8.Synonymy: classification of synonyms.

A synonym – is a word of similar or identical meaning to one or more words in the same language. All languages contain synonyms but in English they exist in superabundance.

They’re no two absolutely identical words because connotations, ways of usage, frequency of an occurence are different.

Classification:

1. Total synonyms. An extremely rare occurrence. Can replace each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning and connotations Ex.: бегемот – гиппопотам

2. Ideographic synonyms. They bear the same idea but not identical in their referential content. Differ in shades of meaning Ex.: to ascent – to mount – to climb; To happen – to occur – to befall – to chance

3. Dialectical synonyms. Pertaining to different variant of language from dialectal stratification point of view; Ex.: lift – elevator; Queue – line; Autumn – fall 

4. Contextual synonyms. Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades & suppress other semantic trades; words with different meaning can become synonyms in a certain context. Similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions, when the difference between the meanings of two words is contextually neutralized: e.g. buy and get;

5. Stylistic synonyms. Belong to different styles. Child (neutral)- infant(elevated) – kid (colloquial).

9.Antonymy: semantic and structural classifications of antonyms.

Antonymy in general shares many features typical of synonymy. Like synonyms, perfect or complete antonyms are fairly rare. It is usual to find the relations of antonymy restricted to certain contexts. Thus thick is only one of the antonyms of thin (a thin slice—a thick slice), another is fat (a thin man—a fat man).

V.N. Comissarov in his dictionary of antonyms classified them into two groups : absolute or root antonyms /»late» - «early»/ and derivational antonyms / «to please’ - «to displease»/ .  Absolute antonyms have different roots and derivational antonyms  have the same roots but different affixes. In most cases negative prefixes form antonyms / un-, dis-, non-/. Sometimes they are formed by means of suffixes -ful and -less.

The difference between derivational and root antonyms is not only in their structure, but in semantics as well. Derivational antonyms express contradictory notions, one of them excludes the other, e.g. «active»- «inactive». Absolute antonyms  express contrary notions. If some notions can be arranged in a group of more than two members, the most distant members of the group will be absolute antonyms, e.g. «ugly» , «plain», «good-looking», «pretty», «beautiful», the antonyms are «ugly» and «beautiful». Leonard Lipka in the book «Outline of English Lexicology» describes different types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into three types: a) complementary, e.g. male -female,  married -single, b) antonyms, e.g. good -bad, c) converseness, e.g. to buy - to sell.

10. Phraseological units: semantic and syntactic classifications of phraseological units, main sources of phraseological units.

The vocabulary of a language is enriched not only by words but also by phraseological units. Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot be made in the process of speech, they exist in the language as ready-made units. They are compiled in special dictionaries.

Here we have the following groups:

a) noun phraseologisms denoting an object, a person, a living being, e.g. bullet train, latchkey child, redbrick university, Green Berets,

b) verb phraseologisms denoting an action, a state, a feeling, e.g. to break the log-jam, to get on somebody’s coattails, to be on the beam, to nose out , to make headlines,

c) adjective phraseologisms denoting a quality, e.g. loose as a goose, dull as lead ,

d) adverb phraseological units, such as : with a bump, in the soup, like a dream , like a dog with two tails,

e) preposition phraseological units, e.g. in the course of, on the stroke of ,

f) interjection phraseological units, e.g. «Catch me!», «Well, I never!» etc.

In I.V.Arnold’s classification there are also sentence equivalents, proverbs, sayings and quatations, e.g. «The sky is the limit», «What makes him tick», » I am easy». Proverbs are usually metaphorical, e.g. «Too many cooks spoil the broth», while sayings are as a rule non-metaphorical, e.g. «Where there is a will there is a way».