Лексикология английского языка. Учебник

purpose, etc. All these types of objective properties correlate with basic and derived potential semes.

e.g., book

basic: 1) a number of sheets of paper, 2) with a text printed, 3) fastened together in a cover; derived: author, standard print, message, small size, hard cover.

Semes may also be: categorical (in large groups of words) and individual (peculiar to single words).

b)

The connotational component of lexical meaning is often termed a stylistic reference of a word. Or sometimes it is called a social meaning or a pragmatic meaning. In the latter case the meaning of a word points to the sphere of its application (everyday life, business, science, etc.) The stylistic reference is observed when we compare words with their neutral synonyms.3

Stylistic reference can be roughly subdivided into literary and non-literary levels. Against the background of

3 The greater part of the English vocabulary are words of general use, neutral words possessing no stylistic reference or emotive charge, no stylistic colouring.

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neutral words, we can distinguish words belonging to special literary/ colloquial vocabulary, words conventionally appropriate in formal/ informal communication (e.g. father

(neutral) – parent (literary) – dad (colloquial); child (neutral) – infant (literary) – kid (colloquial); man (neutral) – person

(literary) – fellow (colloquial); wife (neutral) – spouse (literary)

– my better half (colloquial)).

So the connotational component may contain 1) emotiveness, expressiveness, evaluation or may 2) point to the social sphere of human activity, that comprises the stylistic colouring of a word.4

Expressiveness is a broader notion than emotiveness and it aims at intensification of an utterance both emotional and logical. It is often accompanied by certain shades or nuances of meaning (for instance, good, bad, derogatory, contemptuous, humorous, ironical, diminutive, vulgar, etc.). Evaluation can be highly emotional (for instance, in qualitative adjectives, in epithets). Meaning may contain a purely emotional element and

4 Academician Sherba L.V. compared a stylistically coloured word (with a pronounced stylistic connotation) with a drop of paint added to a glass of pure water and colouring the whole of it.

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may be devoid of evaluation (see, for instance, interjections that convey feelings, emotions of a speaker/ a writer).

The emotive component of meaning and stylistic reference may be part of the dictionary meaning present in the word in isolation and may be part of the contextual meaning of the word emerging in it as a result of its correlation with other words in the given context. E.g., contextual meanings co-exist with other meanings as in Shakespeare’s “Madrigal” in the phrase “my love is young” the contextual meaning of the word “young” is “new”, “fresh”, goes alongside the dictionary meaning “not middle-aged or old”.

In the belles-lettres style (poetry, emotive prose and drama) contextual meanings are frequently imposed on ordinary words. Contextual meanings particularly emotive ones may permeate an entire utterance giving it a subjective evaluation, conveying the author’s attitude to it.

Not all words have connotative power (R. Altick. Preface to Critical Reading). Most words which stand for ideas have connotations even though they are often scarcely perceptible. That is because ideas themselves have connotations: they produce some sort of intellectual or emotional reactions inside

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us. Articles, conjunctions, prepositions, many common adverbs lack connotative qualities because they are words used to connect ideas and to show relationship between them, or to modify their meanings; these parts of speech do not themselves stand for ideas.

According to modern approach to lexical meaning the CC includes connotations of different types:

1)degree or intensity (like-admire-love-adore-worship),

2)of duration (stare-glare-gaze-glance-peep-peer),

3)emotive (tremble-shiver-shudder) different nature or emotions,

4)evaluative (speaker’s attitude) famous-notorious,

5)causative (sparkle – positive emotion, glitter – negative emotion),

6)manner (feelings of different type),

7)attendant circumstances/ features (beautiful – classic features, handsome – tall, robust, pretty – delicate features),

8)stylistic (girl – girlie (coll.), lassie (dial), maiden (poet)).

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4.

I Causes

1) Historical/ extra-linguistic – changes in a nation’s social life, culture, knowledge, technology, arts. New objects, concepts, phenomena must be named.

e.g., carriage – a vehicle drawn by horses; a railway car.

Stalls, box, pit, circle – theatrical terms.

2) Linguistic – influence of other words, mostly synonyms

e.g., steorvian: OE – to perish, ME – to starve when “to die” was borrowed from Scandinavian.

Deer: OE – any animal.

II Semantic Process

The process of development of a new meaning is termed transference. Not a meaning but a word is being transferred from

1 referent to another. There’re 2 types of transference depending on the 2 types of logical associations underlying the semantic process.

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1)Transference based on resemblance (similarity) – metaphor. A new meaning is a result of associating 2 objects due to their

outward similarity.

e.g., eye of a needle, neck of a bottle, branch, star.

2) Transference based on contiguity – metonymy. It is based on psychological links b/w different objects and phenomena: common situations, a part and a whole, cause and effect, common function, material and object made of it.

e.g., glad, sad, foot of a mountain, leg of a bed, arms of an armchair.

III Results

1) Broadening (generalization) – narrowing (specialization)

e.g., arrive – come ashore, land,

pipe – musical instrument,

deer – any animal,

meat – any food

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2) Degeneration (degradation) – elevation of a referent e.g., silly (happy) – foolish,

knight (man servant) – noble man,

lord (master of the house) – baronet (aristocratic title).

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Polysemy as a Means of Secondary Nomination

1.The nature of polysemy

2.A lexico-semantic variant (LSV), it notion

3.Types of LSVs

1.

Language which is comparatively independent of both reality and thinking doesn’t mirror the outside world. It reflects reality in the way peculiar to human language alone. So does the vocabulary system whose main task is to draw the notional picture of the world in lexical meanings. Within language there have developed the phenomena which reveal the intrinsic characteristics of language units and disclose the basic principles of their structure. Among such language categories we find polysemy.

To give it a working definition polysemy is the ability of a word to have several related meanings at a time, i.e., to denote different but in one way or another connected classes of objects, qualities, relations, etc.

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In terms of the theory of signs it means that 1 and the same plane of expression corresponds to a number of planes of content.

To qualify polysemy as a purely language feature we must find a strong argument to bring out its difference from what it is analogous to in reality. There is nothing in the definition of polysemy to make it a specifically language category. Polysemy is a grouping of related meanings. In reality we are faced with groupings of objects, the basis of connection being situation. In language the main principle is a certain similarity of meanings, a common semantic component. So it is a peculiar relationship between separate meanings within word structures that specifies polysemy as a purely language category.

Polysemy is basically and directly dependent on the outside world. The notion forming mind generalizes several essential traits of objects and by comparing them isolates those common to many objects. Polysemy is the ability of language to nominate phenomena of reality by employing the already existing means of expression: different objects are examined and those with common

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aspects are brought together to have 1 and the same plane of expression. Thus, polysemy is another means of secondary nomination.

2.

Members of a word structure related in their meanings are called LSVs. The term was introduced in the mid-50s by Pr. Smirnitsky. It implies that in a language there exist signs which are identical in all features but their lexical meanings. The extent of their semantic difference is confined to variation only, the idea of variation suggests the presence of a certain common component of meaning (invariant part) in all LSVs of a word.

Linguistic analysis shows that the invariant part of meanings may be presented as:

1. The whole content of the basic direct LSV: e.g., hand – 1. The terminal part of the arm

2. a person engaged in any activity that requires use of hands

3. a manner or style of writing by hand peculiar to a person, time or action

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