- •1. The subject of lexicological investigation
- •2. Types of vocabulary units
- •3. The position of lexicology in the language hierarchy. Links with other linguistic sciences
- •2.The theory of a word (mid 50s, professor Smirnitsky)
- •3.The morphemic structure of a word.
- •2.The notion of a word-building pattern (wbp) as a two-facet linguistic unit
- •3.Productivity (pr) of word-building patterns
- •4.The basic types of word-building in present day English
- •1. Language meaning: lexical (lm) and grammatical meaning (gm)
- •2. The definition of lm according to the referential approach
- •4. Development of new meanings Causes:
- •1. The nature of polysemy
- •2. A lexico-semantic variant (lsv), its notion
- •1. The definition of synonyms
- •4. The dominant synonym.
- •2. Causes of phraseological units.
- •1. General Characteristics of „the English Language in Different Parts of the English-Speaking World
- •2. Lexical Differences of Territorial Variants
- •3. Local Dialects in the British Isles
- •4. Local Dialects in the usa
- •1) Comment on the terms:
- •2.Explain the basis for the following jokes:
- •3. Specify lexical and grammatical meaning of the following words:
- •4.1Dentify the denotative and connotative elements of the meanings in the following pairs of words:
- •5.Define the type of transference which has taken place:
- •2.Write out from a dictionary all the meanings of the following words. Comment on the semantic structure of the words:
- •3.Single out the denotative and connotative components of meaning of the synonyms in the following examples:
- •4.Using the semantic criterion prove that the rows of words are synonyms:
- •5.Find the dominant synonym in the following groups of synonyms:
- •7.Find antonyms for the words given below:
- •8.Change the sentences so that they express the contrary meaning by using antonyms. State whether they are absolute or derivational:
- •9.Find antonyms in the proverbs. Translate them into Russian:
- •6. Give Russian equivalents of the phraseological units. Memorize them and use them in speech:.
- •7.Give the English equivalents for the following Russian proverbs:
- •8.Complete the following sentences, using the phraseological units given in the list below. Translate them into Russian.
- •12.Complete the paired phraseological units in the sentences below. Choose from the following:
- •7.The italicized words and word-groups in the following extracts belong to informal style. Describe the stylistic peculiarities of each extract in general. Look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary:
- •8.Compose the following brief situations. Your language and style should suit both the subject and the situation:
- •2.Find:
- •3.Јxplain the differences in the meanings of the following words in American and British English:
- •4.1Dentify the etymology of the following words:
- •5.Say which of the two words is American and which is British. Translate the sentences into Russian:
- •6.Translate into English giving two variants - British and American:
- •7. Translate the following sentences:
1. The definition of synonyms
Synonyms are different words with similar or identical meanings. Their function in speech is to reveal different aspects, shades and variations of the same phenomenon. They add precision to each detail of description and may colour the whole text. A carefully chosen word from a group of synonyms is a great asset not only on the printed page but also in a speaker's utterance. It was Mark Twain who said that the difference between the right word and just the right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug.
2. Criteria of synonymy: we are still not certain which words should correctly be considered as synonyms. Linguists distinguish: conceptual criterion, semantic criterion, definitional analysis, the criterion of interchangeability.
3.Types of synonyms
The only existing classification system for synonyms established „ by Academician V. V. Vinogradov divides them into three types: ideographic, stylistic and absolute. However, some aspects of his classification system are open to question.
A more modern and a more effective approach to the classification of synonyms may be based on the definition describing synonyms as words differing in connotations. It seems convenient to classify connotations by which synonyms differ rather than synonyms themselves, ( See the lecture on Lexical Meaning)
4. The dominant synonym.
Euphemisms.
The dominant synonym is a "central" word of a synonymic group whose meaning is equal to the denotation common to all the synonymic group and which is characterized by: high frequency of usage, broad combinability, broad general meaning, lack of connotations.
Euphemisms are words instinctively avoided by people because they are considered indecent, indelicate, rude, too direct or
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impolite. The "offensive" referents, for which these words stand for are described in a roundabout way, by using substitutes due to social conventions.
Superstitious taboos gave rise to euphemisms based on a deeply-rooted subconscious fear. They have their roots in the distant past of mankind when people believed that there was a supernatural link between a name and the object or creature it represented. Therefore, all the words denoting evil spirits, dangerous animals, or the powers of nature were taboo.
Euphemisms are probably the oldest type of synonyms.
5. Antonymy Antonyms can be defined as 2 or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and often used together so that their denotative meanings render contradictory or contrary notions.
Antonymy is not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives. Verbs take second place, then come nouns and adverbs.
The important question of criteria received a new treatment in V.N. Komissarov's work. According to him, 2 words shall be considered A if they are regularly contrasted in actual speech, i.e. if the contrast in their meanings is proved by definite types of contextual co-occurrence.
Another important criterion suggested by him is the possibility of substitution and identical lexical valence. Classification:
l)Contradictory/ contrary;
2)Gradable / complementary;
3)According to the morphological
approach absolute (root)/ derivational.
Phraseology 1. Phraseological units as word
groups with transferred meanings.
In the system of vocabulary besides words as single items we find units represented by word combinations traditionally called phraseological units (Academician V.V. Vinogradov's term). There are some other terms denoting more or less the
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same linguistic phenomenon: idioms, set-expressions, set-phrases, fixed word-groups, collocations.
They are included in the vocabulary stock as they convey the integrated indivisible meaning of a whole and are reproduced ready-made. There are two major criteria for distinguishing between ph.u. and free word-groups: semantic, structural. The latter finds expression in a number of restrictions (restriction in substitution, restriction in introducing any additional components into the structure and grammatical invariability.