Лексикология английского языка. Учебник

Euphemisms are words instinctively avoided by people because they are considered indecent, indelicate, rude, too direct or impolite. The "offensive" referents, for which these words stand for are described in a round-about way, by using substitutes due to social conventions.

e.g. lavatory: powder room, washroom, restroom,

retiring

room, (public) comfort station, ladies' (room), gentlemen's (room),

water-closet, w.c. ([d0blju:'si:]), public conveniences and even Windsor

castle (which is a comical phrase for "deciphering"

w.c.).

Pregnancy is another topic for "delicate" references: in an interesting condition, in a delicate condition, in the family way, with a baby coming, (big) with child, expecting.

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Trousers: unmentionables, inexpressibles,

indescribables, unwhisperables, you mustn't-men-tion 'ems, situpons. Nowadays, however, nobody seems to regard this word as "indecent" anymore, and so its euphemistic substitutes are no longer in use.

Superstitious taboos gave rise to euphemisms based on a deeply rooted subconscious fear. They have their roots in the distant past of mankind when people believed that there was a supernatural link between a name and the object or creature it represented. Therefore, all the words denoting evil spirits, dangerous animals, or the powers of nature were taboo. If uttered, it was believed that unspeakable disasters would result not only for the speaker but also for those near him.

Euphemisms are probably the oldest type of synonyms.

e.g., devil - the Prince of Darkness, the black one, the evil one, dickens (coll.), deuce (coll.), (Old) Nick (coll.).

God - Good Lord!, By Heavens/, Good Heavens!, (My) goodness!, (My) goodness gracious!, Gracious me!

to die - to pass away, to be taken, to breathe one's last, to depart this life, to close one's eyes, to yield (give) up the ghost,

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to go the way of all flesh, to go West (sl.), to kick off (sl.), to check out (sl.), to kick the bucket (sl.), to take a ride (sl.), to hop the twig (sl.), to join the majority (sl.).

A mad person may be described as insane, mentally unstable, unbalanced, unhinged, not (quite) right (coll.), not all there (coll.), off one's head (coll.), off one's rocker (coll.), wrong in the upper storey (coll.), having bats in one's belfry (coll.), crazy as a bedbug (coll.), cuckoo (sl.), nutty (sl.), off one's nut (sl.), loony (sl.), a mental case, a mental defective, etc.

Their use and very existence are caused either by social conventions or by certain psychological factors. Most of them have stylistic connotations in their semantic structures. As well as a special euphemistic connotation that can be singled out in the semantic structure of each such word. Formal euphemisms are solemn and delicately evasive, while slang euphemisms are rough and somewhat cynical, reflecting an attempt to laugh off an unpleasant fact.

5.

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We use the term antonyms to indicate words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings, such as hot - cold, light - dark, happiness - sorrow, to accept - to reject, up - down. Thus, A can be defined as 2 or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and often used together so that their denotative meanings render contradictory or contrary notions.

If synonyms form whole, often numerous, groups, antonyms are usually believed to appear in pairs. Yet, this is not quite true in reality. For instance, the adjective cold may be said to have warm for its second antonym, and sorrow may be very well contrasted with gaiety.

On the other hand, a polysemantic word may have an antonym (or several antonyms) for each of its meanings. So, the adjective dull has the antonyms interesting, amusing, entertaining for its meaning of "deficient in interest", clever, bright, capable for its meaning of "deficient in intellect", and active for the meaning of "deficient in activity", etc.; a short story – a long story, a short man – a tall man, be short with smb

– be civil with smb.

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Antonymy is not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives which is only natural because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted:

high - low, wide - narrow, strong - weak, old - young, friendly - hostile.

Verbs take second place, so far as antonymy is concerned. Yet, verbal pairs of antonyms are fewer in number. Here are some of them: to lose - to find, to live - to die, to open - to close, to weep - to laugh.

Nouns are not rich in antonyms, but even so some examples can be given friend - enemy, joy - grief, good - evil, heaven - earth, love - hatred.

Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups: a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly - coldly, merrily - sadly, loudly - softly; b) adverbs proper: now - then, here - there, ever - never, up - down, in - out.

The important question of criteria received a new treatment in V.N. Komissarov’s work. According to him, 2 words shall be considered A if they are regularly contrasted in

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actual speech, i.e. if the contrast in their meanings is proved by definite types of contextual co-occurrence.

Another important criterion suggested by him is the possibility of substitution and identical lexical valence: A don’t differ in style, emotional colouring or distribution and are interchangeable at least in some contexts.

Classification:

1)Contradictory A are mutually opposed and deny one another: alive – not dead, impossible – not possible.

Contrary A are also mutually opposed but are gradable: hot – warm – cool – cold.

2)Gradable A are pairs that express relationship in a continuum, the opposite ends of a continuum dimension: up – down.

Complementary A are pairs that express an either/ or relationship: dead – alive.

3)According to the morphological approach root words form absolute/ root A (right - wrong), the presence of negative affixes created derivational A (lucky - unlucky).

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Phraseology

1.Phraseological units as word groups with transferred meanings.

2.Causes of phraseological units

3.Principles of classification.

1.

In the system of vocabulary besides words as single items we find another type of units which are represented by word combinations traditionally called phraseological units. The term was introduced by Academician V.V. Vinogradov. There are some other terms denoting more or less the same linguistic phenomenon: idioms (applied to phraseological units with completely transferred meanings), set-expressions, set-phrases, fixed word-groups, collocations.

e.g., a hard nut, a cold shower, small fry.

The confusion in the terminology reflects insufficiency of criteria by which phraseological units can be distinguished from words and free word groups.

They are different from words in structure, but similar to them in the plane of content as they convey the integrated

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indivisible meaning of a whole. Besides, words and phraseological units have another feature in common: they are kept in human memory as stable units and are thus not created on the spur of the moment, but reproduced ready-made. All this serves as the basis for including them in the vocabulary stock.

There are two major criteria for distinguishing between phraseological units and free word-groups:

-semantic. There is a semantic shift in phraseological units when the meanings of the constituents’ merge to produce an entirely new meaning. Phraseological units are word-groups conveying a single concept whereas in free word-groups each meaningful component stands for a separate concept. Most Russian scholars today accept this criterion as the major one and base their research work on the definition of a phraseological unit offered by Professor Koonin: a phraseological unit is a stable wordgroup characterized by a completely or partially transferred meaning.

-structural. Structural invariability as an essential feature of phraseological unit finds expression in a number of restrictions (restriction in substitution – carry coals to Newcastle – restriction

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in introducing any additional components into the structure – grammatical invariability – find fault, from head to foot).

2.

The following may be perceived as the main causes accounting for the loss of motivation of free word-groups:

1) When one of the components of a word-group becomes archaic or drops out of the language altogether the whole wordgroup may become completely or partially non-motivated. For example, lack of motivation in the word-group kith and kin may be accounted for by the fact that the member-word kith (OE. cÿth) dropped out of the language altogether except as the component of the phraseological unit under discussion. This is also observed in the phraseological unit to and fro, and some others.

2) When as a result of a change in the semantic structure of a polysemantic word some of its meanings disappear and can be found only in certain collocations. The noun mind, e.g., once meant ‘purpose’ or ‘intention’ and this meaning survives in the phrases to have a mind to do smth., to change one’s mind, etc.

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3)When a free word-group used in professional speech penetrates into general literary usage, it is often felt as nonmotivated. To pull (the) strings (wires), e.g., was originally used as a free word-group in its direct meaning by professional actors in puppet shows. In Modern English, however, it has lost all connection with puppet-shows and therefore cannot be described as metaphorically motivated. Lack of motivation can also be observed in the phraseological unit to stick to one’s guns which can be traced back to military English, etc.

4)Sometimes extra-linguistic factors may account for the loss of motivation, to show the white feather — ‘to act as a

coward’, e.g., can be traced back to the days when cock-fighting was popular. A white feather in a gamecock’s plumage denoted bad breeding and was regarded as a sign of cowardice. Now that cock-fighting is no longer a popular sport, the phrase is felt as non-motivated.

5) When a word-group making up part of a proverb or saying begins to be used as a self-contained unit it may gradually become non-motivated if its connection with the corresponding proverb or saying is not clearly perceived. A new broom, e.g., originates as a component of the saying new brooms sweep clean. New broom as a phraseological unit may be viewed as non-

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