Экзаменационный билет № 24

1. Derivational bases

The derivational bases is the part of the word which establishes connections with the lexical unit that motivates the derivative and defines its lexical meaning. The rule of word formation is applied. Structurally, they fall into 3 classes: 1. bases that coincide with morphological stems (e.g. beautiful (d.b.) - beautifully); 2. bases that coincide with word-forms (e.g. unknown - known); 3. bases that coincide with word groups; adjectives and nouns (e.g. blue-eyed – having blue eyes, easy-going).

2. Emotive charge and stylistic reference

The emotive charge is the emotive evaluation inherent in the connotational component of the lexical meaning (e.g. "notorious" => [widely known] => for criminal acts, bad behaviour, bad traits of character; "famous" => [widely known] => for special achievement etc.).

Positive/Negative evaluation; emotive charge/stylistic value.

"to love" - neutral

"to adore" - to love greatly => the emotive charge is higher than in "to love"

"to shake" - neutral.

"to shiver" - is stronger => higher emotive charge.

Mind that the emotive charge is not a speech characteristic of the word. It's a language phenomenon => it remains stable within the basical meaning of the word.

The emotive charge varies in different word-classes. In some of them, in interjections (междометия), e.g., the emotive element prevails, whereas in conjunctions the emotive charge is as a rule practically non-existent. The emotive implication of the word is to a great extent subjective as it greatly depends of the personal experience of the speaker, the mental imagery the word evokes in him. (hospital – architect, invalid or the man living across the road)

If associations with the lexical meaning concern the situation, the social circumstances (formal/informal), the social relations between the interlocutors (polite/rough), the type or purpose of communication (poetic/official)the connotation is stylistically coloured. It is termed as stylistic reference. The main stylistic layers of the vocabulary are:

Literary "parent" "to pass into the next world" - bookish

Neutral "father" "to die"

Colloquial "dad" "to kick the bucket"

In literary (bookish) words we can single out: 1) terms or scientific words (e.g. renaissance, genocide, teletype); 2) poetic words and archaisms (e.g. aught—'anything', ere—'before', nay—'no'); 3) barbarisms and foreign words (e.g. bouquet).

The colloquial words may be, subdivided into:

1. Common colloquial words.

2. Slang (e.g. governor for 'father', missus for 'wife', a gag for 'a joke', dotty for 'insane').

3. Professionalisms - words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation (e.g., lab for 'laboratory', a buster for 'a bomb').

4. Jargonisms - words marked by their use within a particular social group and bearing a secret and cryptic character (e.g. a sucker - 'a person who is easily deceived').

5. Vulgarisms - coarse words that are not generally used in public (e.g. bloody, hell, damn, shut up)

1. Dialectical words (e.g. lass – девчушка, kirk - церковь).

2. Colloquial coinages (e.g. newspaperdom, allrightnik)

Stylistic reference and emotive charge of words are closely connected and to a certain degree interdependent. As a rule stylistically coloured words - words belonging to all stylistic layers except the neutral style are observed to possess a considerable emotive charge (e.g. daddy, mammy are more emotional than the neutral father, mother).