the present scornful meaning of the word blackguard ‘scoundrel’. A similar history is traced for the words: boor, churl, clown, villain. Boor (originally ‘peasant’ || Germ Bauer) came to mean ‘a rude, awkward, ill-mannered person’. Churl is now a synonym to boor. It means ‘an ill-mannered and surly fellow’. The cognate German word is Kerl which is emotionally and evaluatory neutral. Up to the thirteenth century ceorl denoted the lowest rank of a freeman, later — a serf. In present-day English the social component is superseded by the evaluative meaning. A similar case is present in the history of the word clown: the original meaning was also ‘peasant’ or ‘farmer’. Now it is used in two variants: ‘a clumsy, boorish, uncouth and ignorant man’ and also ‘one who entertains, as in a circus, by jokes, antics, etc’. The French borrowing villain has sustained an even stronger pejorisation: from ‘farm servant’ it gradually passed to its present meaning ‘scoundrel’.

5. Polysemy and homonymy.

Polysemy

The word polysemy means plurality of meanings. It exists only in thelanguage, not in speech. A word which has more than one meaning is called

polysemantic.There are two processes of the semantic development of a word: radiationand concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Each secondary meaning

can be traced to the primary meaning, e.g. face (the front part of the human head -the primary meaning; the front part of a building, the front part of a watch, the front part of a playing card; expression of the face, outward appearance -

secondary meanings).In cases of concatenation secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain, e.g. crust – 1. hard outer part of bread, 2. hard part of anything (a pie, a cake), 3. harder layer over soft snow, 4. sullen gloomy person, 5. impudence. Here

the last meanings have nothing to do with primary ones. In such cases homonyms appeare in the language. This phenomenon is called the split of polysemy. Semantic Structure of Polysemantic Words Synchronically, the problem of polysemy ie the problem of interrelation and

interdependence of different meanings of the same word. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word is the sum total of relations between its lexico-semantic variants.

The analysis of the semantic structure of a polysemantic word is based on

the following set of oppositions:

1. Direct-derived meaning: rat – animal like, but larger than a mouse; rat –

cowardly person; strike-breaker.

2. Extended-restricted meaning: to knock – strike, hit; to knock – of a petrol

engine – make a tapping or thumping noise.

3. Free-bound meaning: hat – cover for the head; hat – nonsense (to speak

through one’s hat).

4. General-specialized meaning: case – instance or example of the

occurence of smth; case – (med.) person suffering from a disease.

5. Neutral-emotional meaning: nut – fruit consisting of a hard shell

enclosing a kernel that can be eaten; nut – (slang) head of a human

being.

Homonyms. Causes and Sources of Homonymy

Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical in sound or spelling, or both in sound and spelling.

Homonyms can appear in the language not only as a result of split of polysemy, but also as a result of levelling of grammar inflexions, when different parts of speech become identical in their outer aspect: care from caru and care

from carian. They can also be formed by means of conversion: slim – to slim.

They can be formed with the help of the same suffix from the same stem:

reader – a person who reads and a book for reading.They can be the result of forming splinters, completives and lexical abbreviations: bio – a splinter with the meaning biology, biological as in the word biometrics; bio – a combining form with the meaning life as in the word biology;

bio – a lexical shortening of the word biography with the meaning a short

biography.

Homonyms can also appear in the language accidentally when two words coincide in their development, e.g. two native words can coincide in their outer aspects: to bear from beran (to carry) and bear from bera (an animal). A native word and a borrowing can coincide in their outer aspects, e.g. fair from Latin feria and fair from native fager (blond). Two borrowings can coincide, e.g. base from

the French base (Latin basis) and base (low) from the Latin bas (Italian basso).

Homonyms can develop through shortening of different words: COD from

Concise Oxford Dictionary and cash on delivery.

homonyms

Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning. Traditional classification includes 3 types of homonyms:

1. homonyms which are the same in sound and spelling are traditionally termed homonyms proper (bank – a shore; bank-an institute for receiving, lending, exchanging and safeguarding money; school-косяк рыбы; school - школа).

2. homophones – they are the same in sound but different in spelling (night-knight; piece –peace).

3. homographs – these are words which are the same in spelling but different in sound (bow [bau]-поклон; bow [bэu]-лук; to lead [ li:d] – to conduct on the way, go before to show the way; lead [led] – a heavy, rather soft metal)

Homonyms should be distinguished from polycemantic words, because homonyms – we discuss 2 different forms with their own lexical and semantic structure, polycemantic – only one word (homonyms – 2 different words, polycemantic – 2 different meanings).

Classification:

1. lexical homonyms – differ in lexical meaning only, grammatical meaning is the same (one and the same part of speech)

2. lexico-grammatical homonyms – differ both lexical and grammatical meanings (different parts of speech) Ex: pale, adj – to pale , verb; reading- {Present Participle, gerund, Verbal noun.

3. grammatical homonyms – differ in grammatical meaning only, the lexical meaning is the same (brothers – plural; brother’s – possessive case)

Partial Homonyms –are those one which are the same only in one form of their grammatical paradigm (mine – шахта; mine – possessive noun (first form is my)).

homonymy is an accidental likeness of form of two or more words, but the meaning of these words is different. homonymy can be of three types: sound homonymy when the pronunciation of several words coincide. the units of such homonymy is homophone: air - heir, knight - night, non - none. when the spelling of the words coincides, but the meaning is different, such units are called homographs. they're often used by poets for the rhyme, but their number is not large in comparison with homophones: it's difficult to wind in this strong wind. the third type of homonyms is total homonyms which are very rarely met, because in total homonymy everything should coincide: sound form, graphic form and paradigms, for example: you must study, it is a complete must.

the sources of homonymy include break of polysemy, borrowing: base - ground, base as the lowest voice.7. contest. types of context

context may be subdivided into lexical, syntactical and mixed. Lexical context, for instance, determines the meaning of the word black in the following examples. Black denotes colour when used with the key-word naming some material or thing, e. g. black velvet, black gloves. When used with key-words denoting feeling or thought, it means ‘sad’, ‘dismal’, e. g. black thoughts, black despair. With nouns denoting time, the meaning is ‘unhappy’, ‘full of hardships’, e. g. black days, black period.

If, on the other hand, the indicative power belongs to the syntactic pattern and not to the words which make it up, the context is called syntactic. E. g. make means ‘to cause’ when followed by a complex object: I couldn’t make him understand a word I said.

A purely syntactic context is rare. As a rule the indication comes from syntactic, lexical and sometimes morphological factors combined. Thus, late, when used predicatively, means ‘after the right, expected or fixed time’, as be late for school. When used attributively with words denoting periods of time, it means ‘towards the end of the period’, e. g. in late summer. Used attributively with proper personal nouns and preceded with a definite article, late means ‘re-cently dead’.

All lexical contexts are subdivided into lexical contexts of the first degree and lexical contexts of the second degree. In the lexical context of the first degree there is a direct syntactical connection between the indicator and the dependent: He was arrested on a treason charge. In lexical context of the second degree there is no direct syntactical connection between a dependent and the indicator. E.g.: I move that Mr Last addresses the meeting (Waugh). The dependent move is not directly connected to the indicating minimum addresses the meeting.

Alongside the context N. N. Amosova distinguishes speech situation, in which the necessary indication comes not from within the sentence but from some part of the text outside it. Speech situation with her may be of two types: text-situation and life-situation. In text-situation it is a preceding description, a description that follows or some word in the preceding text that help to understand the ambiguous word.

E. Nida gives a slightly different classification. He distinguishes linguistic and practical context. By practical context he means the circumstances of communication: its stimuli, participants, their relation to one another and to circumstances and the response of the listeners.

8. Synonyms - are two or more words belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable in some context.

Look - to stare, to gaze, to glance, to peep.

Pretty - good - looking, handsome, beautiful.

Each group comprises a dominant element.

Synonymic dominant - is the most general term of its kind potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the other members of the group.types of synonyms:

Ideographic - synonyms which differ in the denotational component of meaning i.e. between which a semantic difference is statable.

Stylistic - which differ in the connotational component of meaning, i.e. all kinds of emotional, expressive and evaluative overtones.

Absolute - which can each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning and connotations.

Contextual - are synonyms which are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions.

Dominant - the notion common to all synonyms of the group without contributing any additional information as to the manner, intensy, duration or any attending feature of the referent.

The sources of synonyms: borrowings, shift of meaning, dialectical words, compounds, shortenings, conversion, euphemisms.

Antonyms - words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings such as hat - cold, light - dark, happiness - sorrow.

Morphological classification:Root words form absolute antonyms.(write - wrong). The presence of negative affixes creates - derivational antonyms(happy - unhappy). Semantical classification:Contradictory notions are mutually opposed and denying one another, i.e. alive means “not dead” and impatient means “not patient”.

Contrary notions are also mutually opposed but they are gradable; e.g. old and young are the most distant elements of a series like: old - middle - aged - young.

Incompatibles semantic relations of incompatibility exist among the antonyms with the common component of meaning and may be described as the relations of exclusion but not of contradiction: to say “morning” is to say “not afternoon, not evening, not night”.

The Synonyms and Antonyms form an integral part of the English Language. Acquaintance with the vocabulary of the English language is a necessity for effective expression either in the written or in the oral from. Synonym is nothing but the similar meaning of a particular word or its semantic relation. So,it is a word or a phrase that means the same as another word or a phrase in the same language.

Antonyms are the negative connotation of a particular word. An Antonym is a word or phrase that is opposite in meaning to a particular word or a phrase in the same language.

12. Compounding(словосложение) is a word-formation process consisting of combining two or more roots to form a compound

Root (Primary) compounds: consisting of two roots -housewife, boy friend, arm-chair.

Synthetic (Verbal) compounds: consisting of a verb and the participants of the action designated by the verb. Truck driver, hand-made, fashion designer

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). Compounding or Word-compounding refers to the faculty and device of language to form new words by combining or putting together old words. In other words, compound, compounding or word-compounding occurs when a person attaches two or more words together to make them one word. The meanings of the words interrelate in such a way that a new meaning comes out which is very different from the meanings of the words in isolation.

CLASSIFICATION OF COMPOUNDS

The great variety of compound types brings about a great variety of classifications. Compound words may be classified according to the type of composition and the linking element; according to the part of speech to which the compound belongs; and within each part of speech according to the structural pattern (see the next paragraph). It is also possible to subdivide compounds according to other characteristics, i.e. semantically, into motivated and idiomatic compounds (in the motivated ones the meaning of the constituents can be either direct or figurative). Structurally, compounds are distinguished as endocentric and exocentric, with the subgroup of bahuvrihi (see p. 125ff) and syntactic and asyntactic combinations. A classification according to the type of the syntactic phrase with which the compound is correlated has also been suggested. Even so there remain some miscellaneous types that defy classification, such as phrase compounds, reduplicative compounds, pseudo-compounds and quotation compounds.

The classification according to the type of composition permits us to establish the following groups:

1) The predominant type is a mere juxtaposition without connecting elements: heartache n, heart-beat n, heart-break n, heart-breaking a, heart-broken a, heart-felt a.

2) Composition with a vowel or a consonant as a linking element. The exam-ples are very few: electromotive a, speedometer n, Afro-Asian a, handicraft n, statesman n.

3) Compounds with linking elements represented by preposition or conjunction stems: down-and-out n, matter-of-fact a, son-in-law n, pepper-and-salt a, wall-to-wall a, up-to-date a, on the up-and-up adv (continually improving), up-and-coming, as in the following example: No doubt he’d had the pick of some up-and-coming jazzmen in Paris (Wain). There are also a few other lexicalised phrases like devil-may-care a, forget-me-not n, pick-me-up n, stick-in-the-mud n, what’s-her name n.

The classification of compounds according to the structure of immediate constituents distinguishes:

1) compounds consisting of simple stems: film-star;

2) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem: chain-smoker;

3) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a clipped stem: maths-mistress (in British English) and math-mistress (in American English). The sub-group will contain abbreviations like H-bag (handbag) or Xmas (Christmas), who-dunit n (for mystery novels) considered substandard;

4) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a compound stem: wastepaper-basket.