Semantics semantic grouping

Semantics is the branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of linguistic units.

Linguistic Unit is a discrete part of the linguistic stream at any level of analysis (morpheme, word, phrase, etc.)

A linguistic unit (linguistic sign) has two sides: outer side – the sound or graphic form, and inner side – the meaning.

Meaning is the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself.

Types Of Meaning:

Grammatical meaning is the component of meaning repeated (or recurrent) in identical sets of individual forms of different words.

E.g., books, desks, pens – the grammatical meaning of plurality.

Lexical meaning is the meaning proper to the linguistic unit in all its forms.

E.g., goes, went, going – these forms possess different grammatical meanings but the same semantic component denoting the process of movement. This is the lexical meaning of the word ‘go’.

Lexical meaning (the realization of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system) includes denotative and connotative components of meaning.

Denotative meaning is the notional content of a linguistic unit. This is the component of meaning which makes communication possible. This is the meaning primarily listed in linguistic dictionaries (general, explanatory, translation)

E.g., smelt: a small silvery food fish (the basic denotative meaning).

Connotation is a suggestive power of a word, it can arouse certain feelings about the referent. The feelings may not give an accurate representation of the denoted object, but they can often move one to action by their very strength. Names like smelt have inappropriate connotations for the average consumer. Connotation is the pragmatic communicative value the word receives by virtue of where, when, how, by whom, for what purpose and in what contexts it is or may be used. Types of connotation: stylistic, emotional, evaluative and expressive or intensifying.

Stylistic: associations concern the situation in which the word is uttered (formal, familiar), social relationship between the people (polite, rough), the type and purpose of communication (learned, poetic, official).

E.g., slay (poetic) – kill (neutral) – do in (slang)

Emotional or affective connotations: mammy v. mother

Evaluative connotations express approval or disapproval.

E.g., group v. clique

Intensifying connotations express the degree of intensity.

E.g., worship, adore, love, like; tremendous, great

Words may have two or three connotations at once.

E.g., beastly weather – emotional, colloquial, intensifying. (three connotations at once).

Semantic change (change of meaning), the development and change of the semantic structure of a linguistic unit in the course of time.

Types Of Semantic Change

Specialization is the reduction of scope of the meaning. A word which formerly represented a notion of a broader scope has come to render a notion of a narrower scope. When the meaning is specialized, the word can name fewer objects, i. e. have fewer referents. At the same time the content of the notion is being enriched, as it includes a greater number of relevant features.

E.g., business started out as a general term meaning literally “busy-ness”, one’s proper concern.” Then it picked up the narrower meaning of “commercial dealings.”

Generalization or widening of meaning: the scope of the new notion is wider than that of the original one (hence widening), whereas the content of the notion is poorer. In most cases generalization is combined with a higher order of abstraction than in the notion expressed by the earlier meaning.

E.g., a picture was once a painted representation of something seen; now any visual representation – photograph, pen and ink, crayon – is a picture.

Metaphor is a transfer of name based on the association of similarity and thus is actually a hidden comparison. It presents a method of description which likens one thing to another by referring to it as if it were some other one.

E.g., a loud check; That show’s a lemon.

Metonymy is a transfer of name based on the association of contiguity. It is a shift of names between objects that are known to be in some way or other connected in reality. The transfer may be conditioned by spatial, temporal, causal, symbolic, instrumental, functional and other relations.

E.g., The chair may mean ‘the chair-man’, the bar ‘the lawyers’, the pulpit ‘the priests’. The word town may denote the inhabitants of a town.

Ellipsis is the formal metonymy-forming mechanism. Ellipses is defined as the omission of a word or words considered essential for grammatical completeness but not for the conveyance of the intended lexical meaning.

Changes depending on the social attitude to the object named, connected with social evaluation and emotional tone, are called amelioration and pejoration of meaning.

Amelioration or elevation is a semantic shift undergone by words due to their referents coming up the social scale. E.g., OE cwen (a woman)> ModE queen (a female monarch).

Pejoration or degradation involves a lowering in the social scale.

E.g., A knave < OE cnafa ║ Germ. Knabe meant at first ‘boy’ then ‘servant’, and finally became a term of abuse.

Euphemism (Gk euphemismos from eu ‘well’ and pheme ‘speak’) is the substitution of words of mild or vague connotations for expressions rough, unpleasant or for some other reasons unmentionable.

E.g., senior citizen – an old person who has retired from active work or employment; in the hereafter – dead

POLYSEMY is the possession of multiple meaning; or the representation of two or more meanings by a single form.

Polysemantic word is a word that has more than one meaning.

HOMONYMS are two or more words identical in sound and/or spelling but different in meaning, distribution and (in many cases) origin.

Homonyms Proper are words identical in sound and spelling.

E.g., ring, a round band; ring, an audible signal.

Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning.

E.g., foul – fowl; moose – mousse; lynx – links

Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling: bow [bou] – bow [bau].

Patterned homonymy is characteristic of homonyms that have developed from one common source, possess identical lexical meaning and belong to various parts of speech. E.g., stone n. – stone v.; drive v. – drive n.; love n. – love (v.)

Full homonyms are words that are homonymous in all their forms (complete homonymy).

E. g. seal – any of various aquatic mammals with a sleek, torpedo-shaped body and limbs in the form of flippers; seal – a die or signet with a raised or incised emblem used to stamp an impression on a substance such as wax or lead.

Partial homonyms are words that are homonymous in some of their forms (partial homonymy, characterisic of words belonging to different lexico-grammatical classes).

E. g. seal n. – an aquatic mammal (seal, seal’s, seals, seals’)

seal v. to close tightly (seal, seals, sealed, sealing)

PARONYMS are words that are kindred both in sound and meaning and therefore liable to be mixed but in fact are different in meaning and usage and therefore only mistakenly interchanged.

E.g., canal – channel; hanged – hung; assure – ensure

LEXICAL VARIANTS are examples of free variation in language, in so far as they are not conditioned by contextual environment but are optional with the individual speaker.

E.g., northward/norward; whoever/whosoever; betw./btwn/between

SYNONYMS are two or more words of the same language, belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable, at least in some contexts, without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but differing in morphemic composition, phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, affective value, style, valency and idiomatic use.

Synonymic group is a group consisting of two or more synonymous words.

E.g., baby, child, infant; sky, heaven

Synonymic dominant is the most general term of its kind potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the other members of the synonymic group.

E.g., entire – complete, full, intact, total, whole

Ideographic synonyms are words that are similar both in their denotational and in their connotational meaning(s).

E.g., to look – to glance – to gaze; battle – fight

Stylistic synonyms are words that are similar in their denotational meaning(s) but different in their connotational meaning(s).

E.g., motherly – maternal; to put off – to postpone

Ideographic-stylistic synonyms possess similarity and difference both in their denotational and connotational meanings.

E.g., pause, a brief rest or a momentary suspension of action; respite (a much more formal word), an interval of relief, as from some source of strain.

Contextual or context-dependent synonyms are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions. It may happen that the difference between the meanings of two words is contextually neutralized.

E.g., the verbs bear, stand and suffer are interchangeable only when used in the negative form.

Total (absolute) synonyms are words interchangeable in any context without the slightest alteration in denotative or connotative meaning.

E.g., donor – source-language – source (of borrowing); moneme – simplex– root word – simple word

HYPONYMY is the type of paradigmatic relationship when a specific term is included in a generic one.

E.g., pup is the hyponym of dog, and dog is the hyponym of animal.

Hyperonym is the name for the notion of the genus as distinguished from the names of the species.

E.g., animal is a generic term as compared to the specific names wolf, dog, mouse (which are not synonymous). Dog, in its turn, may serve as a generic term (hyperonym) for different breeds such as bull-dog, collie, poodle, etc., which are hyponyms of dog. Bull-dog, collie, poodle are equonyms or co-hyponyms

ANTONYMS are two or rarely more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and used together so that their denotative meanings render contrary or contradictory notions.

E.g., light – heavy; light – dark

The semantic polarity in Antonyms Proper is relative, the opposition is gradual, it may embrace several elements characterized by different degrees of the same property. They always imply comparison.

E.g., clever – foolish; beautiful – ugly

Complementarity is a binary opposition; it may have only two members; the denial of one member of the opposition implies the assertion of the other. Complementary is a word that with another word forms a pair of mutually exclusive opposites.

E.g., male – female; life – death; married – single

Conversives denote one and the same referent as viewed from different points of view, that of the subject and that of the object.

E.g., teach – learn; buy – sell

Reversives are verbs or respective deverbals denoting the reverse or the undoing of the action expressed by one of them.

E.g., tie – untie; marry – divorce

Absolute antonyms, root antonyms are words of different roots.

E.g., right – wrong; clear – vague; clean – dirty

Derivational antonyms. The affixes in them serve to deny the quality stated in the stem.

E.g., appear – disappear; happiness –unhappiness

IDIOMS

Phraseology, 1. Part of vocabulary comprising set expressions. 2. A branch of linguistics studying these.

Set Expressions Versus Free Phrases

Set expressions (blocks consisting of more than one word) are not created in speech but introduced into the act of communication ready-made like words. The word-group is a set expression if its elements or word order are always the same or substitution is only pronominal or restricted to a few synonyms for one of the members only, i.e., they possess lexical and structural stability.

E.g., a) no substitution is possible in tit for tat; to and fro; red tape; let bygones be bygones; tooth and nail; knife and fork; heir apparent

b) synonymous substitution for one member: to ring false (hollow); artificial (false) teeth

c) pronominal substitution: eat one’s heart out – she eats her heart out; lead somebody the life of a dog – he led his son the life of a dog; shake one’s head – he shook his head.

d) syntactical and morphological variability: break the ice: He broke the ice – the ice was broken.

A free phrase permits substitution of any of its elements without the change of meaning of its other elements.

E.g., a weak man; a weak body; weak eyes; a strong man; sore eyes, etc. Cf. a weak sister – U. S. sl. an unreliable and timid man.

Free (changeable) word-groups are relatively free. The combinative power of words is limited by the following factors:

1. Logical factor : One can drink only liquids, listen to smth. that sounds, etc., to read books, to drink water (*to read liquids, *to drink books).

2. Linguistic factors: a) National peculiarities of the semantic structure of words denoting identical or similar concepts. E.g., drive at a certain speed. High and tall are sometimes interchangeable: high/tall trees, houses; but not *tall wall or a *high man. This limitation can be observed in the traditional usage of words but cannot be accounted for by logical reasons.b) Grammatical relations between words.E.g., adverbs cannot be combined with nouns, or numerals with prepositions.c) Stylistic factors. Words of different stylistic reference normally cannot be combined within one and the same structural formula. E.g., to commence (literary word) cannot be combined within the structural formula V+V with such words as to scrub, to scratch, to wash (unless aiming at a humorous effect): *She commenced to scrub the floor.

Set expressions are either idiomatic or non-idiomatic.

E.g., idiomatic: to be getting on (to age, to get older); pepper and salt ( black or dark hair mixed with streaks of gray); to make up for smth. (to compensate for smth); to take off (of an airplane) ( to rise up in flight); non-idiomatic: to take off (to remove (clothing or anything on the body); to shrug one’ shoulders; that is easier said than done; better late than never.

All linguistic units are either idiomatic or non-idiomatic.

Idiomatic units lack predictability of meaning, i.e., the meaning is not deducible from the meaning of individual components (criterion of idiomaticity).

E.g., to be a real cool cat – to be a really calm person

to blow one’s stack – to lose control over oneself

to become mad

to fly off the handle – to become excessively

angry

left-handed – crooked, phoney

lemon – anything unsatisfactory

Idioms comprise the following structural types:

1. root (simple) words: a cold greeting

2. derived (affixed) words: The proposal was received with coldness.

3. compounds: to cold-shoulder smb.

4. compound derivatives: cold-bloodedness

5. phrases: cold feet (reluctance), to catch cold, cold as hell

6. clauses/sentences: wild horses shall not drag it from me; that’s a horse of the same colour; till the cows come home.

Idioms are fixed (set, usual) and nonce (occasional, free).

E.g., usual (fixed): a cold greeting, to catch cold, to cold-shoulder smb.

nonce (free, occasional): a glaring error, the leaves fell sorrowfully.

Idiomatic Paradigm is a set of structurally different linguistic items produced from a single idiomatic core (kernel).

E.g., You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

to scratch one’s back

back-scratching

back-scratcher

idiomatic core: back + scratch

Form realization is determined by an actual context.

E.g., It was a case generally of ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’ (Dreiser)

I don’t mind scratching her back because she’s done me several favours in the past. (Clark. Word…)

No law can eliminate backscratching, favoritism. (Barnhart)

Contextual Transformation Of Idioms

1. Component replacement, substitution of a synonym, antonym or a non-synonym for one of the idiomatic core components.

E.g., I positively refuse to understand those who anywhere and everywhere wish to make hell while the sun shines. (Kuzmin) (fr. make hay while the sun shines).

2. Component addition (insersion)

E.g., I clutched at it like a drowning man at a strawhat. (Wodehouse. Life…) to grasp/clutch at a straw (straws)

3. Component reduction

“Oh, well,” said Semyon Mikhailovich, “Blood out of a stone! Can you play the International?” (Kuzmin) (fr. You can’t get blood out of a stone).

4. Structural (syntactical or morphological) transformation aiming at adjusting the grammatical structure of a phrase to the context.

E.g., He is deader than a doornail (fr. dead as a doornail).

5. Allusion, structural decomposition of an idiom with an idiomatic core partially preserved and employed in building up new images through sustained metaphor or free non-idiomatic word-groups.

E. g. There once were two cats of Kilkenny,

Each thought there was one cat too many,

So they fought and they fit,

And they scratched and they hit,

Till instead of two cats there weren’t any. (Poems to Enjoy) (fr. to fight like Kilkenny cats)

Features Enhancing Unity And Stability Of Idiomatic Set Expressions

1. Alliteration: safe and sound; first and fast; spick and span; make a mountain out of a molehill

2. Reiteration: end to end; hand in hand; face to face; let bygones be bygones; day by day

3. Rhythm: by fits and starts; heart and soul; high and mighty; burst with joy or pride

4. Rhyme: fair and square; town and gown; by hook or by crook; no pains, no gains; birds of a feather flock together

5. Obsolete elements: tit for tat; to and fro; to buy a pig in a poke; hue and cry

6. Simile: as hard as nails; cool as a cucumber; look like a million dollars; cute as a button

7. Contrast: more or less; sooner or later; neither here nor there; either a feast or a famine; make head or tail of; make or break

8. Metaphor: a couch potato; goldfish bowl; in a nutshell; to break ice

9. Synonymy: by leaps and bounds; betwixt and between; hue and cry

10. Pun: as cross as two sticks; nutty as a fruitcake

Classification Of Set Expressions

Semantic Classification of Acad. V. V. Vinogradov

1. Phraseological fusions (фразеологические сращения) are completely non-motivated.

The meaning of components has no connection with the meaning of the whole. Fusions cannot be translated literally into other languages.

E.g., mare’s nest – a discovery that proves to be worthless

to play footsie – to engage in any sort of flirtation or

collaboration, especially in a political situation

2. Phraseological unities (фразеологические единства) are partially non-motivated. Their meaning can be understood through the metaphorical image of the whole.

E.g., to show one’s teeth – to take a threatening tone

to cry for the moon – to want smth. that is impossible to get

Some of the unities are easily translated and are even international.

E.g., to take the bull by the horns – взять быка за рога

a bull in a china shop – слон в посудной лавке

if you run after two hares you will catch neither – за двумя зайцами погонишься, ни одного не поймаешь

3. Phraseological combinations (фразеологические сочетания) are motivated; they contain one element that is used in its direct meaning, others are used metaphorically.

E.g., to bear a grudge against smb. – to persist in bearing ill feeling toward someone after a quarrel or period of hostility

to lose heart – to lose courage, confidence, hope

not to care a hoot – not to care the smallest bit

Functional/Structural Classification of Set Expressions

A set expression functioning in speech is equivalent to definite classes of words or to complete sentences.

1. Nominal: mare’s nest; bundle of laughs; gut feeling

2. Verbal: play the second fiddle; burn one’s fingers; do up brown

3. Adjectival: dead as a doornail; in the wrong; out of sorts

4. Adverbial: tooth and nail; head and shoulders; out of thin air; to boot

5. Prepositional: in the course of; on top of; up against; by dint of

6. Conjunctional: as long as; as though; as soon as; so that

7. Interjectional: by all that’s blue; for shame; all right for you

Within each class a further structural subdivision is necessary.

E.g.,

I. Nominal set expressions

N + N a powder barrel – set of circumstances, cause of disagreement, in a relation between nations that may produce a sudden violent explosion, leading to war

N’s + N mare’s nest – nonsense

N + prep + N the arm of the law

N + and + N all the world and his wife – everybody

A+N red tape – needless but official delays

N + subordinate clause ships that pass in the night – people who have only one (accidental) meeting

II.Verbal set expressions

V + N to give the ax – abruptly to finish a relationship

V + post positive to put off – to cause confusion in; embarrass

V + and + V to draw and quarter – to punish someone very severely

V + one’s +N + prep to turn one’s back on – to refuse to help

V + subordinate clause to know which side one's bread is buttered on – to know who can help you and try to please him

III. Adjectival set expressions

A + and + A high and mighty – too proud of yourself

(as) + A + as + N as hard as nails – cruel, and unsympathetic

IV. Adverbial set expressions

N + conj. + N head and shoulders – by far; very much

Prep + N by inches – little by little, gradually

Conj + clause till the cows come home – until the last

Contextual Classification of Set Expressions of prof. N.N. Amosova

Set expressions are units of fixed context. They are of two types – phrasemes and idioms.

Phrasemes: blank verse, cold weapon, small hours, to crack a joke. Phrasemes are always binary, i.e., they have two components. One of them (verse, hours, weapon, joke) serves as the determining context. This word is usually used in its central meaning. The other component has a phraseologically bound meaning (crack, cold, small, blank).

1. Idioms: mare’s nest, red tape, to buy a pig in a poke. The meaning of the idiom is created by the unit as a whole. Idioms may comprise unusual combinations of words which normally are not used together.

E.g., horsefeathers! – not true; I don’t believe what you are saying.

Synonymous Set Expressions

Synonyms are two or more set expressions possessing nearly identical denotational meaning, interchangeable at least in some contexts, but differing in shades of meaning, connotations, lexical composition, and imagery.

E.g., in for a penny in for a pound – as well be hung for a lamb as for a sheep; have a time – have a ball; in secret – in private; made of money – money to burn

Antonymous Set Expressions

Antonyms are two or more set expressions possessing opposite or contradictory meaning.

E.g., at ease – ill at ease; keep track – lose track; a bed of thorns – in clover

1 aphaeretic – shortened by the omission of the first letter(s) or syllable

2 apocopated – shortened by the omission of the last letter(s) or syllable

3 syncopated – shortened by the omission of the letter(s) or syllable from the middle of a word