24.Semantic change in connotation: pejoration vs amelioration; emotive intensification. Change in social connotation: register shift

Semantic change in connotation

Connotation is connected with psychology and culture, as it means the personal or emotional associations aroused by words. When these associations are widespread and become established by common usage, a new denotation is recorded in dictionaries. A possible example of such change would be vicious. Originally derived from vice, it meant “extremely wicked”. In modern British usage it is commonly used to mean “fierce”, as in the brown rat is a vicious animal

Pejoration vs amelioration

The upgrading or elevation of a word's meaning, as when a word with a negative sense develops a positive one. Contrast with pejoration. --The process by which the meaning of a word becomes negative or less elevated over a period of time, as silly, which formerly meant "deserving sympathy, helpless or simple," has come to mean "showing a lack of good sense, frivolous."

25.Types of homonyms: formal aspect

homonyms are two or more different lexemes which have the same form but are unrelated in meaning and have different historical sources in language. The words which are homonyms usually have different entries in dictionaries.2

Formal aspect (absolute, partial; homographs, homophones).

Absolute homonyms are unrelated in meaning, all their forms are identical in pronunciation as well as in spelling (citation forms and word forms) and those identical forms are grammatical equivalent.5Grammatical equivalents belong to the same word-class, have the same syntactic function and occur in the same grammatical environment.

Partial homonyms fail to fulfill one or more features of absolute homonymy.6

There may be differences in form, pronunciation or spelling or a lack of grammatical equivalence.

Words that have the same spelling but differ in origin, meaning, and sometimes pronunciation, such as the verb bear (to carry or endure) and the noun bear (the animal with a shaggy coat). Adjective: homographic.

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms

26.Semantic aspect of homonymy

lexical vs grammatical homonyms and homoforms).

grammatical homonyms – differ in grammatical meaning only, the lexical meaning is the same

lexical homonyms – differ in lexical meaning only, grammatical meaning is the same

A more detailed classification was given by I.V. Arnold. She classified only perfect homonyms and suggested four criteria of their classification: lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, basic forms and paradigms.

According to these criteria I.V. Arnold pointed out the following groups: a) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings, basic forms and paradigms and different in their lexical meanings, e.g. «board» in the meanings «a council» and « a piece of wood sawn thin»; b) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings and basic forms, different in their lexical meanings and paradigms, e.g. to lie - lied - lied, and to lie - lay - lain; c) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, paradigms, but coinciding in their basic forms, e.g. «light» / «lights»/, «light» / «lighter», «lightest»/; d) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, in their basic forms and paradigms, but coinciding in one of the forms of their paradigms, e.g. «a bit» and «bit» (from « to bite»).

In I. V. Arnold’s classification there are also patterned homonyms, which, differing from other homonyms, have a common component in their lexical meanings. These are homonyms formed either by means of conversion, or by levelling of grammar inflexions. These homonyms are different in their grammar meanings, in their paradigms, identical in their basic forms, e.g. «warm» - «to warm». Here we can also have unchangeable patterned homonyms which have identical basic forms, different grammatical meanings, a common component in their lexical meanings, e.g. «before» an adverb, a conjunction, a preposition. There are also homonyms among unchangeable words which are different in their lexical and grammatical meanings, identical in their basic foms, e.g. « for» - «для» and «for» - «ибо».