10.2. Morphological & lexical-grammatical grouping

According to the morphological structure Ws are divided into 4 groups (this division is the basic one for lexicology):

1) root / morpheme Ws: dog, hand;

2) derivatives with no less than 2 morphemes of which at least 1 is bound: dogged, doggedly, handy, handful; sometimes both are bound: terrier.

3) compound Ws consisting of not less than 2 free morphemes: dog-cheap ‘very cheap’; dog-days ‘hottest part of the year’; handball, handbook.

4) compound derivatives consisting of not less than 2 free morphemes & 1 bound morpheme. The pattern is (stem+stem) +suffix: dog-legged ‘crooked / bent like a dog’s hind leg’, left-handed.

Classifying Ws within actual utterances → notional Ws & form / functional Ws. Only notional Ws can stand alone, have meaning & form a complete utterance. In sentences they function syntactically as primary / secondary members.

Form Ws (functional / empty Ws / auxiliaries) are lexical units used only in combination with notional Ws / in reference to them → auxiliary Vs, Prps, Conjs, relative Advs. They express grammatical relationships between Ws.

Form Ws have lexical meaning of their own. They went to the village. Substituting across, from, into, round, out of, through for to, one sees the semantic difference between them.

Typical of English: the boundary between notional & functional Ws may lie within the semantic structure of 1 & the same W. In some contexts it is a notional W; in other contexts a form W (have, be).

The systematic use of form Ws is one of the main devices of English grammatical structure, surpassed in importance only by fixed W order.

A LG group – a class of Ws with a common LG meaning, paradigm, the same substituting elements & a characteristic set of suffixes rendering the LG meaning. Several LG groups constitute 1 part of speech. English Ns fall into the LG groups: personal names, animal names, collective names (for people), collective names (for animals), abstract Ns, material Ns, object Ns, proper names for people, toponymic proper Ns.

A group of Ns having characteristics: 2 number forms; 2 case forms; animate, substituted in the singular by he / she; common (denoting a notion, not a particular object); able to combine with the indefinite article, characterised by suffixes ‑er/-/, -ist, -ее, -eer & the semi-affix -man → personal names: agent, baker, artist, volunteer, visitor, workman. In the semantic structure of these Ws there is semantic likeness in the denotative meanings.

LG groups ≠ parts of speech. Audience, honesty – the same part of speech, different LG groups. LG meaning: audience is a group of people, honesty is a quality. Different paradigms: audience has singular & plural, honesty is used only in the singular; honesty is not used in the Possessive case. Audience is substituted by they, honesty by it. Other Ws belonging to the same LG group as audience: people, party, jury, but not flock / swarm. The LG meaning of the last 2 Ws: they are substituted by it & denote groups of living beings but not persons.