Topics for comprehension check and class discussion:

1. Discuss the following theoretical positions and give examples to support your stand:

1.What is semantics?

- the interrelationships of the notion of language and the notion of meaning;

2. Semantics as part of linguistic studies in different linguistic schools in general:

- meaning in descriptive linguistics.

- meaning in European philosophical orientation.

3..The three main trends in the meaning study / each trend to characterize/.

- the principle of surrogationalism in semantic theories;

- the principle of conventionality in semantic theories;

4.Cognitive semantics: the main traits.

- the teaching on a semantic triangle as the starting point for cognitive semantics;

- paradigmatics and related fields;

- meaning as a construal;

- context/situation in actualization of the word meaning;

- L.Vygotsky on the meaning structure;

- The semantic paradigm of a lexical unit.

5.Stylistic properties of a lexical unit and their dependence on a semantic paradigm.

-paradigmatic stylistics;

-syntagmatic stylistics;

-the mechanism of a metaphor;

-stylistic devices of a metaphoric nature;

-the mechanism of a metonymy;

-the types of a metaphor;

-the types of a metonymy.

N.B. To each question you are to pick up authentic examples!

2. In the following sentences trace the process of the meaning change and explain the nature of such changes:

1. A deed of blood, or fire, or flames

Was meat and drink for simple James.

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There was enough food there to keep the starving family for a week.

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Mr. Brocklehurst starved us when he had the whole superintendence of the provision department, before the commission was appointed.

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2. That form of words is his style.

You cannot have good matter with bad style.

At the close of the season the Minister and his family went down to Canterwille Chase.

The band sounded louder and gayer. That was because the season had begun.

… out of season it was never the same.

The Doctor’s walk was stately and calculated to impress the juvenile mind with solemn feeling.

Their conversation eased me completely: it was rather calculated to weary that enrage a listener.

Clarice, the daughter of somebody on the estate, a nice, quiet well-mannered girl. had never been in service before…

Leah is a nice girl, to be sure!

We’ve just nice time for the train…

Realize that he was handsome and could be extraordinary ‘nice’ when he liked…

He ventured to tell her in his clumsy way that if her heart were more warm towards him she wouldn’t be so nice about his handwriting and spelling…

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A green bush; a green man; a green apple; green wuth envy; seeds of a plant; seeda of evil; a fruitful tree; fruitful work; a fruitless tree; a fruitless effort; the root of tree; the root of a word; a bloomimg rose; blooming health; a fading or faded floer; a fading or faded beauty; the wings of an aeroplane, of a mill; on wings of joi; the foot of a man, of a hill; the foot of a bed; the neck of a girl; of a bottle; tongues of flam; the tongue of a child is coated; the legs of a dof. Of a table; Kiev is the heart of our country; my heart is beating with excitement; the mouth of a pot. of a river; of a cave.

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Thoughts wander; one’s mind wanders; spirits rise; our heart sinks, a flight of imagination.

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He is the hope of the family; She was the pride of her school; I have never read Balzac in original;

So I resolved to sell no more muscle and to become a vendor of brain;

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears….

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Yes, when his liquor goes the wrong way,

I have a few coppers in my pocket;

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Wherever the kettle-drums were heard the peasant drew his bag of rice on his shoulder, tied his small savings and fled with his wife and children to the milder neighborhood….

3. Analyze the given cases of metaphor from all sides mentioned above—semantics, originality, expressiveness, syntactic function, vividness and elaboration of the created image.

Pay attention to the manner in which two objects(actions) are identified: with both named or only one—the metaphorized one—presented explicitly:

I. She looked down on Gopher Prairie. The snow stretching without break from street to devouring prairie beyond, wiped out the town's pretence of being a shelter. The houses were black specks on a white sheet. (S. L.)

2. And the skirts! What a sight were those skirts! They were nothing but vast decorated pyramids; on the summit of each was stuck the upper half of a princess. (A. B.)

3. I was staring directly in front of me, at the back of the driver's neck, which was a relief map of boil scars. (S.)

4. She was handsome in a rather le'onine way. Where this girl was a lioness, the other was a panther-lithe and quick. (Ch.)

5. His voice was a dagger of corroded brass. (S. L.)

6.Wisdom has reference only to the past. The future remains for ever an infinite field for mistakes. You can't know beforehand. (D. H. L.)

7.He felt the first watery eggs of sweat moistening the palms of his hands. (W. S.)

8.At the last moment before the windy collapse of the day, I myself took the road down.

9.The man stood there in the middle of the street with the deserted dawnlit boulevard telescoping out behind him. (T. H.)

10.Leaving Daniel to his fate, she was conscious of joy springing in her heart. (A. B.)

11.He, smelled the ever-beautiful smell of coffee imprisoned in the can. (J. St.)

12.We talked and talked and talked, easily, sympathetically, wedding her experience with my articulation. (Jn. B.)

13."We need you so much here. It's a deaf old town, but it's a rough diamond, and we need you for the polishing, and we're ever so humble...”. (S. L.)

12. They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling, unable to communicate. (W. G.)

13. Geneva, mother of the Red Cross, hostess of humanitarian congresses for the civilizing of warfare! (J. R.)

16. She and the kids have filled his sister's house and their welcome is wearing thinner and thinner (U.)

17. Notre Dame squats in the dusk. (H.)

18. I am the new year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time. I am your next chance at the art of living.

I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned during the last twelve months about life.

All that you sought the past year and failed to find is hidden in me; I am waiting for you to search it out again and with more determination.

All the good that you tried to do for others and didn't achieve last year is mine to grant-providing you have fewer selfish and conflicting desires.

In me lies the potential of all that you dreamed but didn't dare to do, all that you hoped but did not perform, all you prayed for but did not yet experience. These dreams slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of an enduring purpose. I am your opportunity. (T. H.)

19.Autumn comes

And trees are shedding their leaves,

And Mother Nature blushes

Before disrobing. (N. W.)

20. He had hoped that Sally would laugh at this, and she did, and in a sudden mutual gush they cashed into the silver of laughter all the sad secrets they could find in their pockets. (U.)

4. Indicate metonymies, state the type of relations between the object named and the object implied, which they represent, also pay attention to the degree of their originality, and to their syntactical function:

1. He went about her room, after his introduction, looking at her pictures, her bronzes and clays, asking after the creator of this, the painter of that, where a third thing came from. (Dr.)

2. She wanted to have a lot of children, and she was glad that things were that way, that the Church approved. Then the little girl died. Nancy broke with Rome the day her baby died. It was a secret break, but no Catholic breaks with Rome casually. (J. O'H.)

3. "Evelyn Clasgow, get up out of that chair this minute. The girl looked up from her book. "What's the matter?"

"Your satin. The skirt'll be a mass of wrinkles in the back." (E.F.)

4. Except for a lack of youth, the guests had no common theme, they seemed strangers among strangers; indeed, each face, on entering, had struggled to conceal dismay at seeing others there. (T. C.)

5. She saw around her, clustered about the white tables, multitudes of violently red lips, powdered cheeks, cold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant faces, and insolent bosoms. (A. B.)

6. Dinah, a slim, fresh, pale eighteen, was pliant and yet fragile. (C. H.)

7. The man looked a rather old forty-five, for he was al­ready going grey. (K. P.)

8. The delicatessen owner was a spry and jolly fifty. (T. R.)

9. "It was easier to assume a character without having to tell too many lies and you brought a fresh eye and mind to the job." (P.)

10. "Some remarkable pictures in this room, gentlemen. A Holbein, two Van Dycks and if I am not mistaken, a Velasquez. I am interested in pictures." (Ch.)

11."You have nobody to blame but yourself." "The saddest words of tongue or pen." (I. Sh.)

12. For several days he took an hour after his work to make inquiry taking with him some examples of his pen and inks. (Dr.)

13. There you are at your tricks again. The rest of them do earn their bread; you live on my charity. (E. Br.)

14. I crossed a high toll bridge and negotiated a no man's land and came to the place where the Stars and Stripes stood shoulder to shoulder with the Union Jack. (J. St.)

15. The praise was enthusiastic enough to have delighted any common writer who earns his living by his pen. (S. M.)

16. He made his way through the perfume and conversation. (I. Sh.)

17. His mind was alert and people asked him to dinner not for old times' sake, but because he was worth his salt. (S. M.)

18. Up the Square, from the corner of King Street, passed a woman in a new bonnet with pink strings, and a new blue dress that sloped at the shoulders and grew to a vast circumference at the hem. Through the silent sunlit solitude of the Square this bonnet and this dress floated northwards in search of romance. (A; B.)

19. Two men in uniforms were running heavily to the Admin­ istration building. As they ran. Christian saw them throw away their rifles. They were portly men who looked like advertise­ments for Munich beer, and running came hard to them. The first prisoner stopped and picked up one of the discarded rifles. He did not fire it, but carried it, as he chased the guards. He swung the rifle like a club, and one of the beer advertisements went down (I. Sh.).

Supplement

A procedure of semaciological analysis in word study works very well in relation to those nominative units which resulted the processes of semantic transposition and proves that lexical nomination is not only one-time act of labeling the reality as it takes place in morphological transposition. This is the act that can be reproduced many times on the same lexical material in the process of communication resulting with the new, figurative units of secondary nomination. The result depends on that pragmatic and communicative task intended by a speaker.

To distinguish the semantic load of a lexical unit we use the two criteria [3]: 1/ internal/paradigmatic taking into account all lexico–semantic paradigm:( D+S+I) where denotative, significative and implicative components make lexical – potential- meaning , i.e. content proper and 2/ external/ syntagmatic criterium which exposes conditions (context, distribution) and character of semantic explication: either D or S or I plus pragmatic factor in the course of a communicative act.

By other words every new meaning takes shape on the basis of historically developed meaning assigned to a given unit as an imprint of some fragment of reality. The lexical meaning potentially reflects all possible aspects of using a linguistic sign in question including all attributive and concomitant characteristics disposed in the implicative sphere which makes some prognostic zone for possible acts of nomination. The process of nomination representing the two spheres of language activity is exactly the step taking part in creating some new – nominative meaning involving all extralinguistic factors into the mechanism of labeling the real facts of life including all the objects of introspection (emotions, feelings, evaluation of reality, etc. This process is connected with the results of designation by means of linguistic signs presenting the natural qualities of things and phenomena through their ideal forms-notions. The process of thinking is realized on the basis of words and sentences as empirical, material form of ideal reality. Every idea being materialized in a form of a word, or sentence, or text participates in formation of a thought, passes to a receiver with all emphatic and pragmatic peculiarities characteristic of a communicative act. With such approach to the process of nomination it is justified to differentiate the lexical meaning proper, or syntactical meaning proper / in a form of a paradigmatic pattern/ from the nominative meaning which is a result of paradigmatic and syntagmatic interaction within the meaning structure of the unit in question in a given speech situation. The semantic load of a linguistic unit includes all lexico–semantic paradigm:( D+S+I) when the three components -denotative, significative and implicative - make its potential meaning , i.e. content proper, but in a communicative act there works a syntagmatic factor which helps to expose conditions and character of semantic explication: either denotative meaning as a representation of a single, or significative meaning as a more generalized meaning, or implicative meaning which makes the basis for most part of stylistic devices plus pragmatic factor in the course of communication . By other words every new meaning takes shape on the basis of historically developed meaning assigned to a given unit as an imprint of some fragment of reality. The content proper potentially reflects all possible aspects of using a linguistic sign in question including all attributive and concomitant characteristics disposed in the implicative sphere which makes some prognostic zone for possible acts of nomination.

The process of nomination representing the two spheres of language activity is exactly the step taking part in creating some new – nominative meaning involving all extralinguistic factors into the mechanism of labeling the real facts of life including all the objects of introspection (emotions, feelings, evaluation of reality, etc.). The informative aspect of language is its semantic sphere, in a broad sense, and every particular realization of a nominative unit, mostly a word, relates to this sphere providing first and foremost function of language – to represent a human thought. Through the acts of nomination we give the names to the facts, situations and objects of reality.

These two criteria help to diagnose 1/ is it possible to use a certain unit of language in some new, non-expected environment /onomaciological function/ and 2/ does the presented utterance correspond to the semantic potential of its constituents /semaciological function/. The task of a translator, for instance, presupposes simultaneous usage of the two procedures only in a reversed order if compared with the usual speech activity. On the first stage he realizes the message in a foreign language (semaciological analysis) and on the second stage of a communication he gives a name (nominator) to this message in his native language (onomaciological procedure). So, the activity of a translator may serve as a prototype of speech activity and the key to its description. The combination of the two procedures in speech activity is extremely significant and helpful in experimental tests, especially in practice of translation: thus, onomaciologically a speaker moves from “meaning to expression and here arises a question what linguistic signs to choose in order to give a shape to his ideas. It is important to know here that a speaker uses already existing inventory of a system relying on the laws of analogy which always plays an important role in the ’preservation or redistribution of linguistic material’ [12, 20]. Another, semaciological way, presupposes analytical procedures from sound (form) to meaning.

As it was mentioned here not once, the influence of extralinguistic reality at every given moment of nomination is of great importance as determining the choice of language units in order to express adequately the communicative situation so as a physical or emotional state of the speaker. /emotive, stylistic function/. The social background plays a significant role in the acts of nomination as rendering most essential information of the people occupying different niches in life: poor/rich, young/old, educated/non-educated/semi-educated/low-educated, etc. As a vocabulary is not homogeneous in its composition a message may include the words of different stylistic value what first of all depends on a role status of interlocutors. Here also would be right to emphasize the character of a communicative act as the first signal to a nominative process: exactly in conditions of a speech act a new nominative unit may arise, or the old one may develop its meaning in that direction which is in demand for a given situation and does not contradict to its semantic paradigm.

The aura of associations accompanies every lexical unit being implied if not strictly defined. When the relation between sign and referent is clear and unambiguous we can say that the one denotes the other, i.e. denotative component of meaning is realized. When, however, the sign evokes in addition various associations (psychological, social) the connotative components (significative and implicative in fact) take their foreground.

It makes evident, that in the process of forming a new nominative meaning a semantic load of the units to be combined is remarkable for its predetermining role in the onomaciological procedures and its diagnostic role in semaciological procedures. As G. Kolshansky pointed out ‘the essence of nomination lies not in the fact of designation a thing or some relations of this thing, but in representing some abstraction as a result of a cognitive activity of a human, abstraction reflecting dialectic opposition of the whole and the part in the course of cognitive activity.’ These two procedures help to diagnose 1/ is it possible to use a certain unit of language in some new, non-expected environment /onomaciological function/ and 2/ does the presented utterance correspond to the semantic potential of its constituents /semaciological function/. The task of a translator, for instance, presupposes simultaneous usage of the two procedures only in a reversed order if compared with the usual speech activity. On the first stage he realizes the message in a foreign language (semaciological analysis) and on the second stage of a communication he gives a name (nominator) to this message in his native language (onomaciological procedure). So, the activity of a translator may serve as a prototype of speech activity and the key to its description. The combination of the two procedures in speech activity is extremely significant and helpful in experimental tests, especially in practice of translation: thus, onomaciologically a speaker moves from “meaning to expression and here arises a question what linguistic signs to choose in order to give a shape to his ideas. It is important to know here that a speaker uses already existing inventory of a system relying on the laws of analogy which always plays an important role in the ’preservation or redistribution of linguistic material’ [12, 20]. Another, semaciological way presupposes analytical procedures from sound (form) to meaning. As it was mentioned several times, the influence of extralinguistic reality at every given moment of nomination is of great importance as determining the choice of language units in order to express adequately the communicative situation so as a physical or emotional state of the speaker. /emotive, stylistic function/. The social background plays a significant role in the acts of nomination as rendering most essential information of the people occupying different niches in life: poor/rich, young/old, educated/non-educated/semi-educated/low-educated, etc.

As a vocabulary is not homogeneous in its composition a message may include the words of different stylistic value what first of all depends on a role status of interlocutors. Here also would be right to emphasize the character of a communicative act as the first signal to a nominative process: exactly in conditions of a speech act a new nominative unit may arise, or the old one may develop its meaning in that direction which is in demand for a given situation and does not contradict to its semantic paradigm.

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