English word structure.
Morphemes and their definition. Classification of morphemes (semantic and structural). Free and bound morphemes. Types of words: simple, derived, compound and compound-derived.
Words generally consist of morphemes defined as the smallest indivisible meaningful two-facet lang units. A positional variant of a morpheme is called an allomorph. E.g. ancient.
A morpheme is an ultimate constituent of immediate constituents. Morphemes can be classified structurally acc to the degree of independence:
1. free morphemes which coincide with the stem or a word-form.
E.g. friend, book, pen, etc.
2. bound morpheme which is constituent part of a word.
E.g. -ship, -ness, re-, dis-, etc.
3. semi-bound morpheme which can function as an affix & as a free morpheme.
E.g. man = -man (gentleman), like = -like.
Semantically morphemes are classified into:
root morphemes: helpless, refill.
affixational morphemes: -ship, -dom, dis-, un-.
Besides the meaning proper to root morphemes they possess the part of speech meaning & generalized lexical meaning.
Acc to the number of morphemes words are classified into monomorphic (root) words (dog, go, wall) and polymorphic consisting of one or two roots & suffixal morphemes (friendliness).
The morphemic analysis enables us to distinguish certain classes of words.
Primary words which fall into
derived words with more than one bound form (receive, detain, repeat)
morpheme words consisting of a single morpheme (boy, girl, nut).
Secondary words which are divide into 2 subgroups:
compound words having more than one free form: snowdrop, schoolgirl.
secondary-derived contining one free form & a bound form: boyish.
The relations within a word & the interrelation btw different classes of words are known as derivational or word-formation relations.
The basic unit on the derivational level is a stem. Stems may be:
simple – they are non-motivated: head, girl;
derived – semantically & structurally motivated build on stems of various structure to which they are motivated: girlish, girlishness, to winter;
compound – maid up of 2 immediate constituents both of which are stems: matchbox, swimming-suit.
Accordingly there are simple words (chair, pen), derived (reader, inexperienced), compound (bluebell, blackboard), compound-derived (absent-mindedness).
Synonymy and antonymy in modern English.
Synonymy. The problem of its definition. Criteria of synonyms. Ideographic, stylistic, absolute synonyms. Polysemy and synonymy. Antonymy. Types of antonyms.
Synonyms are two or more words of the same lang belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical denotational meaning interchangeable at least in some context without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning differing in phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, style, valency, idiomaticity.
E.g. Hope – expectation – anticipation.
They all mean having smth in mind which is likely to happen. They differ in connotations. Expectation may be of evil or good, anticipation is a pleasurable expectation of smth good, hope is not only a belief but a desire that some event will happen.
Synonyms may be classified into stylistic, idiographic & absolute.
Stylistic synonyms imply no interchangeability in context because the underlining situations are different.
E.g. Child – infant; dad – father.
They are similar in the denotational aspect but different in the connotational aspect.
Idiographic synonyms present a still lower degree of semantic proximity & is observed when the pragmatic & connotational aspects are similar but there are certain differences in the denotational aspect of meaning.
E.g. forest (лес) – wood (лес, древесина);
apartment (меблированные комнаты) – flat (квартира).
Absolute synonyms are very rare.
Each synonymic group comprises a dominant element. This synonymic dominant is the most general term potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the other members of the synonymic group.
In the series leave – depart – quit – retire – clear out the verb leave being general and stylistically & emotionally neutral can stand for each of the other terms.
Antonyms may be defined as two words of the same lang belonging to the same part of speech identical in style & nearly identical in distribution associated & used together so that they render contrary or contradictory notions.
Antonyms are usually classified into absolute or root antonyms (late - early) and derivational antonyms (known - unknown).
Acc to another classification antonyms are subdivided into:
1) contradictories, i.e. to use one of the terms is to contradict the other.
E.g. dead – alive, single – married.
2) contraries differ from contradictories because the latter admit of no possibility btw them. Contraries admit such possibility btw them. This may be observed in cold – hot, and cool and warm may be intermediate members.
3) incompatibles – the semantic relations of incompatibility may be described as the relations of exclusion but not of contradiction.
E.g. morning ≠ afternoon ≠ evening ≠ night
Not all the words have antonyms.