Task 53

Read the passage and identify the meanings of the word nice in the contexts that follow the text.

"...more than half of all words adopted into English from Latin now have meanings quite different from their original ones. A word that shows just how wide-ranging these changes can be is nice, which is first recorded in 1290 with the meaning of stupid and foolish. Seventy-five years later Chaucer was using it to mean lascivious and wanton. Then at various times over the next 400 years it came to mean extravagant, elegant, strange, slothful, unmanly, luxurious, modest, slight, precise, thin, shy, discriminating, dainty, and - by 1769 - pleasant and agreeable. The meaning shifted so frequently and radi­cally that it is now often impossible to tell in what sense it was intended, as when Jane Austen wrote to a friend, "You scold me so much in a nice long letter ... which 1 have received from you.""(from Bryson B. Mother Tongue, The English Language [61:72])

1. We had a nice time at the beach.

2. Try to be nice to your uncle when he visits.

3. This is a nice mess you’ve got us into!

4. nice shades of meaning

5. She's not too nice in her business methods.

Task 54

Analyse the contexts (semantic, grammatical, phrasal) in which the verb make is used and identify the meanings of this word. Give all necessary explanations.

1. The carpenters made a bed.

2. She made her bed before breakfast.

3. She has made several films.

4. He made a fortune on the stock market.

5. She made him cry.

6. She made him her assistant.

7. She made a good wife.

8. It's my first holiday for two years so I'm going to make the most of it.

9. I may be very stupid, but I can't make head or tail out of what you're saying.

Task 55

Read the passage from N, Shute's "Requiem for a Wren" and give a correct definition of the term semantics.

"Do you know what he teaches?"

Bill grinned. "Semantics," he said. "I learned that word."

"Christ. Do you know what it means?"

"Well, it's not Jews." said Bill. "Janet won't have that. It's words or something."

I nodded. I didn't think there was a chair of semantics in the university; it was probably a research subject.

Seminar 7

“English Vocabulary as a System”

Discussion:

1. Paradigmatic relations vs. syntagmatic links (general description).

2.Thematic and ideographic groups, semantic fields.

3. Lexico-semantic grouping of words.

Practice:

Practicum – Tasks 127-129, pp.408-414.

Literature:

1. Современный английский зык (слово и предложение). – Иркутск, 1997. – С. 187-192.

2. The Issues in Englis Philology (Study Manual). – Irkutsk, 1998.- P.54-56.

3. Arnold I.V. The English Word. – М.: Высш. шк., 1986. – Р.226-229.

4. Ginzburg R.S., Khidekel S.S. Knyazeva G.Y., Sankin A.A. A Course in Modern English Lexicology. – M.: Higher School Publishing House, 1966. – P.82-85.

Practice: Task 127

Find the generic term (hypernym) in each of the following sets.

1. blackmail, drug-trafficking, forgery, pickpocketing, crime, mugging

2. bag, barrel, basket, container, box, bowl

3. TV programme, documentary, soap opera, weather forecast, game show, commercial

4. parsley, rosemary, herb, thyme, sage, tarragon