3. Local Dialects in the British Isles
In the British Isles there exist many speech varieties confined to particular areas. These local dialects traceable to Old English dialects may be classified into six distinct divisions: 1) Lowland (Scottish or Scotch, North of the river Tweed), 2) Northern (between the rivers Tweed and Humber), 3) Western, 4) Midland and 5) Eastern (between the river Humber and the Thames), 6) Southern (South of the Thames). Their sphere of application is confined to the oral speech of the rural population in a locality and only the Scottish dialect can be said to have a literature of its own with Robert Burns as its greatest representative.
Careful consideration of the national and the dialect vocabularies discloses that the most marked difference between them lies in the limited character of the dialect vocabularies. Local lexical peculiarities are most noticeable in specifically dialectal words pertaining to local customs, social life and natural conditions. Thus, the lexical differences between the English national language and its dialects are due to the difference in the spheres of application, different tempoes of
development, different contacts with other peoples, and deliberate elaboration of literary norms.
4. Local Dialects in the usa
The English language in the United States is characterised by relative uniformity throughout the country. The following three major belts of dialects have so far been identified, each with its own characteristic features: Northern, Midland and Southern, Midland being in turn divided into North Midland and South Midland.
The differences in pronunciation between American dialects are most apparent, but they seldom interfere with understanding. Distinctions in grammar are scarce. The differences in vocabulary are rather numerous, but they are easy to pick up. In the United States, as elsewhere, the national language is tending to wipe out the dialect distinctions and to become still more uniform.
Comparison of the dialect differences in the British Isles and in the USA reveals that not only are they less numerous and far less marked in the USA, but that the very nature of the local distinctions is different. What is usually known as American dialects is closer
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in nature to regional variants of the literary language. The problem of discriminating between literary and dialect speech patterns in the USA is much more complicated than in Britain. Many American linguists point out that American English differs from British English in having no one locality whose speech patterns have come to be recognised as the model for the rest of the country.
Part II: Exercises in English Lexicology
Theme 1: Lexicology as a Branch of Linguistics. The Word as the Basic Unit of Lexicology
1) Comment on the terms:
lexicology, subject of lexicology, system, vocabulary as a system, lexical units, a set-expression, language and speech, synchrony, diachrony, general/ special lexicology, contrastive lexicology, etymology, descriptive lexicology , sociolinguistics, semaciology, phraseology;
indivisibility, positional mobility, uninterruptability, phonetic variants, morphemic variants, morphological variants, lexico-semantic variants, root-morpheme, affix (suffix, prefix, infix), free/ bound morphemes, pseudo-morphemes, semi-affixes.
2) Establish the number and types of morphemes making up the word:
friendliness, merciless, effective, long-legged, gentleman, good-looking, ex-husband,
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unbutton, handrail, pocket, time-consuming, unwrapped, snowflake.
3) Give examples of free and
bound morphemes (5 - 7 of each type).
4. Find a word with an inflection:
worker, darkness, books, rewrite.
5. Find a word with a derivational affix:
night, heartless, Ivanov's, papers.
6. Find a word with two free morphemes:
unbearable, childhood, merry-go-round, first-nighter.
7.Find a word with two bound affixational morphemes:
kindness, snow-white, uneatable, bookkeeper.
8. Find a word with a pseudo- morpheme:
rewrite, remain, speaker, lady-killer.
9. Find a word with a semi-affix:
red-hot, long-haired, self-possessed, undisputable.
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10. In which word a root-
morpheme has transformed into an affixational morpheme?
actress, friendship, question, childish.
Theme 2: The English Etymology
1. Comment on the terms:
native component (Indo-European element, Germanic element, English Proper element), borrowed component (Celtic. Latin, Scandinavian, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch), causes of borrowings (social, linguistic), types of borrowings
(transliteration, transcription, translation-loans, semantic loans, etymological doublets, international words, hybrid words), assimilation (phonetic, grammatical, semantic), degree of assimilation (complete, partial).
2. Identify the period of the following Latin borrowings:
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wall, cheese, intelligent, candle, major, moderate, priest, school, street, cherry, music, phenomenon, nun, kitchen, plum, pear, pepper, datum, cup, wine, philosophy, method.
3. Study the map of Great Britain and write out the names of the cities and towns ending in:
caster (chester) (Lat. - military camp),
wick, Thorpe, by (Sc. - place).
4.1 n the given sentences And examples of Scandinavian borrowings:
1. He went on to say that he was sorry to hear that I had been ill. 2. She was wearing a long blue jskirt. 3. Two eyes - eyes like winter windows, glared at him with ruthless impersonality. 4. The sun was high, the sky unclouded, the air warm with a dry fresh breeze. 5. It's not such a bad thing to be unsure sometimes. It takes us away from rigid thinking.
5.Explain the etymology of the following words. Translate them into Russian:
coup d'etat, tete-a-tete, enfant terrible, beau monde, bon mot, persona grata, etc., e.g., a.m., p.m., sputnik, kindergarten, opera, piano, potato, tomato, czar, violin, coffee, alarm, cargo, blitzkrieg, steppe, banana, balalaika.
6. Identify the degree of assimilation of the following words:
pen, hors d'oeuvre, ballet, butter, skin, take, cup, police, distance, monk, garage, phenomenon, wine, large, justice, lesson, criterion, gay, port, river, autumn, uncle, law, lunar, skirt, bishop, regime, eau-de-Cologne.
7. State the origin of the following translation loans:
five-year plan, wonder child, masterpiece, first dancer, fellow-traveller.
8. State the origin of the following etymological doublets:
captain-chieftan, canal-channel; shirt-skirt, shrew-screw; gaol-jail, corpse- corps; shadow-shade, off-of.
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9.
Supply the adjectives of Latin origin
corresponding
to the following nouns.
Comment upon their stylistic
characteristics:
nose, tooth, sun, hand, child, town, sea, life, youth
Theme 3: Word-building in Modern English
l.Comment on the terms:
word-building, word-building pattern, productive, non-productive, dead affixes, motivation, degrees of motivation, affixation, origin of affixes, theories of conversion, origin of conversion, composition (structural, semantic, theoretical aspect), shortening (lexical, clipping), blending, back-formation, sound-and-stress interchange, sound imitation, reduplication.
2. Deduce the meanings of the following derivatives from the meanings of their constituents:
reddish, overwrite, irregular, retype, old-womanish, disrespectable, disorganize,
eatable, snobbish, handful, sandy, breakable, underfed.
3. Make up the names of people according to the following word-building meanings:
connection with action (V+er), place, residence (N+er), object (N+ist), instrument (N+ist), nationality (-ese, -an, -ish).
4.Specify the levels of lexical meaning in:
-er, -ish, -ist, -ian, -like, -ly, -ful.
5.Prove that the following affixes are highly productive:
un-, re-, dis-, -ing, -able, -ize, -er, -less, -ish, -ness, -ed.
6. Define the meanings of the nonce-words:
breakfaster, word-breaker, notatallness, mother-in-lawed, seasider, a take-my-word-for-itist, a collarless appearance, a lungful of smoke.
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7. Say whether the following lexical units are word-groups or compounds:
railway platform, snowman, light dress, traffic light, landing field, film star, white man, hungry dog, medical man, landing plane, distant star, small house, evening dress, bluecoat, roughhouse, booby trap, black skirt, medical student, black shirt, hot dog.
8. Translate the words into English. Comment on the type of compounding:
старик, рыбак, колокольчик, свекровь, тесть, зять, невеста, белить, железная дорога, космический корабль, незабудка, черноволосый, зеленоглазый,
вечнозеленый, самоанализ.
9.Form compounds:
to paint pictures, to break stones, to own land, to love art, something that kills pain, a brush for hair, the end of the week, the sill of a window, a chair with arms, filled with smoke, driven with wind, having dark eyes, the process of drilling holes.
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10.Translate the word-combinations and sentences into Russian:
to head an army, to eye a foe, to chain a prisoner, to fish for accomplishments, to dress a wound, to hand a plate, to book a ticket;
1. They will holiday in Italy. 2. It was a good buy. 3. She never notices the obvious. 4. Pocket your pride. 5. Why shoulder the burden alone? 6. His eyes narrowed. 7. The beer wasn't iced. 8. Don't baby him. 9. Women pilot planes and man ships. 10. The drop-out in colleges has a lot of reasons.
ll.Write in full the shortened words. Define the type of shortening:
pub, ad, fancy, UNO,V-day, mike, mob, lab, jeep, fridge, V.I.P.
12.Give the words denoting sounds produced by the animals:
The cat... the hen....
The dog... the sparrow...
The cow... the pig,..
The cock... the bee...
The frog... the duck...
The sheep... the snake...
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13.Comment on the type of word-building. Translate into Russian:
walkie-talkie, ping-pong, dilly-dally, wishy-washy, flip-flop, helter-skelter, hanky-panky, hurly-burly, Humpy-Dumpy.
14.Form nouns from the verbs and adjectives according to the models:
a)to breathe - breath:
to live, to grieve, to advise, to use, to excuse, to bathe, to believe, to prove, to practice, to relieve;
bjstrong - strength:
wide, deep, long, broad.
15.Form verbs from nouns and adjectives:
Food, brood, blood, full, gold.
16.ExpIain the formation of the following words:
to pettifog, to burgle, to typewrite, to sight-read, to beg, to meditate, to inflate;
flush, glaze, good-bye, smog, cablegram, electrochute, swellegant, motel.
Theme 4: Lexical Meaning as a Linguistic Category. Development of Meaning
l.Comment on the terms:
lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, referential approach, functional approach, "basic triangle", denotative component, connotative component, seme, types of connotations, causes (historical/ linguistic), metaphor, metonymy, results of development of meaning.