- •1. The notion of the grammatical category: gr. Form & gr. Meaning. Means of form-building. Gr.Oppositions as the basis of gr. Categories. Types of oppositions. Reduction of gr. Oppositions
- •Typology of the Morphological Systems of r and e: Typology of parts of speech
- •3. Simple sentence as a monopredicative structure. The definitions of the sentence
- •The status of the sentence
- •Classification of sentences
- •Types of simple sentences
- •Primary and secondary sentence parts
- •4. Сomposite sentence as a polypredicative structure
- •Connectors
- •Inter-textual structure. (text units)
- •6. The word and its properties
- •2) Identity of the word (тождество).
- •The word as an arbitrary and motivated sign
- •Types of motivation
- •Phonetical motivation;
- •Morphological motivation;
- •Semantic motivation;
- •7. The problem of linguistic meaning
- •Main approaches to the study of meaning
- •Types of linguistic meaning
- •Differences between lexical and grammatical meanings
- •Types of connotative meaning
- •The structure of a polysemantic word
- •8. The etymological composition
- •9. Stylistic stratification of the english vocabulary. Literary and non-literary strata. The subsystems of the english lexicon: slang, jargon, euphemisms, neologisms, archaisms
- •Vulgarisms
- •10. The main and minor ways of word formation; affixation, conversion, compounding, blending, clipping, abbreviation, back formation
- •2 Types of word formation:
- •11. Lexical and grammatical valency of words. Collocations. Free word combinations vs. Idioms. Idioms: their characteristic features. Classifications of idioms
- •Language as a system of signs and as a structure. De saussure's dichotomies. The theory of sign
- •The relationship between language and thought. Language as a means of structuring and storing knowledge
- •Vygotsky’s view of the issue
- •Language and Thought from the Point of View of Cognitive Linguistics
- •Language as a means of communication. The processes of understanding and verbalizing. Text and discourse as units of communication
- •15. Relationship between language and culture. The specific feature of vocabulary and grammar as manifestations of world view
- •The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- •16. Criteria for revealing the status of a phoneme
- •17. Mechanisms of speech sound production
- •In classifying consonants as different from vowels
- •Power mechanism
- •Vibrator mechanism
- •Resonator mechanism
- •Obstructer mechanism
- •18. Intonation as a component structure
- •Intonation
- •19. Reasons for phonetic modification
- •In regional and social accents of english
- •20. The geographical position and the environment of great britain
- •21. General review of the usa economics
- •Inventions and industrial development
- •Achievements of american economy
- •The American System of Government
- •1) The Legislative Branch of Power
- •2) The Executive Branch of Power
- •3) The Judiciary Branch of Power
- •The System of American Courts
- •Nominations, Campaigns and Elections
- •23. National and social population of great britain
- •Ancestors. Waves of invasion
- •Languages and nationalities
- •Social rates
- •Social class make-up
- •Migration waves
- •The ethnic dimension. Racism
- •24. The culture of great britain. Cultural realia
- •Traditions
- •The state opening of parliament
- •Changing the guard
- •Trooping the colour
- •The ceremony of the keys
- •Customs and traditions of scotland
- •English renaissance
- •The british museum
- •Some more museums of britain
- •The Tower of London
- •St. Paul's Cathedral
- •Some more cultural realia from the dictionary
- •25. The main historic periods of the usa
Types of linguistic meaning
Speaking of word meaning or linguistic meaning we should differentiate between lexical and grammatical meaning.
Lexical meaning is the material meaning of a word, which reflects the concept or emotion the given word expresses and the basic properties of the thing, object, quality, state and so on the word denotes.
Grammatical meaning is the formal meaning of a word expressed by the word's form. It is the meaning of relationship, manifested not in the word itself but in the dependent element, which is supplementary to its material part.
Differences between lexical and grammatical meanings
Grammatical meaning is more abstract and more generalized in comparison with lexical meaning. Grammatical meaning unites words into big groups (such as parts of speech or lexical- grammatical classes).
E.g. books, pens, boys - the common element is grammatical meaning of plurality
2) Lexical meaning can be observed from another perspective: the meaning of each word has 3 facets. They are the following:
1) the word denotes something (the denotative meaning);
2) the word expresses our attitude to the thing under discussion (the connotative meaning);
3) each word has its own communicative value (that is when, how, where, by whom, in what context the word can be used): the usage of words depends on the communicative situation (formal, informal), the social relations between interlocuters, the type and the purpose of communication. That is the pragmatic facet of word meaning.
Types of connotative meaning
emotional – denotes feelings (terrific)
evaluative – (dis)approval (wicked)
intensifying – to exaggerate (huge)
The structure of a polysemantic word
Words can be polysemantic and monosemantic. The number of monosemantic words is very small (they are usually terms). Most words in a language have more than 1 meaning and such words are called polysemantic.
Polysemy- is the existence within one word of several connected meanings. It is the result of the development and changes of the original meaning. Thus, the semantic structure of a polysemantic word is represented by a set of connected meanings, which go back to one and the same source. The meanings of a polysemantic word are called lexico-semantic variants.
Polysemy can be studied synchronically and diachronically.
A diachronic study will focus on the process of acquiring new meanings.
The first meaning, in which the word appeared in a language, is called the primary meaning. All the other meanings are called secondary or derived meanings.
A synchronic study regards polysemy as co-existence of different meanings of the same word. This study relies on the comparative value of each individual meaning and on frequency of its occurrence in speech.
The basic meaning- is the meaning, which occurs to us first, when we hear or see the word. The basic meaning is usually the most frequent meaning. The basic meaning is also the first meaning in a dictionary entry.
All the other meanings are called minor meanings.