23. Antonyms. Definition. Morphological and semantic classification of antonyms.

We use the term antonyms to indicate words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings, such as hot — cold, light — dark, happiness — sorrow, to accept — to reject, up — down.

Antonymy is not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives which is only natural because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted: high — low, wide — narrow, strong — weak, old — young, friendly — hostile.

Verbs take second place, so far as antonymy is concerned. Yet, verbal pairs of antonyms are fewer in number. Here are some of them: to lose — to find, to live — to die, to open — to close, to weep — to laugh.

Nouns are not rich in antonyms, but even so some examples can be given: friend — enemy, joy — grief, good — evil, heaven — earth, love — hatred.

Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups: a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly — coldly, merrily — sadly, loudly — softly; b) adverbs proper: now — then, here — there, ever — never, up — down, in — out.

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”.

24. Neologisms. Their place in the vocabulary system of the English language.

neologism is a newly coined word or phrase or a new meaning for an existing word, or a word borrowed from another language.

The intense development of science and industry has called forth the invention and introduction of an immense number of new words and changed the meanings of old ones, e. g. aerobic, black hole, computer, isotope, feedback, penicillin, pulsar, quasar, tape-recorder, supermarket and so on.

The term "e-mail", as used today, is an example of a neologism.

   Neologisms can also refer to an existing word or phrase which has been assigned a new meaning.

   At the present moment English is developing very swiftly and there is so called "neology blowup". R. Berchfield who worked at compiling a four- volume supplement to NED says that averagely 800 neologisms appear every year in Modern English. It has also become a language-giver recently, especially with the development of computerization.

   New words, as a rule, appear in speech of an individual person who wants to express his idea in some original way. This person is called "originater". New lexical units are primarily used by university teachers, newspaper reporters, by those who are connected with mass media.

   Neologisms can develop in three main ways:

  -- a lexical unit existing in the language can change its meaning to denote a new object or phenomenon. In such cases we have semantic neologisms, e.g. the word "umbrella" developed the meanings: "авиационное прикрытие", "политическое прикрытие".

  -- A new lexical unit can develop in the language to denote an object or phenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it. In such cases we have transnomination, e.g. the word "slum" was first substituted by the word "ghetto" then by the word-group "inner town".

  -- A new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a new object or phenomenon. In this case we have "a proper neologism", many of them are cases of new terminology.

   Newly created words entering a language tend to pass through several stages:

  -- Unstable - Extremely new, being proposed, or being used only by a small subculture (also known as protologisms).

  -- Diffused - Having reached a significant audience, but not yet having gained widespread acceptance.

  -- Stable - Having gained recognizable and probably lasting acceptance.

  -- Dated - The point where the word has ceased holding novelty and has passed into clichИ, formal linguistic acceptance, or become culturally dated in its use

   Neologisms can be also classified according to the ways they are formed.

  -- phonological neologisms

  -- borrowings,

  -- semantic neologisms

  -- syntactical neologisms (morphological /word-building/ and phraseological /forming word- groups)

   Morphological and syntactical neologisms are usually built on patterns existing in the language, therefore they do not belong to the group of strong neologisms.

   Here also belong:

  -- call-and-recall - вызов на диспансеризацию,

  -- bioastronomy -search for life on other planets,

  -- rat-out - betrayal in danger ,

  -- zero-zero (double zero) - ban of longer and shorter range weapon,

  -- x-rated /about films terribly vulgar and cruel/,

  -- Ameringlish /American

   Formation of neologisms:

  -- affixation

   peacenik

   Bookateria

  -- abbreviation/blending

   lol

  -- word overlapping

   swellegant

  -- compounding

   skinhead

   greenback

  -- forming new words from combinations & sentences

   bold-headish

   6 o'clockish

  -- forming new words according to already existing productive patterns

   fingersmith - карманник

  -- lexicalization

   ism - as an independent word

   teens