15. Word-building: Blends.

Blendings (blends, fusions or portmanteau words) may be defined as formation

that combine two words that include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element (slimnastics < slim+gymnasttcs; mimsy < miserable+flimsy;

galumph < gallop+triumph; neutopia < new+utopia). The process of formation is also

called telescoping. The analysis into immediate constituents is helpful in so far as it

permits the definition of a blend as a word with the first constituent represented by a

stem whose final part may be missing, and the second constituent by a stem of which

the initial part is missing. The second constituent when used in a series of similar

blends may turn into a suffix. A new suffix -on; is, for instance, well under way in

such terms as nylon, rayon, silon, formed from the final element of cotton. This

process seems to be very active. In present-day English numerous new words have

been coined recently: Reaganomics, Irangate, blacksploitation, workaholic,

foodoholic, scanorama etc.

15. Semasiology. Polysemantic English words.

 Semasiology is the branch of the study of language dealing with the meaning of words and word equivalents. If treated synchronically semasiology deals not with individual words but with semantic structures typical of the language studied and of its general semantic system. If treated diachronically semasiology studies the change in meaning which words undergo. Thus the main aims of semasiology are distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of words, semantic development of words, its changes and classification, semantic groupings in the vocabulary system (synonyms, antonyms etc). 2. Semasiology deals mostly with notional words. Actually the definition of a word as a maximum free from holds good for notional words only. It is only notional words that can stand alone, have meaning and form a complete utterance. They can name different objects of reality, the qualities of these objects and actions in which they take part. In sentences they may function both as primary or secondary members. Form or functional words on the contrary are lexical units which are in reference to them. This group comprises auxiliary verbs, prepositions and conjunctions. Primarily they express grammatical relationships between words. At the same time we can’t see that they have no lexical meaning of their own. 3. Lexical meaning of a word is the realization of the notion by means of a definite language system. Thus lexical meaning is not identical to notion but it may reflect human notions and in this sense may be considered as the form of their existence. The lexical meaning of a word may have several components. First of all, the denotational components which make communication possible, in other words it is the notional content of a word. They may have connotational components in which we distinguish emotive charge, stylistic reference, expressivity and evaluation. 4. Words may have more than one meaning. Such words are called polysemantic. Polysemy exists only in language. All the meanings of a polysemantic word form its semantic structure. In other words it is defined as a structural set of interrelated elements. The semantic structure of a word is also a fact of language, not of speech. Every separate meaning of a word in its semantic structure is called a lexica-semantic variant. Lexica-semantic variants may be direct \ nominative and figurative, abstract and concrete, main \ primary and secondary, narrow extended, general and particular, stylistically neutral and stylistically coloured, archaic \ obsolete and present-day \ modern, the original ones and tee rived ones etc. One and the same LSV may belong to different groups. 5. The problem of polysemy is mainly the problem of interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings of the same polysemantic word. Polysemy may be view synchronically and diachronically. If view synchronically, it is understood as coexistence of the various meaning of eth same word at a certain period of time and the arrangement of these meanings in the semantic structure of the word. Polysemy viewed diachronically is a historical change in the meanings being added to the words already existing and in the rearrangement of these meaning in its semantic structure. 6. There are various types of semantic changes. All the types depend upon some comparison between the earlier and the new meaning of a given word. Semantic changes are usually classified as: enlargement or extension of meaning, narrowing, generalization, specialization, transfer, metaphor and metonymy, irradiation, amelioration, pejoration.