ГОС_1 / Lexicology / Lecture9 / Syntagmatic Relation between words in English

Syntagmatic Relation between words in English. Lexical Valency & Collacability.

1. Syntagmatic relations of words. The importance of Syntagmatic Analysis.

2. Lexical & grammatical collacability.

3. Types of word-groups.

Syntagmatic relations of words. The importance of Syntagmatic Analysis.

The relations existing between words as separate lexical units within the vocabulary as a system are called paradigmatic or the relations on the vertical axis. They define the meaning through its interrelation with other members of the subgroup it belongs to within the vocabulary system.

There are various types of semantic paradigmatic relations in English:

• Synonimic

• Antonymic

• Hyponimic & the others

In the flow of speech the word combines with other words forming a kind of chain. These linear relations of words in connected speech are called syntagmatic relations or the relations on the horizontal level.

Syntactical relations define the meaning of a word when it’s used in combination with other words in speech. Words put together in speech make functional units called phrases or word-group or word combinations or collacations.

Word-group – the largest, two-facet functional lexical units (assuming that the word is the basic lexical unit), comprising more than 1 word on the syntagmatic level of Analysis.

The immediate connections of the word lie within the simple word-group consisting of 2 notional words. The relations between these words depend on their semantic structure which in its turn determines their combining power or collacability.

Thus, the word-group may represent that minimal stretch of speech of the speech context that determines the individual, actual meaning of the word in speech.

Syntagmatic Analysis – is the study of the semantic characteristics of the word & its collacability, i.e. the ability to combine with other words in speech on the basis of its typical contexts or combinations with other words in speech.

It may be applied for different purposes:

1. to discover most frequently used collocations in English;

2. to study the possibilities of the realization of certain types of mean, in certain collocations;

3. to study the norms of valency & collacability of correlated words in different languages which is very important in teaching foreing languages, translation & lexicography.