40 Word meaning and motivation.

The relationship between morphemic structure and meaning is termed morphological motivation. The main criteria in morphological motivation is the relationship between morphemes. All one-morpheme words (look, eat) are non-motivated. Such words as writer, worker are described as motivated. Phonetic motivation is represented by such words as swish, boom, splash. Beside grammatical and lexical meanings some linguists also distinguish the co-called structural meaning, i.e. words in a sentence are joined together according to some specific rules (a diggled-boggle, a boggled diggle). Motivation is the relationship existing between the morpheme or phonemic composition and the structural pattern of the word, on the one hand, and its meaning on the other. The words are motivated: 1. Structurally (a shoe-maker), but sometimes due to the character of the lexical meaning of a morphological motivation becomes rather relevant or weak (flower-girl); 2. Phonetically (swish, boom); 3. Semantically (the dawn of life). Sometimes motivation of the words may be lost: a) one of the elements of compound words dropped out of usage (mermaid – русалка, mere – море); b) the loss of the primary meaning of the word (spoon – щепка).

41 Phraseology as a branch of lexicology. Different problems and approaches.Phraseology is a branch of lexicology. It studies compound meanings of two or more words, as in "raining cats and dogs". Because the whole meaning of that phrase is much different from the meaning of words included alone, phraseology examines how and why such meanings come in everyday use, and what possibly are the laws governing these word combinations. Phraseology also investigates idioms. P.u. are word groups which are but comparatively stable and symantically inseperable. P.u. exist in the lang-ge as ready-made with a few exceptions, they don’t allow of any substitution of the components. They are syntactically inseparable and fulfill in the sentence only one function, playing the role of word equivalents and they are usually non-motivated. There are several problems connected with phraseology. The most important problems are:1) what can be called phraseological unite,2)what groups belong to phraseological unites?3) what are the criterion and is it possible to find a criterion ? 4) what is a stability and its criterion? 5) what type of ph-l unites can be distinguished? 6) How do we phr-l unites appeared in the l-ge? Approaches are: a) traditional semantic approach points out the essential features of all kinds of idiomatic phrases as apposed to completely motivated free word-groups. B) The functional approach – puts forward an objective criterion for singling out a small group of word-equivalents possessing all the basic features of words as lexical items c) the contextual approach makes the criterion of stability more exact.

42 Phraseological units versus free word groups. This is probably the most discussed and the most controversial problem in the field of phraseology. The task of distinguishing between free word-groups and phraseological units is further complicated by the existence of a great number of marginal cases, the so-called semi-fixed or semi-free word-groups, also called non-phraseological word-groups which share with phraseological units their structural stability but lack their semantic unity and figurativeness (e. g. to go to school, to go by bus, to commit suicide).There are two major criteria for distinguishing between phraseological units and free word-groups: semantic and structural. A.Cambridge don: I'm told they're inviting more American professors to this university. Isn't it rather carrying coals to Newcastle? (to take something to a place where it is already plentiful and not needed)B.This cargo ship is carrying coal to Liverpool. The first thing that captures the eye is the semantic difference of the two word-groups consisting of the same essential constituents. In the second sentence the free word-group is carrying coal is used in the direct sense, the word coal standing for real hard, black coal and carry for the plain process of taking something from one place to another. The first context quite obviously has nothing to do either with coal or with transporting it, and the meaning of the whole word-group is smth entirely new and far removed from the current meanings of the constituents.In the traditional approach, phraseological units have been defined as word-groups conveying a single concept (whereas in free word-groups each meaningful component stands for a separate concept). Yet, words are also characterised by structural unity which phraseological units very obviously lack being combinations of words. The structural criterion also brings forth pronounced distinctive features characterising phraseological units and contrasting them to free word-groups. Structural invariability is an essential feature of phraseological units, though, some of them possess it to a lesser degree than others. At the same time, in free word-groups substitution does not present any dangers and does not lead to any serious consequences.

43 Phraseological status of proverbs, sayings, familiar quotations and clichés. A proverb is a short familiar epigrammatic saying expressing popular wisdom, a truth or a moral lesson in a concise and imaginative way. Proverbs have much in common with set expressions, because their lexical components are also constant, their meaning is traditional and mostly figurative, and they are introduced into speech ready-made. That is why some scholars following Vinogradov think proverbs must be studied together with phraseological units. Others like Casares and Amosova think that unless they regularly form parts of other sentences it is erroneous to include them into the system of language, because they are independent units of communication. proverbs often form the basis of set expressions. E. g. the last straw breaks the camel’s back : : the last straw; a drowning man will clutch at a straw : : clutch at a straw.Lexicology does not deal more fully with the peculiarities of proverbs: created in folklore, they are studied by folklorists. Familiar quotations come from literature but by and by they become part and parcel of the language, so that many people using them do not even know that they are quoting, and very few could acccurately name the play or passage on which they are drawing even when they are aware of using a quotation from W. Shakespeare. The Shakespearian quotations have become and remain extremely numerous — they have contributed enormously to the store of the language. Some of the most often used are: I know a trick worth two of that("King Lear"); Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown("Henry IV"). “Hamlet": Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice’, Something is rotten in the state of Denmark; Brevity is the soul of wit; The rest is silence. Excepting only Shakespeare, no poet has given more of his lines than A.Pope to the common vocabulary of the English-speaking world: A little learning is a dangerous thing; To err is human; To forgive, divine. Quotations from classical sources were once a recognised feature of public speech: de te fabula narratur (Horace) ‘the story is about you’. Now they are even regarded as bad form, because they are unintelligible to those without a classical education. So, when a speaker ventures a quotation of that kind he hastens to translate it. A number of classical tags nevertheless survive in educated speech in many countries, in Russian no less than in English. There are the well-known phrases, such as ad hoc ‘for this special reason’; bona fide ‘in good faith’; mutatis mutandis ‘with necessary changes’. As long as they keep their Latin form they do not belong to English vocabulary. Some quotations are so often used that they come to be considered clichés. The term is used to denote such phrases as have become hackneyed and stale. Being constantly and mechanically repeated they have lost their original expressiveness and so are better avoided. The following are perhaps the most generally recognised: the acid test, ample opportunities, astronomical figures, to break the ice, consigned to oblivion, the irony of fate, to sleep the sleep of the just, stand shoulder to shoulder, swan song, toe the line, tender mercies, etc. The so-called journalese has its own set of overworked phrases: to usher in a new age, to prove a boon to mankind, to pave the way to a bright new world, to spell the doom of civilisation.