2. Слово как основная единица языка. Основные проблемы теории слова.

Word – the basic unit of language, directly corresponds to the object of thought (referent) – which is a generalized reverberation of a certain 'slice', 'piece' of objective reality – and by immediately referring to it names the thing meant.

Every word has two aspects: the outer aspect (its sound form) and the inner aspect (its meaning). Sound and meaning do not always constitute a constant unit even in the same language. E.g., the word «temple» may denote «a part of a human head» and «a large church» In such cases we have homonyms. One and the same word in different syntactical relations can develop different meanings, e.g., the verb «treat» in sentences:

a) He treated my words as a joke.

b) The book treats of poetry.

c) They treated me to sweets.

d) He treats his son cruelly.

In all these sentences the verb «treat» has different meanings and we can speak about polysemy.

On the other hand, one and the same meaning can be expressed by different sound forms, e.g., «pilot», and «airman», «horror» and «terror». In such cases we have synonyms.

Both the meaning and the sound can develop in the course of time independently. E.g., the Old English /luvian/ is pronounced /l^v / in Modern English. On the other hand, «board» primariliy means « a piece of wood sawn thin» It has developed the meanings: a table, a board of a ship, a stage, a council etc.

Syntagmatics – linear (simultaneous) relationship of words in speech as distinct from associative (non-simultaneous) relationship of words in language.

Paradigmatics – 1) associative (non-simultaneous) relationship of words in language as distinct from linear (simultaneous) relationship of words in speech (syntagmatics); relation of units in absentia (e.g., synonymic, antonymic relationships); 2) an approach to language when the elements of its system are regarded as associated units joined by oppositional relationship.

Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion (in many cases the inflexion is zero), e.g.  «seldom», «chairs», «longer», «asked».

Derived words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes and an inlexion, e.g.  «deristricted», «unemployed».

Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an inflexion, e.g.  «Baby-moons», «wait-and-see (policy)».

Compound-derived words consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion, e.g., «middle-of-the-roaders», «job-hopper».

When speaking about the structure of words stems also should be mentioned. The stem is the part of the word which remains unchanged throughout the paradigm of the word, e.g.  the stem «hop» can be found in the words: «hop», «hops», «hopped», «hopping».  The stem «hippie» can be found in the words: «hippie», «hippies», «hippie’s», «hippies’».  The stem «job-hop» can be found in the words: «job-hop», «job-hops», «job-hopped», «job-hopping».

So, stems, the same as words, can be simple, derived, compound and compound-derived. Stems have not only the lexical meaning but also grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning, they can be noun stems («girl» in the adjective «girlish»), adjective stems («girlish» in the noun «girlishness»), verb stems («expell» in the noun «expellee») etc. They differ from words by the absence of inflexions   in their structure, they can be used only in the structure of words.

Sometimes it is rather difficult to distinguish between simple and derived words, especially in the cases of phonetic borrowings from other languages and of native words with blocked (unique) root morphemes, e.g., «perestroika», «cranberry», «absence» etc. Plato’s work: words are names or labels for things.

Aristotle: the smallest significant unit of speech.

The size-of-unit (проблема отдельности слова) considers words as separate units in the flow of speech (where one word ends and the other word begins).

The identity-of-unit-problem establishes where one word ends and another begins on the dictionary level.

Different or one word?

Custom (обычай)

Customs (таможня)

In the Longman dictionary - one word despite various.

In the Cambridge dictionary there are free different entries (the case of “custom” is a homonym).

Speaking about different types of relationship between expression and content. We should bear in mind one to one correspondence between them is very rare in natural human languages.

For example: polycemy means singleness of form and multiplicity of content.

It’s an instance of the violation the law of the sign which prescribes the direct correspondence of expression of content.

But it’s not typical of the vocabulary of natural language.

Other examples of the violation of the law of the sign.

Homonymy and Synonymy

Identity of expression singleness of content

Difference of context variability of expression

 hair - hare

But the law of the sign is not always violated, there are cases of smaller disagreement between expression and content.

Variants of one and the same word. (Phonetic, morphologic, semantic are discussed under the title of the identity-of-unit-problem)

The expression plane or content plane of the word may vary. But these variations may not be significant enough to split the word up into different units.

Any language is peculiar and semiological system. In the written form of a language the flow of speech is neatly divided.

In oral speech we do not make pauses after every word -> words get fused together. Some lexical items become small and even disappear altogether. The problem is how do we know what the word is (the boundaries, the separatability of a word)- the size- of- unit problem.

These problems the singling out of words in speech.

1. Is the article a word in some sense as a noun?

2. Hyphens - in a merry-go- round

3. Compounds- classmates?

4. Abbreviations MPs- one word or two?

The segmentation of the flow of speech into words can be achieved if speech is investigated as 3 levels:

1. the feature level

2. semantic level

3. metasemiotic level

The feature level: in every language there are typical combinations of sounds which occur on word boundaries.

The study of the phoneme clusters is called phonotactic.  Vowels- never clusters  Consonants- clusters       - prevocalic splash       - postvocalic checked, means - intervocalic

There are some consonants that never cluster: spw, kf, chm

The rules of phonotactics can be applied to find the word boundaries. The semantic level; we deal with syntactic prosody, which serves to express syntactic relation between the utterances. Pauses are used to identity meaningful bits of information. On the first floor// there is a nursery The metasemiotic level: speech become rather expressive, separate words give them special emphasize to make them sound more important. We are friends. Are we not? We should analyse the relationship between language units (phonemes, morphemes, words)

All this help to find boundaries.

The division of flow of speech into words is closely connected with syllable division. The singling out of words depends on syllable stereotype of a given language. Type of word stress is also very important.

From the point of view of lexicologist there are 3 types of word stress in English: 

1.Unifying: music, future

2.Primary (secondary: gravitation, cooperation, melodrama)

3.Even (ровное): broad- minded, blue-eyed

These factors help us to find the word boundaries. English is an analytical language. It tends to bring its units into complexes, rather than use morphological combination, which is typical of synthetic of flexion languages (Russian, French, German)

This tendency is obvious in isolating language, where all words are invariable and syntactic relationships between them are shown by word order. English in its development goes into direction of isolating lang-s. At the lexical level there are lots of multistructural units, which functioning as a single word.

MULTISTRUCTURAL UNITS.

1.) Loose compounds (свободн.сложение слова) - stone wall - speech sound The categorical nature of the first component here is vague (неясная) If we treat it as an adjective formed by means of conversion from the noun -> the whole complex- word combination, both elements are combinated. If 1-st component is a noun -> the whole complex- a compound word, because two nouns in common case by means of prep.of conjunction. Unstable compounds (sometimes) they may turn into real word combination.  haircut  busdriver There are usually pronounced with a strong unifying stress. If we compare: blood pressure with haircut             picture gallery             they carry two stresses -> they are regarded as word combinations. Much depends on their nomination as well, when 2 elements of these two compounds express a complex notion and are “rolled into one whole” and become a single word.  black board – blackboard  green house- greenhouse (теплица) Being an analytical language English has a number of features:

1.) the word order is fixed, used as means of express of grammatical category.

2.) Prosody becomes an organizing factor in constructing speech.

3.) The number of inflections is reduced, because there is no morphological in case and gender.

Loose compounds manifest these features most clearly. The nature of loose compounds is motivated by word order and prosody; they are pronounced with unifying stress and without pauses.

2.) String compounds- complexes of the parts of speech type (слож. сложного синтаксического типа) - merry-go-round - “don’t- tell- me- where – to- put- my- socks” look (взгляд) - forget- me- not They have no direct equivalent in Russian.  lamp-shade (абажур)  highway (шоссе)  flower bed (клумба) Sometimes the translation easy, sometimes difficult  -red-haired (рыжеволосый)  -bald –headed (лысый) They are not distinguished from the traditional words. Such syntactic words are a powerful stylistic device.  It was dark- ground- freezing- pre- Thanksgiving weather. At 1-st sight, the word appears to be the easiest thing to define, however it still presents much arguing, but all the scholars -> the word is the basic unit of the vocabulary, the highest unit of the morphology, because it consists of morphemes and the lowest unit of  syntax ( it serves building material for word combinations).