§ 4. Frequency, Polysemy and Etymology

Frequency value may also serve as a clue to the etymological character of the word and its interrelation with polysemy. The most frequently used words as we have seen are characterised by polysemy, structural simplicity and neutral stylistic reference. They generally belong either to the native words or to the early borrowings, which are already fully assimilated in English. Late borrowings like regime, bourgeoisie, genre, kuru (a fatal disease of the human nervous system), duka (a retail shop in Kenya), etc. are generally marked by low frequency and are very seldom polysemantic. The interrelation of meaning and etymological factors, more specifically the period and the degree of assimilation, makes itself felt above all in the stylistic reference and emotive charge proper to words and is clearly observed in synonymic groups which in most cases consist of both native and borrowed members.¹ The analysis of the synonymic group, for example small, little, diminutive, petite, wee, tiny, minute, miniature, microscopic, shows that they come from different sources: small from OE. smæl; little from OE. lỹtel; diminutive from Fr.< L. diminutivus; petite from Fr. petite; wee (Scand. origin) from ME. wei, wee, we; tiny (origin dubious) from ME. tine; minute from Fr.< L. minuta; microscopic from Gr. mikrós + Gr. scopós; miniature from It.< L. miniatura. Of these words only small and little are polysemantic (small has 8 meanings and little — 7 meanings) and are widely used in Modern English (both belong to the first 500 most frequently occurring words). All the others are monosemantic and by far of lesser practical value. For example petite, a late French borrowing, is scarcely ever used in English and is felt as a “foreign element” in the English vocabulary, minute lies outside the 20,000 most frequently occurring words, miniature, diminutive belong to the 8th thousand. Their lexical valency is very low. It may also be

¹ See ‘Semasiology’, § 49, p. 58.

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easily seen that words of this synonymic group differ greatly in their stylistic reference. Only the two native words small and little belong to the neutral literary layer; the rest have a specific stylistic reference: microscopic coined in recent times from Greek morphemes is used more or less as a term, diminutive is bookish, wee (which for the most part occurs in Scottish dialects) has a poetic tinge in literary English.

§ 5. Frequency and Semantic Structure

Frequency also reflects the interdependence and comparative importance of individual meanings within the word. For example, the adjective exact has two meanings 'entirely correct, precise', eg. the exact time, smb's exact words, etc. and 'capable of being precise', e.g. exact observer, exact memory. The comparison of the frequences of these individual meanings shows that they are not of equal importance in the semantic structure of the word; it is the first meaning of this word that is much more important than the second as it accounts for 78% of total occurrences of the word, leaving only 18% to the second meaning.

The adjective blue which is a polysemantic unit of a high frequency value may serve as another example. On comparing the frequencies of individual meanings of this word we find that its neutral meaning 'the colour of the sky' accounts for 92% of the occurrences of the word, whereas the meaning 'sad' (cf. to look (to feel) blue) and the meaning 'indecent, obscene' (cf. to tell blue stories, to talk blue) are both marked by a heavy emotive charge and make only 2% and 0.5% of the occurrence of this word respectively.

Thus, as we see, the semantic frequencies of individual meanings give a better and a more objective insight into the semantic structure of words.

We may now conclude by pointing out that frequency value of the word is as a rule a most reliable and objective factor indicating the relative value of the word in the language in general and conditioning the grammatical and lexical valency of the word. The frequency value of the word alone is in many cases sufficient to judge of its structural, stylistic, semantic and etymological peculiarities, i e. if the word has a high frequency of occurrence one may suppose that it is monomorphic, simple, polysemantic and stylistically neutral. Etymologically it is likely to be native or to belong to early borrowings. The interdependence so markedly reflected by frequency can be presented graphically. Below we show the analysis of two groups of synonyms. (See the table, p. 181.)

REPLENISHMENT OF MODERN ENGLISH VOCABULARY