MOLDOVA STATE UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

ENGLISH PHILOLOGY DEPARTMENT

A READER IN ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY

CHIINU

2005

Dumitru MELENCIUC. A Reader in English Lexicology.

- Moldova State University, 2005.
Alctuitor: Dumitru MELENCIUC.
Lexicologia limbii engleze. Crestomaie. Chiinu: CEP USM, 2005. 304p.

INTRODUCTION
This reader is intended for teachers of English, for undergraduate and postgraduate students to supplement the
theoretical Course in Modern English Lexicology, which forms part of the curriculum for the English sections of the
Department of English Philology at Moldova State University, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures. In
accordance with this basic aim the material is divided into more or less autonomous parts, each providing exercises,
test questions, tasks and topics for discussion. In the section meant for undergraduate and postgraduate students an
extended list of lexicological terms on the themes discussed and working definitions of principal concepts involved
are given. Most of them are borrowed from A Course in Modern English Lexicology R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel,
G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M.,1966),) and also Seminars in English Lexicology by E. Mednikova (Moscow,
1978), and are chiefly based upon definitions given in O.Akhmanova's Dictionary of Linguistic Terms. We have also
used materials and examples from Confrontational Linguistics, Dumitru Melenciuc, USM, 2000;
Comparativistics Dumitru Melenciuc, USM, 2003; Readings in Modern English Lexicology compiled by S. S.
Khidekel et.al., Practical Lexicology by M.Kashcheyeva et.al., English Word by I.Arnold, 1973; L.Minajeva,
M.Davydov, G.Egorov, E.Jakovleva, I.Magidova, O.Mindrul, E. Nifontova, T.Shishkina, S.Vardanean. An Outline of
English Phonetics, MSU, 1973 (ed. O.Akhmanova and L.Minajeva); Intonational Course, by Melenciuc D.
(Chiinu, 1983).Most of the examples come from newspapers and fiction written by W.S.Maugham, C.P.Snow,
W.Scott, P.Abrahams, J.Joice, J. London, J.B.Priestley, R.Burns, H.W.Longfellow, C.Doyle, M.Cornforth, E.Gurneg,
Twain, P. Stanley, R.Gordon, Ch.Bronte, I.Murdoch, A. Bennett, O.Henry, F. Steel, A.Sillitoe, A.Chrisitie, P.Mortimer,
J.K.Jerome, E.Waugh, O.Dane, M.Spark, W.Thackeray, K.Amis, Ch.Dickens, G.Greene, D.Bateson, E.Bowen,
S.Gibbons, J.Braine, J.Tey, R.Stanley, N.Coward, A.Wilson, B.MacDonald, J.Cary, J.Lindsday, J.Trevor,
D.H.Lawrence, J.Tey, J.Galswarthy, H.Bates, J.London, J.Aldridge, R.Kipling, A.Cronin, M.Spark, W.Scott, P.Berg,
E.Voynich, M.Dickens, P.B.Shelley, G.G.Byron, A.Huxley, H.Cecill, O.Wilde, P.G.Wodehouse. At the end of the book
a list of recommended literature is given. Works belonging to both English and American linguists and fiction writers
have been used. To all these authors due acknowledgment is tendered.
THE OBJECT OF LEXICOLOGY
Lexicology (from Or. lexis "word" and logos "learning") is the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of a
language and the properties of words as the main units of a language. The term vocabulary is used to denote the
system formed by the sum total of all the words that the language possesses. The term word denotes the basic unit of a
given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a
particular grammatical employment. A word therefore is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical and phonological
unit. The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific feature of any particular language, is
known as general lexicology. Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are generally referred to
as language universals. Special lexicology devotes its attention to the description of the characteristic peculiarities
in the vocabulary of a given language. The evolution of any vocabulary, as well as of its single elements, forms the
object of historical lexicology. This branch of linguistics discusses the origin of various words, their change and
development, and investigates the linguistic and extra-linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage.
Descriptive or synchronic lexicology deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its
development. It studies the functions of words and their specific structure as a characteristic Inherent in the system.
The descriptive (synchronic) lexicology deals with the English word in its morphological and semantic structures,
investigating the interdependence between these two aspects. The branch of linguistics, dealing with casual relations
between the way the language works and develops, on the one hand, and the facts of social life, on the other, is termed
socio-linguistics.
THE CONNECTION OF LEXICOLOGY WITH PHONETICS, STYLISTICS, HISTORY OF THE
LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR
The treatment of words in lexicology cannot be divorced from the study of all the other elements in the language
system to which words belong. It should be always borne in mind that in reality, in the actual process of
communication, all these elements are interdependent and stand in definite relations to one another. We separate them
for convenience of study, and yet to separate them for analysis is pointless, unless we are afterwards able to put them

back together to achieve a synthesis and see their interdependence and development in the system. The word, as it has
already been stated, is studied in several branches of linguistics and not in lexicology only and the latter, in its turn, is
closely connected with general linguistics, the history of the language, phonetics, stylistics and, especially, grammar.
The connection of lexicology with phonetics is very important. On the acoustic level words consist of phonemes,
end therefore phonemes participate in signification. They have no meaning of their own! The form-meaning unity is
introduced only on a higher level, i.e. on the level of morphemes. Nevertheless, phonemes are not lexicologically
irrelevant: as their function is building up morphemes, they serve to distinguish between meanings. Stylistics,
although from a different angle, studies many problems treated in lexicology. These are the problems of meaning,
synonymy, differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication and some other issues. For a
reader without some awareness of the history of words, the images hidden in their root and their stylistic properties, a
substantial part of the meaning of a literary text, whether prosaic or poetic, is lost. The close connection between
lexicology and grammar is conditioned by the manifold and inseparable ties between the objects of their study. Even
isolated words, as presented in a dictionary, bear a definite relation to the grammatical system of the language, because
they belong to the same part of speech and conform to some lexical and grammatical characteristics of the word class
to which they belong. Words seldom occur in isolation. They are arranged in certain patterns conveying the relations
between the things for which they stand, therefore alongside with their lexical meaning they possess some
grammatical meaning. The two kinds of meaning are often interdependent. That is to say, certain grammatical
functions and meanings are possible only for the words whose lexical meaning makes them fit for these functions,
and, on the other hand, some lexical meanings in some words occur only in definite grammatical functions and forms
and in definite grammatical patterns. On the other hand the grammatical form and function of the word affect its
lexical meaning. A well-known sample is the same verb go when it is used in the continuous tenses, followed by to
and an infinitive (except go and come). It serves to express an action in the near or immediate future, or an
intention of future action: "You are not going to sit there saying nothing all the evening, are you?" Another point of
interest is the survival of two grammatically equivalent forma of the same word when they help to distinguish between
its lexical meanings. A few nouns, for instance, have two separate plurals, one keeping the etymological plural form,
and the other with the usual English ending -s. For example, the form brothers is used to express the family
relationship, whereas the old form brethern survives in ecclesiastical usage or serves to indicate the members of some
club or society.
It may also happen that a form that originally expressed grammatical meaning, for example, the plural of nouns,
becomes a basis for a new grammatically conditioned lexical meaning. In this new meaning it is isolated from the
paradigm, so that a new word comes into being. Arms, the plural of the noun arm, for instance, has come to mean
"weapon". (R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M.,1966)
LEXICOLOGY AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
The Prague school of linguists was the first to recognize the functional stratification of language and its diversity
dependent on extralinguistic reality. In the 1960-ies a tremendous increase of sociolinguistic investigations was observed.
Many valuable materials concerning sociolinguistics were published: a great number of monographs, collection of articles,
journals such as "Language in Society", Philadelphia, the USA, "Journal of Sociology of Language", Holland. Many
symposiums and conferences, dealing with theoretic problems and practical aspects of sociolinguistics, were organized
(e.g. The World Sociolinguistic Congress, Toronto, 1974; The World Linguistic Congress, Vienna 1977 etc.).
Sociolinguistics achieves a great popularity as a result of the cooperation with linguistics and sociology and uses their
methods, principles in its scientific research. Language as a social phenomenon is an integral part of the culture and
social life of. the society, words, recognized within the vocabulary of the language are part of the language, on which
the influence of extra-linguistic factors tells in the first place. The extra-linguistic factors influencing the usage and the
development of language represent one of the crucial problems of linguistics. The branch of linguistics dealing with causal
relations between the way the language works and develops and the facts of social life is termed sociolinguistics. The
given term is used in different meanings by various scholars. Thus, some linguists think the analysis of speech
behaviour in small social groups is the main point of sociolinguistics. A. D. Schweitzer has written that such
microsociological approach alone cannot give a complete picture of sociology of language. It should be combined with the
study of such macrosociological factors as the effect of mass media, the system of education, language planning, an

analysis of the social stratification of society as a whole. There are different definitions in the linguistic literature, which
denotes a serious divergence of opinions around this question. That is why there is not only a vie w concerning the status
of sociolingustics and its place among the linguistic and sociological disciplines. "Many scholars consider
sociolinguistics an autonomous science, but they do not hold the same opinion on its nature: some of them qualify it as
a linguistic branch, which enter linguistics like psycho-linguistics, the others suppose that sociolinguistics arose on the joint
of linguistics and sociology that is why it must be treated as a bound line subject. In addition there exists a point of view
that sociolinguistics is not an autonomous discipline, but an inter-disciplinary sphere of research, that develops with the
common efforts of sociologists and linguists". The eminent German scientist Wunderlich D. proposes four acceptations for
sociolinguistics, differing one from another through their volumes and their nature. The widest understanding of
sociolingaistics origi-nates from the integrity of communicative process, connected with the social and individual aspect of
communication. Wunderlich considers that within sociolinguistics attempts must be made to connect the social and
linguistic aspect with the theory of communication in small groups and at last with a linguistic analysis of the individual
speech act. Another wide definition deals with social factors, which influence the individual speech act. "For all that, the
social differentiations are considered close to some parameters of various speech behaviour, such as role, theme,
circumstances, etc. According to the narrow sense one of the main sociolinguistic aim is to study the relations between the
types of speech codes and diverse social parameters. Finally, Wunderlich considers that sociolinguistics must take into
account the correlation between the behaviour and social parameters, characterising the speaker's status, profession and
social situation, etc. It must be mentioned that even the widest acceptation of sociolinguistics, proposed by Wunderlich,
suffer of a considerable narrowness. The weak point of all the definitions given above is, that they are only directed to
speech communication and reflect the theoretical purpose of those sociolinguistic directions, which state the primacy
of speech in language B.N. Golovin considers that sociolinguistics, in the wide sense, has to explain the whole totality of
language articulation and the whole system of its variants because they are not conditioned by internal circumstances, but by
various social influences. Golovin distinguishes at least seven levels of functional language: regional dialects;
written and oral forms of the common language, the functional styles; monologue and dialogue varieties of the
common language; social, professional variants of language, style of language and its individual variants. From
Golovin's standpoint the subject of sociolinguistics, in the narrow sense, is to study the articulation in language and its
functioning marked within the social groups and classes. In this connection Golovin gives a model list of goals,
outlining the subject and the aims of sociolinguistics. In the narrow sense, these goals concern with the age, social
classes and professional difference; the class differentiation within the historical periods; the difference determined by
the psychological state of person, the social situation of the country. There are some questions that have nothing to do
with sociolinguistic research, for instance, regional dialects, which enter the sphere of linguistic geography and
dialectology. This problem comes certainly into a close contact with sociolinguistics, mainly when the regional
dialect becomes at the same time a social dialect (e.g. Cockney is a local dialect of London and at the same time it is
a dialect of lower classes of townspeople). Written and oral speeches, the monologue and dialogue speech, social and
individual varieties of language do not represent the sociolinguistic subject. AH these questions are studied by
stylistics and partly by psycho-linguistic. The academician Jirmunsky V.M. comes in his work "Marxism and Social
Linguistics" to the following conclusions: "In the narrow sense, sociolinguistics examines the correlation between
two ranges of problems: a) social differentiation of language into the exact layers of its historical development (within
a given community, at a given period); b) the process of social development of language, its history as a social
phenomenon. Girmunsky defines this type of division as a conventional one, based on opposition between diachronic
and synchronic approach. Summing up, the subject of sociolinguistics represents the study of social differentiation
of language and functioning of any national language, according to diachronic and synchronic approaches. To quote
Akhmanova and Marchenco's work "Oc ": 'There are three main directions of
sociolinguistic researches: 1) Sociolinguistics as a discipline, elaborated on various linguistic materials of languages,
reflects such factors as social situation, social-class, age, speakers" educational qualification; 2) Sociolinguistics as a
science of the "language existence"; 3) Sociolinguistics as a branch of linguistics, dealing with the establishment of
the successive correlations between the micro-linguistics phenomenon and the features of public life, within a given
community". These acceptations differ from each other. If the first notion concentrates on the deviation from the
ideal forms of the language existence and its social differentiation, that is to say such deviation as bilingualism, the
interference of different languages, then the second one studies the means of cultivation of common language and its

conversion into a more valuable means of internal communication. As to the third acceptations, citing the French
Sociolinguist M. Cohen, who underlines the fact, that the most particular methodological question deals with the
establishment of the process between the concrete social factors and linguistic processes. In the work "O
" Nikolisky L. devotes a good deal of space describing the subject of sociolinguistics. First of all he
enumerates a large number of aspects dealing with language situations, i.e. different kinds of investigations
concerning spontaneous language process, the interrelation between languages and dialects, the formation of supradialectal speech categories, the language standardization and the formation of national literary language. "In
connection with the language situation the bilingual phenomenon and diglossia are studied". The area of research also
involves the problems connected with language policy and specifically with the conscious process of language
normalization made by society, the formation of the literary language, the codification process, the term-building etc.
From Nikolsky's standpoint, sociolinguistics studies the way the social categories are reflected in the lan guage
existence or in the language system, besides that, it determines the usage of language by person and society.
Generally, sociolinguistics is interested not only in the influence of society upon the language but the whole system
of coexistence, correlations between language and society and also its importance as an active social factor. The New
Encyclopaedia Britannica gives the following explanation of sociolinguistics: Sociolinguistics is the study of the
sociological aspects of language, and concerns itself with the language, which maintains the social roles in a
community. Sociolinguistics attempts to single out those linguistic features that are used in particular situations and
which mark various social relationships among the participants and the significant elements of the situation, influences on
the choice of sounds, grammatical elements and vocabulary items and may include such factors as age, sex, education,
occupation, race and peer-group identification, among others. For example, an American English speaker may use such
forms as "He don't know nothing" or "He doesn't know anything" depending on such considerations as his level of
education, race, social class, of consciousness, of the effect he wishes to make on the person he is addressing. In some
languages such as Japanese, there is an intricate system of linguistic forms that indicate the social relationship of the
speaker and the hearer. Social dialects, which exhibit a number of socially significant language forms, serve to identify
the status of speakers, this is especially evident in England, where social dialects transcend regional dialects boundaries.
Sociolinguistics is also concerned with bilingual language situations. The influence of social considerations on language
change has been investigated. Languages are powerfully affected by social, political, economic, cultural and technical
change. The influence of those factors upon linguistic phenomena is studied by Sociolinguistics. It shows that
social factors can influence, for instance, have a number of specific features as compared to words used in other
spheres of human activity. The word being a linguistic realization of a notion changes with the progress of human
consciousness. This process is reflected in the development of lexical meaning. As the human mind achieves an ever
more exact understanding of the world of reality and the objective relationships that characterize it, the notions
become more and more exact reflections of real things. The history of the social, economic and political life of
the people, the progress of culture and science bring about changes in notions and things influencing the semantic
aspect of language. For instance, "of course" meant "the ground under people's feet", the soil and "the world of man"
as opposed to heaven that was supposed to be inhabited first by Gods and later on, with the spread of Christianity, by
God, his angels, saints and the souls of the dead. With the progress of science earth came to mean the third planet
from the sun and the knowledge is constantly enriched. With the development of electrical engineering earth means a
connection of a wire conductor with the earth; either accidental (with the result of leakage of current) or intentional (as
for the purpose of providing a return path). ( D. Melenciuc. Comparativistics. USM, 2003.)
THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC PROCESS OF BORROWING INTO THE BRITISH VARIANT OF ENGLISH
It has already been mentioned in one of our papers that due to various sociolinguistic processes English and
Romanian have discovered a certain tendency to get closer together, especially concerning their word-stocks. Thus,
the Romanian language, which originates from Latin, appeared as a result of the disintegration of the Roman
Empire and at a given moment it lost a considerable amount of the original word-stock. The active reromanization
process began in XVI-XVII centuries by borrowings from French (about 40% of the words), Latin, Italian and other
languages. It is interesting to observe that "lately (during the transition to the market economy) we have had a
constant stream of borrowed words" from English, many of them being of Romance origin, and thus contributing to
the further reromanization of Romanian. As a result of this process now we detect quite a large number of

etymological doublets, triplets etc. Historically, again due to numerous sociolinguistic events, English has undergone
a considerable romanization of its vocabulary (more than 65% of the word-stock). The borrowing of lexical units
from the above mentioned sources contributed to the formation of a considerable part of the vocabulary
etymologically (directly or indirectly) going back to the same source. The words, being borrowed from this or that
language, continue to develop their semantic structure under the influence of a given extralinguistic reality of the given
linguistic community: historic conditions, traditions, culture, development of science and technology, etc. This fact
conditions the difference in the semantic structure of lexemes, which is also connected with the fact that the
borrowing of this or that lexeme took place at different times, and that means that the semantic structure of the
lexeme at the time was different or could be different. Besides, the lexeme could be borrowed by different languages
in different way: a) borrowing the entire semantic structure of the given lexeme; b) borrowing by various languages
of only part of the semantic structure of the lexeme, and in this case they may borrow the same part (as being very
important at the moment) or every language could borrow different parts of the given semantic structure to be
further developed in the target languages. The process of borrowing of lexical units may, like other ways of
augmenting the vocabulary, be motivated by the need for adequate denotation of new cognitive contents or
concepts arising in the process of the material and spiritual development of society". This was no doubt so in the case
of large numbers of foreign words, which entered the English lexicon in more than 15 centuries which have passed
since the first arrival of Germanic invaders in Britain. It would be a mistake to assume that "borrowing" only
occurred where the native language (the "recipient", or "receiving", language) lacked a suitable expression or word
or had no means of its own with which to fill what is sometimes called a "gap", or "vacant slot" in the lexical
system. Very often, in fact, loans were made (for example in the Middle English period) in spite of the availability
of perfectly adequate lexical items of native origin, which - in the end - were either replaced by them or subject to
semantic or stylistic "re-interpretation". The causes of word - borrowing are obviously of sociolinguistic motivation.
Apart from necessity of borrowing to meet new communicative requirements, mere was undoubtedly much
borrowing which did not serve this purpose, redundant borrowing. In particular historical situations, the use of words
of another language was, to a certain extent, certainly, also a matter of fashion or prestige. This applied to donor
languages such as French, which was used for several centuries as the first or second language of the upper class
of the English society. It also applied to Latin, which had all through the Middle Ages played an important part as
the language of scholarship and learning. Latin made its first impact on the development of English during the
period of the Roman occupation of Britain (approx. A.D. 50-400). The native languages spoken in Britain at this time
were all Celtic, but Latin was the language of the Roman army and the provincial administration. The Latin castra
("military cmp") is reflected in the numerous British place names ending in "chester" (Manchester, Winchester etc.). The
Old-English period in the history of the English language and literature covers, four centuries (700-1100). Anglo-Saxon or
Old English is very different from later English: not only is its vocabulary quite small and overwhelmingly Germanic, but,
highly inflected. The number of Latin words that entered English during this period was related mainly to the Christian
religion. The Norman Conquest had a strong impact on the development of the English language. Norman French
became the language of the royal court and administration and of most of the aristocracy, although Anglo-Saxon
rernained the language of the lower classes. Norman French had a heavily Latinized vocabulary, most of which gradually
entered the English language. Its interaction with the less inflected French made the English language far less inflected.
When English became again the official language in England it was considerably romanized (Some of the Latin
borrowings words turned out to originate from Greek); Here are some words, which go back to lexical units borrowed from
Latin: anchor, butter, chalk, cheese, kettle, kitchen, church, mile (milia passum), pepper, pound (pondo), sack (saccus),
sickle, street, wall, wine, apostle, emperor, city, paper, chest, circle, etc. Thousands of place and river names remained after
the Romans had left: London, Carlisle, Devon, Dover, Cornwall, Thames, Avon... During the Middle English period the
pronunciation of English underwent the Great Sound Shift, as a result of which the pronunciation changed radically.
During the Renaissance and the following centuries, Latin words or word-elements tended to be adopted and put into
currency in English (often in neologisms, i.e. newly coined words) forms, which were closer to the original Latin. The
Renaissance period brought an influx of Greek-derived words into the English language. Most of the Scandinavian
borrowings were made during the 9th-10th centuries: Common names -anger, by-law, cake, caii, clumsy, doze, egg, fellow,
gear, get, give, hale, hit, husband, kick, kill, kilt, kindle, law, low, lump, rag, raise, root, scathe, scorch, score, scowl,
scrape, scrub, seat, skill, skin, skirt, sky, sty, take, they, them, their, thrall, thrust, ugly, want. French borrowings can be

classified into several groups: 1) Law and government: attorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel, country, court, crime,
defendant, evidence, government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble, parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax,
verdict; 2) Church: abbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar, prayer, preach, priest, religion, sacrament, saint, sermon; 3)
Nobility: baron, baroness; count, countess; duke, duchess; marquis, marquess; prince, princess; viscount, viscountess;
noble, royal (contrast native words: king, queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly, queenly); 4) Military: army, artillery,
battle, captain, company, corporal, defense, enemy, marine, navy, sergeant, soldier, volunteer; 5) Cooking: beef, boil, broil,
butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast, salmon, stew, veal; 6) Culture and luxury goods: art, bracelet, claret,
clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur, jewel, oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture; 7) Other: adventure, change,
charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity, enamour, feign, fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror. In the Modern
English period and in the Early Modern English Period (1500-1650) the Latin and Greek elements of the English
vocabulary continue to grow, especially in science and technology. There was also a constant influx of words from German,
Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Malay, Chinese, Japanese) and from the indigenous languages of Africa and
North and South America". Let's adduce some examples: 1) Words of Latin origin: agile, abdomen, anatomy, area,
capsule, compensate, dexterity, 'discus, disc/disk, excavate, expensive, fictitious, gradual, habitual, insane, janitor, meditate,
notorious, orbit, peninsula, physician, superintendent, ultimate, vindicate; 2) Words of Greek origin: (many of these via
Latin) anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe, climax, comedy, critic, data, history, ostracize, parasite, pneumonia,
skeleton, tonic, tragedy; 3) Arabic via Spanish: alcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm, almanac, azimuth, alchemy, admiral; 4)
Arabic via other Romance languages: amber, cipher, orange, saffron, sugar, zero.
The Modern English period (1650 - present) has been a period of colonial expansion, industrial and technological
revolution, and American immigration. These caused a new flux of borrowings: Words from European languages: a)
French still continues to be the major source of enriching the English vocabulary:
1) High culture: ballet, bouillabaisse, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne, chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de
plume, quiche, rouge, roulette, sachet, salon, saloon, sangfroid, savoir-faire; 2) War and Military: bastion, brigade, battalion,
cavalry, grenade, infantry, palisade, rebuff, bayonet; 3) Other: bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, gean(s),
niche, shock; 4) Canadian French: chowder; 5) Louisiana French: jambalaya. It was mentioned above that direct and
indirect borrowings from Latin and other Romance languages resulted in a percentage of the English word stock prevailing
65%. A considerable amount of Latin origin words borrowed into Old Germanic language, then into English, are found
in most Germanic languages. This sociolinguistic fact proves that diachronically all the Germanic tribes and peoples
were in permanent contact with the Romans, then with the Romance countries, many words entered English and
other Germanic languages after the migration period and served to meet new communicative needs arising from
their cultural changes brought about in the process of Christianization, etc. Thus, for example, the following English
words have their correspondents of Latin origin in the German language as well: plant, palm, plum, mill, chest, market,
chalk, nun, school, devil, false, cat, street, etc. Most of the borrowings from Latin can be classified according to
specific fields of human activity, such as church and Christian doctrine, education, and the administration of law or
neighbouring fields. These include borrowings such as: 1) congregation, scripture, catholic, evangelic, ceremonial,
alphabet, educate (n), describe (n), discuss (n), pedagogue, testament, contract, elect (n), prosecute (n; 2) Education:
class, auditorium, museum, matriculate, summary, appendix, critic, topic; 3) Political, administration, law vocabulary:
competition, complete, negotiation, agenda, veto, status, legislator, confiscate, censor; 4) Abstract notions: adoption,
conflict, combine, commend, discuss, alienate, complete, imaginary, immortal. The Anglo-Saxons who invaded Britain m
the Vth century had already many Latin words in their vocabulary acquired by the Old Germanic language through
early commercial and cultural contacts with the Romans: "mile" (Lat. mille (passuum) = a thousand doublepaces);
"pound" (pondo = (by) weight); "wine" (Lat. vinum = must, unfermented fruit juice). After the introduction of
Christianity in Britain there was an influx of words pertaining to ecclesiastical activity and learning. Typical words
are: abbot, altar, angel, candle, canon, cleric, deacon, mass, minister (Lat. monasterium), monk, nun, priest. To
Christian learning and education we owe the loans school, master (Lat. magister), grammatical. Many borrowings
were accepted in a shortened form: exult (Lat. - are), dispel (- lere). capital (- is), denunciation (- em). The process of
borrowing brought to the formation of synonymous doublets, triplets etc.: brother - fraternal, foot - pedestrian, father paternal, son - filial, brotherhood - fraternity, sisterhood -sorority, eye - ocular, heaven - celestial, sun - solar, horse equestrian, king - regal, cloudy - nebulous, cat - feline, dog - canine, etc. The French Influence on English started
even before the Norman Conquest. But the process of borrowing was really considerable during the Middle English

times. It was a real invasion of French lexemes into the English word stock. Words of the following type were
being borrowed at the time: countre (country), lac (lake), coste (coast), mountain (e), river (e), fro(u)nt(i)er, val(l)ey,
bordure (border), village, hamelet (hamlet), Emperor, baron (baronie), duk(e), noble (nobleman), dame, gentil (-man,
- woman ), etc. Of the native aristocratic names remained only a few: king, queen, lord, lady, knight, earl. The new
names of rulers were of Norman- French origin: soverein (sovereign), (under the) reule (rule) c(o)roune (crown),
govern(e)ment, tresorie (treasury), parlement (parliament), cha(u)ncerie (chancery), etc. Loans referring to concepts of
Christian doctrine or Christian ethics were added: Charite, innocence, virginite, conscience, vertu(e) (virtue), vice,
sauvacioun/ salvacion (salvation). French remained an important source of lexical borrowing in Modem English
period, reflecting the character of the relations in various spheres of life, Specially in the social and cultural, in which
the French had taken the lead. The political, trade and industry vocabulary is widely represented: society,
aristocracy, democracy, patriot, republic, regime, fraction, minority, aristocrat, cabinet, communism, economy,
commerce, traffic, machine. Artistic and cultural ties with France are reflected in loans like: artist, architect, baroque,
renaissance, rococo, ballet, burlesque, prelude, vase, essay, cartoon, brochure, envelope. War and military terms:
battalion, barricade, parole, volley, campaign, war, peace, defense, army, soldier, troops, guard, sergeant, lieutenant,
general. Some loans survived from DE: sword, helmet, spear, to fight, weapon. Ways and manners: courteous,
honour, noble, fine, gracious, agreeable, courage, amiable, glory, valour, joy, comfort, delight, pleasure, dance, feast,
luxury; table, plate, saucer, fork; dinner, supper, breakfast. Law and justice: 1) Names of crimes: adultery, arson,
burglary, treason, fraud, perjury, assault, battery. 2) Terms connected with wills and property: heir, heritage, legacy,
estate, property, assets. The Norman rulers made French and Latin the medium of all legal proceedings, and today
most terms pertaining to that sphere are of French origin: justice, jury, court, plaintiff, defendant, accuse, evidence,
proof, sentence, verdict, punishment. 3) Clothes and fashion: gown, garment, frock, costume, habit, collar, lace,
button, buckle, plume, Norman aristocracy could afford: satin, sabie, ermine; ruby, diamond, jewel, sapphire. The
basic colours are represented by: red, green, black, white. 4) Food terminology: broil, stew, grate, mince, souse, grill,
soup, pastry, dainty, jelly. Word-pairs were formed here as well: calf-veal, swine-pork, ox-beef, sheep- mutton, deervenison.
Among loans of 17-18 centuries we can find: fanfare, clique, envelope, salon, banquet, canteen, roulette, critique,
vignette, nuance, chignon, casserole, cuisine, picnic, etiquette, debut, souvenir, vis--vis. Quite a number of the
borrowed words have practically preserved the forms they had in French: agreeable, comfortable, blameable,
changeable, passable, knowable, speakable, unbearable, unbreakable; seasonable, personable, meritable.
The influence Scandinavian languages was due to invasions and from temporary co-existence of the related
languages in certain parts of England. Let's give some examples of Scandinavian borrowings: felan(e) \ fela(u)ze
(fellow), egge (egg), husbonda (husband)m steik \ stek (steak), eze \ aye (eye), skirte (skirt), scoru (score), scinn(n)
(skin), bop | both (booth), rike \ creke (creek), sneare (snare), link(e) (link), reise(n) (raise), wante(n) (want), tacan,
take(n) ftake), hittan (hit), weik \ wek (weak), ill(e) (ill), sleb; \ sley \ sli(z) (sly), los \ loos (loose), bon \ boun(d) (bound
(for)), wrang \ wrong (wrong). The Dutch and Low German influence was not so strong and limited the number of
loans to certain specialized spheres in which members of these language communities were particularly active.
Over-seas trade involved shipping, and nautical terms figure quite prominently among the Modem English loans
from Low Dutch: dogger (a fishing boat), buie \ boy(e) (buoy), dekke (deck), botye \ buty (booty), dock, yacht, yale
\ yaule \ yawl. Cloth-manufacture and brewing, etc.: tubbe (tub), pak \ pakke (pack), spole (spool), brake (brake),
doler \ dollar, brand(e)mne \ brandymne \ brandy.
The Low German (Dutch, Flemish, Saxon) is represented chiefly by loans reflecting maritime relations: boom,
bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, dock, freight, keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop,
smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht, freebooter, stoker, smugger, smack (the vessel), cruise, yawl, reef, walrus,
beleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough, onslaught. Military terms: beleaguer, blunderbuss, raster. Cloth industry: bale,
cambric, duck (fabric), fuller's earth, mart, nap, selvage, spool, stripe. Art: easel, etching, landscape, sketch. Food and
drink: booze, brandy (mne), coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin, hops, stockfish, waffle. Other domains: bugger
(orig. French), crap, curl, dollar, scum, split, uproar. Thus, we can conclude that Latin and French remained the most
important sources of lexical borrowing into English.
Gradually English absorbed about ~70% of its modern word stock from various languages of the world and created a
rich vocabulary of international words, which English now is generously giving to most languages of the world.

( D. Melenciuc. Comparativistics. USM, 2003.)

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC PROCESS OF BORROWING INTO AMERICAN VARIANT OF ENGLISH
Discussing the subject of enriching the word stock of a language we should take into consideration the literary
variants and dialects. The American (USE) and British (BE) variants of the English language can serve as a good
example, because they both, for a period of time, have developed separately and acquired certain specific features. At
the beginning of the XVII century (1604) colonizers from Great Britain started to arrive in North America and, thus,
the English language began to spread there. The English language word stock at the time was .not so rich to
express the multitude of phenomena, new objects and notions the immigrants had to deal with. There was an urgent
necessity of creating new words and they were being created by means of composition, derivation, conversion,
abbreviation, lexicalization of grammatical forms, change of grammatical forms, change of the meaning of the words
existing in English (and this lead to differences in the semantic structure of many lexemes in American and British
variants of English), etc. Most of the words to fill the gap were borrowed from the Indian languages and languages of
the people coming from different parts of the world. During the colonization of North America English, French and
Spanish colonizers contacted each other and as a result a lot of French and Spanish words were borrowed into the
USE. Here a some examples of words borrowed from French (Canada and Lousiana): "bayou, cache, depot, dime,
bureau, armoire, dindon sauvage, barouche sauvage, aigle tete blanche; Names of places: Detroit, Fond du Lac, Prairie du
Chien, Eau Claire, Au Sabie, Lousiana etc. The number of borrowings from French into USE is smaller than the one in
the BE. The borrowings from Spanish have been and still are quite considerable. There are more than 38 million
Spanish speaking people in the USA. A Spanglish dialect has been formed, i.e. a kind of mixture of English and
Spanish. Here are some examples of Spanish borrowings: creole, alligator, ranch, canyon, marihuana, piaza, tornado,
bonanza, eldorado, wrangler, mosquito, hombre, amigo, pronto; Names of places: Eldorado, Sn Francisco, Los
Angeles, Sn Diego, Sn Pedro, Sacramento, Florida, Orlando, etc. We should also distinguish direct borrowings
from the indirect ones, and loan translations from the Indian languages of North America. Many borrowed lexemes
found their way not only into British English, but also into many other languages due to the translation of many
books all over the world. Let's give several examples: hominy, pone, succotash, mackinaw, moccasin, wigwam,
toboggan, tomahawk, sagamore, papoose; Indirect borrowings: coyote, cannibal, canoe, chocolate, cocoa, potato, tomato,
savannah; Loan translations: big chief, fierwater, medicine man, pale face, pipe of peace, war dance, war hatchet, war
paint, to bury the hatchet etc. Diachronically many lexemes have been borrowed from the languages of the immigrants,
To mention the fact that the borrowed words were then shared with the British Variant of English, if they had not
been borrowed there before. In the USA, there is a considerable number of population originating from Germany.
That's why the German element is largely expected to be found in the American Variant (and then shared with the
British variant). Let's give some examples of lexemes brought by German immigrants to the USA or as a result of
relations with Germany. Some of the borrowings could be indirect, including via the British Variant of English: bum,
dunk, feldspar, quartz, hex, lager, knackwurst, liverwurst, loafer, noodle, poodle, dachshund, pretzel, pinochle,
pumpernickel, sauerkraut, schnitzel, zwieback, (beer) stein, lederhosen, dirndl, blitzkrieg, zeppelin, strafe, U-boat,
delicatessen, hamburger, wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, schuss, under-kind, spritz (cookies), (apple)
strudel. Of the Low German dialects it is Dutch, which has contributed most significantly to the growth of the
English vocabulary of both British and American Variants. Navigation and exploration in the 17th century brought
England into particularly close contact with the Dutch. Trade has made a large number of more or less international
words pertaining ships and the sea: skipper, yowl, deck, dock, buoy. Words like: boss, waffle, cookie, Santa Claus are
Americanisms of Dutch origin. Achievements in medicine, physics and chemistry have contributed to further borrowings:
Roentgen-ray (not usually X-ray), heroin, pepsin, aspirin, inferiority, complex, uranium, relativity (Einstein), molecule, protein.
To the culinary vocabulary belong: noodle, hamburger, delicatessen, schnapps. Miscellaneous loans include: kindergarten,
semester, seminar, poodle, handbook, Diesel, iceberg (Eisberg). The German influence is most potent in the 19th century,
the leading position of Germany in philosophy and literary criticism has contributed to such borrowings: enlightenment, leitmotif, folksong, gestalt. Kant, for example, is responsible for: objective, subjective, nihilism.
The Spaniards and the Portuguese were explorers, and English due to early contacts and clashes with them started to
borrow a large number of exotic words, many denoting phenomena from the New World: negro, potato, mulatto, mosquito,
tomatoes, vanilia, alligator, banana, cannibal, maize, lime, chocolate, tobacco, cork, sherry, chili, cigar. To warlike or

maritime contact with Spain testify: Armada, galleon, desperado, embargo, cask, tornado. More recent loans are: Bronco,
Lasso, canyon, hacienda, mustang, ranch, poncho, siesta, vamoose (Spanish vamos) Of Portuguese origin are: caste, albino,
flamingo, coco(nut), buffalo, yam, mandarin, madeira, port (wine from oporto), guinea. Other Spanish loans: bravado,
comrade, toreador, matador, sombrero, guitar, parade, escapade, piaza, domino, corral, cockroach (re-formed in English from
cucaracha), armada, adobe, alligator, alpace, armadillo, barricade, bravado, cannibal, canyon, coyote, desperado, embargo,
enchilada, guitar, marijuana, mesa, mosquito, mustang, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla, vigilance. The group naturally divides
into words, which remain strongly Spanish in form and those that are assimilated. Borrowings from Portuguese are not
numerous. From the New World, Africa and the East, Portuguese contributed with coco-nut, molasses, sargasso, macaw;
madeira, palaver, assaga; buffalo, joss, castle, verandah, emu, mandarin, pagoda; bonze (from Japanese). The Italian
influence on English started in the Middle Ages when the Italians were leading in banking: florin, ducat, million. As in
other European languages, the musical vocabulary of English is derived from Italian: allegro, violin, solo, opera, piano,
stanza, concerte, duet, virtuoso, andante, soprano, alto, prima donna, adagio. Terms pertaining to architecture and the arts:
citadel, villa, corridor, portico, frieze, arcade. Painting and sculpture: fresco, pastel, miniature, ferra cotta, bust. Life and
customs: balcony, cupola, loggia; firm (commercial house); macaroni, vermicelli, pizza; umbrella; propaganda. The
Italians were not colonizers, they were travellers. This made the borrowings from Italian less military: alto, arsenal,
balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco, fugue, gazette (via French), ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni,
madrigal, motto, piano, opera, pantaloons, prima donna, regatta, sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio, tempo,
torso, umbrella, viola, violin. Lexemes of the type given bellow have become Italian America-nisms, a contribution of the
numerous Italian immi-grants: cappuccino, espresso, linguini, mafoso, pasta, pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, spumante, zabaglione,
zucchini.
A relative separation of the USE and BE in their "evolution has brought to certain phonologic, grammatical and lexical
differences. The same differences are observed in the semantic structures of many lexemes in both English variants, and in
words of common origin in English and Romanian. Thus, the lexeme "bug" in British English has a much narrower
meaning (plonit, bloha) than in the American variant, where it has acquired a wider meaning of "insect", and also
that of "bacteria", "fashion", etc. The combination "bed bug" corresponds to the BE "bug". Quite a number of the so called
Americanisms can be found in the archaic or dialectal British English, thus, the equivalent of the "autumn" in the USA is
"fall", which is archaic in BE. The same lexeme may be used to express different meanings: Thus, "pavement" in the
USA means "hard part of the street" and the BE of the given lexeme is rendered in the US as "sidewalk". In the
XXth century, especially after the Second World War, there was an active mutual influence between USE and BE. The
fact that the USA has become one of the leading political, military and economic power in the world and has made USE
variant preferable. Its influence on the BE has considerably increased due to modern communication means as well. Many
"Americanisms" are not rejected on the British Isles, especially among the young generation. Even in pronunciation of
words we can detect changes in the BE as a result of the USE influence. Thus, for example, one can hear on BBC the same
pronunciation of "[t, d, s, z]" in front of "[r]" (j] sounds (they existed in some British dialects): "Glad to meet you" ("t" is
pronounce like "eh" in "choice"); "Press report", "Last year" ("s" pronounced like "sh" in "fish"); "It was you..." (the sound
[z] is pronounced like [3] in "garage" or "measure"); "Did you see him yesterday?" ("d" in front of "y" here is
pronounced like [ds] in "George" or in "joy"). Many new words and expressions are being borrowed constantly
due to television, cinema, radio, internet, tourism, business relations, economic, cultural, political and military
relations. Practically there is a process of leveling out of the variants and creating a kind of general or world
English. Still there are many words that the Americans and the British would recognize that they are not part of
their variant yet, but part of the world English: apartment -flat; dormitory (fraternity, sorority) - hostel; cereal -porridge;
pants - trousers; vacation - holiday; campus - grounds; accord - agreement, ctc. ( D. Melenciuc. Comparativistics.
USM, 2003.)
LEXICOLOGY AND SUPRASEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY
It is common knowledge that verbal communication is based on a system of differences - on the ability of the speaker
or listener to distinguish between "same" and "different". But, of course, the ordinary user of language becomes fully
conscious of differences and similarities of sound only in the more obvious cases Thus, for example: ||'What are you
'working \for?|| ||'What are you \working for?| The first variant is interpreted as "what are you trying to obtain", the
second - "why are you working". The two sentences present a clear differentiation of the two stress-patterns as leading to

a change of purport. In some instances it is possible to carry the variation stress-patterns through a series of three - all of
them correlated with differences in meaning: a. blackbirds \ nest - nest of a blackbird; a black \bird's nest - bird'snest which is black; a black bird's \nest - nest of a black-coloured bird. English punning habits often make use of a
sentence with the stress-pattern so distorted as to suggest a ridiculous utterance: Did you "ever -see a .horse /fly?|| This
sentence is a distortion of the expected: | Did you "ever -see a /horsefly?!
Now let us turn to examples of another kind. If two sentences: || The sun's rays meet || and | The sons raise I meat || are
pronounced in the same way (as indicated) they are practically indistinguishable, the ambivalence being resolved by context
alone. To keep them apart as such the following pronunciation will have to be adopted: The sun's rays | meet vs. The sons
raise meat. One more example: || When I eat ice-cream, I love it, vs. || When I eat,| I scream: "I \love it".
If anyone wrote the following sentence in a letter to you: "He doesn't lend his books to anybody", what meaning
would it convey to you? At first sight you might interpret it as: "He lends his books to nobody". But it may also mean:
He is rather particular as to the persons he lends his books to, he does not lend them to everybody". Let us now
imagine that the sentence is used by someone who is talking to us. In this case we need no context to help us; the
sentence itself. It will now contain an element which will adequately differentiate the two meanings:
1. || He doesn't 'lend his 'books to \anybody
2. || He doesn't 'lend his 'books to \/anybody
We have to look very closely at our material (and try to understand what it is that enables us to apprehend correctly
these completely different meanings.
We begin by working on the "feature" level to try and discover those parameters on which semiologically relevant
oppositions are based, we then pass on to the content plane and explain the concepts of "meaning" and "purport".
It is generally known that the term "meaning" is still not infrequently regarded as denoting something elusive and
mysterious. But as far as we are concerned this is most emphatically not the case. Linguistic meaning is a reverberation in the human consciousness of "objects" of reality (phenomena, relationships, qualities, and processes) which
becomes a fact of language because a constant and indissoluble connection is established between the
reverberation and a certain sound. Thus the particular reverberation becomes the content of the word, with
respect to which its sound-form or expression functions as a "sound-envelope" or "caul" - indispensable not only
because It is the physical expression of the content and the vehicle for communicating it to other people, but also
because without it the given lexical meaning could not oome into being, exist and develop. But when people talk,
the "noises" they make are basically (from the point of view of their semiological relevance) prosodic. The "content" that
attaches to them must therefore be denoted by a special term "purport" - the potential content of the utterance (not
"meaning because this term is most conveniently used when describing the various units of the "lexis").
The prosody of speech is divided into syntactic and
suprasyntactic. B y syntactic prosody we mean "the
phonology of the sentence". Syntactic prosody is the science of those phenomena of speech, which serve a very welldefined purposes that of expressing syntactic relations. Syntactic prosody is concerned with the syntactic., grammatical
function of "intonetion" - the different kinds of content the expression of which depends on the particular type of prosodic
organization of the Utterance. The following examples will help us to bring out the point" more clearly: || Yesterday, I
'went to the \cinema ||
Said in this way the utterance is a statement, but if we substitute a rising tone for a falling one the utterance will
become a question: || Yesterday, I went to the \cinema?|| Or we can change the prosodic arrangement in such a way that
it will sound like this: ||Yesterday? I 'went to the \cinema. || Syntactic prosody should clearly be distinguished from
suprasyntactic prosody which in its turn is divided into Logical and timbre suprasyntactics. Syntactic prosody functions
on the semantic level. In contrast to syntactic prosody, suprasyntactic prosody is concerned with the metasemiotic function
of speech sounds - the different emotional, expressive, evaluative connotations which find expression in stylistically marked
types of prosodic arrangement. The first of the two varieties of suprasyntactics, the logical one, deals with the so-called
accent dinsistence - the greater degree of "force" on one or more syllables in an utterance. Its function is to bring into
prominence a certain element in the utterance for the sake of contrast or some other metasemiotic purpose: || John 'gave the
book to \ Peter || (Ion i-a dat cartea lui \Petru ;||Van'a.dal knigu \Pete | || Jean a donn le-livre a \Pierre || 'Thus within the
scope of Modern European languages logical suprasyntactics could be regarded as an "almost-universal". We shall hasten to
add that we speak of a linguistic "universal" not because this most involved subject is at all within our range, but simply
because we want to emphasize the pedagogical unimportance of logical suprauyntactics. It is so simple arid obvious a

phenomenon - insofar as purport is concerned that it need hardly be mentioned at all. This does not mean to say, of course,
that the prosodic means employed are identical even in cognate languages. As far as timbre suprasyntactics is concerned
we find that, unfortunately, we are not standing on very solid ground. The trouble is that so far the constituents of timbre
suprasyntactics have not been studied, or, to be more exact, very little research has been done into this matter. The investigation of timbre suprasyntactics is only beginning, but even at the present stage we can with sufficiently good reason try to
analyse certain situations.
By timbre we mean the specific suprasyntactic expression of various emotional, expressive, and evaluative-overtones.
Thus, for example:
Natasha: Hae \dare you sit down in .front of .me! \Get out! \Leave the room! Why you \keep this woman /here I
\dont under/stand.
Olga: Forgive me but I \also dont understand
Natasha: But shes only a
/peasant - she ought to live in the /country. She is quite /useless here. Youre \spoiling her. I like \order in the \house. No
idleness /here.
The prosody in this passage serves to express the speaker's emotions by means of variations in tempo (allegro,
allegrissimo), loudness (forte) and range (narrowed). Apart from these features we find some phenomena of sound which
do not depend on either pitch, loudness or tempo for the contrastive effect. We mean the paralinguistic features, i.e. "the
vocal effects caused by different configurations of the glottal and supraglottal organs. In the passage adduced above the
speaker uses tremulousness. Taken together, these prosodic features realize the timbre of anger and irritation and do so
because of the latent contrast with what is usually termed as "neutral". Timbre suprasyntactics is thus seen to comprise a
complex of prosodic and paralinguistic features which are at the speaker's disposal and can be freely drawn upon
whenever the intention of metacontent is indicated.

Lexicological Phonetics
Lexicology is a subdivision of linguistics which concerns itself with the study of words and word-equivalents.
This does not mean that the problem of the word has never been tackled by phonetics-phonology. What can be
described as phonology of the word has collected a large number of facts, as far as types of stress the phonetic behaviour
of even-stressed words, prosodic and accentual patterns are concerned. But so far the phonology of the word was
phonetically oriented, it ignored the main problems of lexicology. A new branch of phonetics, which we propose to call
lexicological phonetics. This branch of phonetics will concern itself with both the inherent and adherent prosodic
features which are realized in the vocabulary of a language.
Lexicological phonetics studies the different phonetic means with the help of which the semantic structure of
lexemes, their inherent and adherent stylistic connotations, etc. are realized in speech, the words (glosses)
appearing as lexical units, as elements of the vocabulary each of which is endowed with the ability to express
individual reference to certain elements of extra-linguistic reality. It is very important to note that lexicological
phonetics is lexicentric , for it concentrates on words and seeks to discover in how far phonetics and phonology
can go together to help raise the study of the vocabulary to a higher level of scientific precision.
What is, then, the most important problem which lexicology has solved already insofar as the written form of
language is concerned and which it has to solve on the basis of the oral form? The basic question is still the problem of
the word. How do we know that a given segment of speech is a word? How do we know where one word ends and
another word begins? How do we know that this is the same word and not another one when it occurs several minutes
later? True, the phonology of the word has already done a lot along these lines but unfortunately all these interesting data
can be applied to very specific situations, to certain types of words only. Lexicological phonetics worked out the method
which can be applied to all the words in a language. This method consists in studying the flow of speech from, the point
of view of those units which are called words and their specific phonetic behaviour in different registers. The application
of this method showed that different words behave differently in the flow of speech , e.g.: This is de\lightful, in\deed! They
'only .felt how im\prudent .must \be. ... and he was 'looked .at with 'great admi\ration|| un'til his .'manners .gave a
,dis\gust. which 'turned to the \tide of his popul\arity. || After a'busing you so a\bominably to your /face| I could have 'no
\scruple in a\busing you to \ all your re\lations. In each of these examples we find words whose prosodic arrangement
leaves us in no doubt as to their prominence in the flow of speech. We mean the adjectives: delightful, imprudent , great;
the nouns: admiration, disgust; the adverb: abominably. All these words, although they belong to different parts of speech,

are thus naturally brought together. However different their concrete lexical meanings or other peculia rities, they all
stand out in the flow of speech, are prosodically prominent because of the shared lexical property of inherent
metasemiotic connotation.
By inherent connotation we mean a permanent stylistic characteristics of a linguistic unit. Thus, for example, words
like superb. selfish, wicked, wretched possess inherent metasemiotic connotation. Whenever a word of this kind is
used, both the speaker and the listener are aware of its expressive-emotional-evaluative overtones. It is therefore'-very
easy to think of a suitable context in which these properties are most clearly manifested, e.g.: ||We were to 'have a
.su'perb. \dinner. ||
|| I have been a \ selfish `|being 'all my \life in \practice | though 'not in \principle. || || Is it a very \wicked /place? ||
If inherent connotation is an 'emic' phenomenon, it must be endowed with definite structural characteristics.
According to I.G'ubbenet, words with inherent connotation can be divided into three groups: 1) Words whose inherent
connotation is firmly rooted in some extralinguistic object; 2 ) Words whose inherent connotation is due to linguistic
rnotivation; 3) Words whose inherent connotation is structured by prosodic means alone. In our case it is prosody that
matters from first to the last. That is why we focus our attention on those phenomena of sound which accompany the
enunciation of this kind of words in actual utterances: || 'Oh \Jane 'this is |bitter! |'This is \wicked!|| The word 'bitter' is
associated with the substance of an unpleasant taste. But here it is used for a different purpose, by Mr.Rochester to
express his attitude to Jane's decision to leave him forever. The word 'bitter is brought out by means of a high falling
tone and increased loudness. Another example: || It was \coldness both from her and her \mother. || The word
'coldness' is always associated with low temperature. But here again the word is used figuratively. It means 'unkind,
unfriendly, unwelcome', and this meaning is accompanied by a strong inherent connotation. In the sentence above the
word is said with a falling tone, decreased loudness, and narrowed range. Otherwise stated, the inherent connotation of
words of this group is normally reinforced by means of a certain prosodic arrangement. The second group comprises
those words whose inherent connotation depends on 'motivation', i.e. words whose inner form is transparent, e.g.:
A\mazing |girl. /Tomas, but where are you going to find a husband for her. || The semantic structure of the word
amazing leaves us in no doubt as to its connotation: that which amazes. In the example the word is brought out by
means of a falling tone and lento tempo. Along with the prosodic features we can observe a paralinguistic feature:
laughter. Taken together, they reinforce the inherent connotation of the word in question. Another example: || He is a
statesman of in'comparable a\bility, Your \Grace. || The word 'incomparable' has got a distinct semantic structure. A
number of prosodic features (a high level tone, increased loudness) are used by the speaker to bring out the word in the flow
of speech. In the case of words like 'amazing', 'incomparable', etc. the prosodic expression of inherent connotation is
subservient to either the 'referential' or the 'motivated' connotation contained in them. As far as group 3 is concerned, the
inherent connotation not motivated by lexical and/or morphological means and structured by prosodic means alone, for
example: || Now you must 'all taste to \ finish with |such a de'lightful and de|licious |present of Uncle \Pumblechook||
In this case there are two words with inherent connotation: 'delightful1 and 'delicious. But we shall concentrate our
attention on the adjective 'delicious', because it is neither referentially conditioned nor linguistically marked, The word is
said with a high level tone and prolongation ofthe sound [l] , and consequently the word stands out very clearly. Another
example: || \Pray do 'not .talk of that \odious /man. || There can be no doubt whatsoever that the word 'odious' is a word
with inherent connotation. It is brought out by means of a falling tone, slow tempo, and increased loudness. From what has
Just been said we may conclude that whenever we come across a word possessing inherent connotation we should bring it
out by a number or prosodic and paralinguistic features. But this rule is not without exception. Cases when words of this
kind are not brought out by the speaker do occur, and we shall dwell upon them at some length. Let us take the following
examples: ||But within a 'fortnight before the /marriage | this terrible event oc\curred.|| || A \terrible \story. || The second
time the word 'terrible' - a word with strong inherent connotation - is brought out by means of a high falling tone and held
syllable, while the first time it is not. What is the reason? We shall begin by examining the extra-linguistic context to see
if any situational factors can account for it. In other words, we shall turn to the category of verbal reaction to a situation,
i.e. "who, says what, when". This is a passage from "The Speckled Band" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Miss Stoner tells
Dr.Watson and Sherlock Holmes about the mysterious death of her sister. She says: ||But within a 'fortnight be.fore the
|
\
/marriage| this terrible e.vent oc\curred. ||When she finishes her story Dr.Watson exclaims: || A terrible \story. ||
Thus, we can say that if the latter sentence is a natural reaction to an awful crime, the former can be regarded as a
statement made by a girl who, though she understands that this death was terrible (it was her sister's death), uses the

'terrible event' as a cliche, because it is not the first time she is telling her story. Besides, we should remember that this is a
young woman and she is not completely at home in a strange flat. Another example: || It's 'really .very \painful /for me to
be 'forced to
speak the \truth.|| The word 'painful' is emphasized. This is a sentence from The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar
Wilde. For Jack it is indeed very painful to have to confess that he has no brothers. But in the following sentence the
situation is different: || My 'dear \sir + it's 'painful for me to dis/\cuss it. || The phrase containing the word 'painful' is
used here by Milverton, a blackmailer, in a way which approaches enantiosemy, for it has got nothing to do with his real
feelings.
We can conclude that in general words possessing strong inherent connotation are pronounced differently from words
which are devoid of any specific inherent characteristics of this kind. All the deviations from this rule can be explained in
terms of "who, says what, when".
We now turn to the analysis of adherent stylistic phenomena in terms of lexicological phonetics. By adherent
linguostylistic phenomena we mean those connotations which are created by 'evocation'. In contrast to inherent
connotation which "clings to the words", adherent connotation may be acquired by a word only under certain
conditions. To illustrate what has just been said we shall analyse the following sentence: || He had 'told her about his
\love. || There had 'followed days of + '.drunken \beauty when they had 'wandered about half 'fainting hand in
\hand. It is quite obvious that the word-combination 'drunken beauty' is not used in ordinary speech, although there is
nothing in the components taken separately that would prevent us from using them in everyday situations. It is the
combination of elements that is unusual. We are accustomed to such combinations as, for example, 'drunken man', 'drunken quarrel1, etc., on, the one hand, and 'true, false, or real beauty', on the other. If we turn to the recorded text we
immediately notice that this word-combination is clearly brought out by the speaker by means of the slowed down tempo
and a virtual pause before the first element of the word-combination. It is useful to compare the prosodic arrangement of
this word-combination with the way usual or customary word-combinations with the words 'drunken' and 'beauty' are
pronounced. ||There was a 'company of three or four drunken /soldiers near the |road. || || The cri'terion of true
/beauty is that it \increases on examination; of /false - that it \lessens. || In these sentences nothing draws attention to
the word-combinations with the words under consideration as far as their prosody is concerned. No variations of tempo or
pausation occur. Let us study another example of a 'free' word-combination: || A 'young .man was playing /golf against
him\self. || He was 'not carelessly .knocking a .ball a\bout | but 'rather .practising par.ticular /strokes with a 'sort of
' micros'.copic \fury:| like a+.'neat and `tidy \whirlwind.|| In this sentence the word-combination 'microscopic fury'
especially prominent owing to the half-unit pause before word-combination and slowed down tempo. In this example
the deceleration of tempo leads to a change in the stress-pattern of the adjective. Although, 'microscopic' is normally
pronounced with a primary stress on the second syllable and a secondary - on the first, in our sentence it appears as an
even-stressed word. It has a high level tone on the first syllable and a mid-level one on the second. Some more examples;
grey in 'grey whiteness' as against grey in 'grey coat'. || A 'heavy .sky seemed to .cover the /world with the | 'gray
'whiteness, of a .white-washed \ceiling. || He had his 'grey \overcoat 'on. || The combination 'grey whiteness' clearly
stands out because of the reduced tempo and a pause before it. Thus, it has become absolutely clear that the greater the
metasemiotic burden of the word-combination, the more obvious the contrasts on the prosodic level. Now the adherent
'connotation to exemplify which we can use the sentence from "A Man for All Seasons" by Robert Bolt: || Sir
'Thomas /Paget is re\tiring. || The utterance pronounced in the fashion indicated is different from: || Sir 'Thomas /Paget
is re\tiring. || - not only insofar as the expression plane is concerned, but the content plane as well. In the first case the
word 'retiring' acquires the adherent connotation which can be paraphrased as follows: 'Sir Thomas Paget was not
simply retiring, he was made to retire or "shoved out"'. One more example: Jailer: || I'm a 'plain 'simple \man and
just 'want to keep out of \trouble.| More: ||\0h 'sweet \ Jesus! | 'These 'plain \simp.le \men!
In the first sentence the combination 'a plain simple man' is not brought out by the speaker, it is used as a
chliche. In the second sentence there can be no doubt as to its prominence. The change of tone, loudness and range
brings home to us the fact that Sir Thomas More cannot approve, of the jailer's behaviour, and more than that: there
appears a certain connection between the meanings of the word 'simple': 1) belonging to a low class, and 2) weakminded, idiotic. The evidence of these examples suggests that practically any word may become metasemiotically
charged, and the greater the metasemiotic burden, the clearer the expression of prosodic contrast. In other words, if

on the semantic level you take what you get, on the metasemiotic one you are the master of the situation, you can
make the word behave differently ...
But the lexical problems under investigation are by no means confined to the more obvious manifestations of
metasemiotic connotations. Lexicological phonetics goes into the specific problems of the lexis much more deeply.
Thus, for instance, if we were to compare, the following uses of the word common in terms of lexicological phonetics,
we would find that it is on the basis of the latter that the realization of different meanings of common is most readily
effected: ||\Why he is a 'common ..labouring \boy.|| ||\Why he is a \common 'labouring \boy. || In this example we can
observe a semiologically relevant opposition of prosodic features which helps to differentiate the two meanings of the
word common: 1) ordinary, and 2) vulgar. Thus, there can be 'no doubt whatsoever that the meaning' the word here
depends on the way it is spoken. Another example: || What \he wanted was to be a\mused | to 'get through.! the ' twenty
\
|| Is your coat /dry? || Dry
four hours pleasantly without sitting down to \dry \business. || [Dry means 'boring'.]
means 'not wet'.
If we compare the pronunciation of the word dry in these sentences we shall see that the prosodic arrangement of the word
in question (a mid-falling tone, slow tempo, narrowed :range) in the first sentence differs drastically from that the second one.
One more example: || My 'dear 'sir | you may de\pend upon my not taking so .material a /step without her ladyship's
concurrence. ||I'couldnt but \approve of his material point of \view. || Within this pair of examples we can observe an
opposition of prosodic structure of the word 'material' which helps to draw a distinction between 1) material - 'important,
essential', and 2) material - 'worldly, considering only the things of the senses'. The examples adduced, above give a more
or less clear picture of how the analysis of prosody can be used in semantic analysis.
Very often we find such prosodic realizations of words which serve to make the word convey a meaning which could
not be conveyed without a change in prosody.
If, for example, the following sentence: "Sir 'Thomas is a \man". - is pronounced as indicated it will hardly make sense,
because the prosody here is purely 'semantic', presenting it as a statement. In the original text from which this sentence is
taken it was pronounced differently. This is the context in which it appears in Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons". It is
part of a dialogue between Thomas Cromwell ('a very able man', who had a remarkable ability 'to get things done",
according to the King) and the Spanish Ambassador. The King, Henry the VIII, decides, to divorce his wife who is the
daughter of the King of Spain -The Pope is opposed to the divorce. The King is trying to make Sir Thomas More who is a
good Catholic and a very honest man take his side.
Chapuys: After the launching, I understand, the King will take his barge to Chelsea.
Cromwell: Yes.
Chapuys: To . . . .
Cromwell: Sir Thomas More's.
Chapuys: Will you be there?
Cromwell: Oh no - they''11 talk about the divor.ce.
The King will ask him for an answer.
Chapuys: He has given his answer!
Cromwell: The King will ask him for another.
Chapuys: Sir Thomas is a good son of the Church!
Cromwell: || Sir 'Thomas is ta \man.
What is the difference between the word man in this sentence and in the sentence we adduced before, separated
the context of the dialogue and analysed as such? The sentence may be subdivided into a number of differences. The
sentence "Sir Thomas is a man" potentially can have different meanings. For example:
Sir Thomas: I'm afraid of mice, Nanny.
Nanny: ||sNonsense, Sir 'Thomas is a\man,\ he should not be afraid of \mice.
[ Man - 'adult male, human being']
Young woman: I must buy some meat. Sir Thomas likes it.
Old woman: Cats prefer fish.
Young woman: Sir / Thomas is a \man. [ Man - 'human being].

All of these contexts realize the different meanings of the word man. We adduced them because we wanted to present an
elaborate background against which is realized the meaning in the authentic context - a very unusual one. In this context
the 'capacity', or 'depth' of the word becomes extremely great. If we compare our context with all the other contexts
adduced above (and registered in the dictionaries) we shall see that all the other meanings are very easy to realize. The
prosodic means used in all those cases are simple and ordinary. In our case we would not speak even of connotations.
We should say that the semantic capacity of the word is increased tenfold because of recourse to particular prosodic
means.
Although there is always the danger of reading into the text more than is actually contained in it, we think that the
way the word man is spoken here justifies us in assuming that by this simple prosodic device the speaker achieves a
very unusual effect indeed. Cromwell, who is a clever man and at the same time the King's courtier cannot possibly
commit himself by actually saying clearly what he means. But he has to say something that will enable the Spanish
Ambassador to understand what the state of affairs actually is.
The investigation of lexical polysemy is closely connected with another property of the word
- e n a n t i o s e m y , i.e. the ability of a word to express antonymic meanings. As has been stated in the
publications on the subject, enantiosemy forms the basis of irony in the oral form of language and as a rule is realized
through a specific prosodic structure. The given complex of sounds or letters on the segmental level is enantiosemically
split up by means of a change in the prosody of the utterance . Thus, for instance: || He is as fine a fallow as ever I saw. |
He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to, us all. || I am prodigiously proud of him. || I de'fy even Sir William Lucas
himself to proiduce a .more 'valuable, \son-in-\law.| In this case the word "valuable is used enantiosemically. The
following features taken together serve to create this impression: 1) a rising-falling tone, and 2) slow tempo.
Another example: Algernon: And who are the people you amuse?
Jack: Oh, neighbours, neighbours.
Algernon: Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire.
Jack: Perfectly horrid! Never speak to any of them!
Algernon: || How i/mmensly you must a\muse them!|
In this example the word 'immensely' is pronounced with rising tone which is a part of the complex rising-fall tone (the
second part is realized within the word 'amuse'). This prosodic arrangement serves to express a meaning which; is
antonymous to immense - 'enormous, very large'.
In connection with the problem of enantiosemy a question is bound to arise: should we not be justified in assuming that in
cases of this kind we are no longer dealing with two different uses of the same word but with two separate words? To give an
answer is by no means simple, for 1) the difference on the expression plane is very subtle and does not affect the basic
phonemic composition, and 2) the difference on the content plane is contextually bound and deliberately conveyed to express
irony.
It has already been mentioned that lexicological phonetics deals with purely lexicological problems. The list of these
problems would not be complete if we did not dwell on the question of patterns and productivity in their lexical aspect.
As everybody knows, in all languages there exist such patterns and structural models which regularly recur both in
language and speech. In this part we shall discuss some patterns in the field of derivational morphology. As has been
stated in the book "Patterns and Productivity", derivation manifests itself in two different was, and for two different
purposes. On the one hand, product word-building means are employed to form neologisms, i.e words which are
created to denote a new concept or thing because such is the social need of the given speech community. The second
type of derivation is represented by occasional words, i.e. words coined "for the nonce. Thus, we can say that
neologisms are semantic formations, whereas occasional words are metasemiotic ones
It has already been explained above that the division into neologisms and occasional words is basic to work in this field.
But how does one succeed in drawing a distinct line between the two kinds of derivation? Again the method of lexicological
phonetics stood us in good stead. It has been conclusively shown by the authors that occasional words, nonce
formations, invariably include in their expression certain specific prosodic features . Thus, for example: 1. ||'After
a
/shower and a 'tepid, \touristy 'breakfast| on his /balcony| overlooking the beautiful /beach| he,| had 'gone -up to
Government \House.| 2. |She was really quite \nice-looking, | in a 'tall and 'tweedy and young sort of \way....| 3. ||
They 'scuttled for 'day and /days \ till they 'came to a 'great forest., 'exclusively 'full of .trees and /bushes| and 'stripy, |
speckly, patchy-\blatchy shadows and there they \hid ... 4. II One of the 'chief effects of /love is that you 'see the

.air .sort of in\habited, like 'seeing a .face in the \moon;| and you 'feel- you 'feel dancey and \soft at the same
\time.||
The analysis of these examples shows that irrespective of their syntactic position occasional words are said in a way
which makes them stand out in the flow of speech. The specific prosody of enunciation is characterized by the following
prosodic features: pauses (2, 3, 4),' deviations from the normal tempo (1), increased loudness (4), emphatic tones (1, 4).
Thus, the lexico-phonetic analysis has proved that these adjectives are active on the metasemlotic level. This was clearly
borne out by a peculiar prosodic structure of the newly formed words.

THE PROSODY OF ENANTIOSEMY

In contrast with polysemy the term enantiosemy is hardly used in lexicology. Among the most erroneous
statements which frequently appear in this connection is the pronouncement that one and the same word can be used
in two exactly opposite or polar meanings. Thus, for instance, it is usually believed that the word pretty may have a
distinctly usually pejorative meaning. The same applies to the words like clever, beautiful, etc. It is generally
assumed that in such cases everything depends on the context. Thus, if we say A pretty story indeed or Isnt he
clever?, or Look at that beauty! the words pretty, clever, beauty will be alleged to have acquired the meanings
of nasty, stupid, fright without further ado. The point we are now going to make is that a word which on the
segmental level is a meliorative adjective can acquire a pejorative meaning only if it is pronounced with an altogether
different prosody. The word pretty in What a pretty girl! is not a homophone of pretty in A pretty story
indeed. Thus, neither the lexical content of the utterance itself, not its syntactic structure, not the immediate context
of the given word, even taken together, are sufficient to show that we are dealing with enantiosemy, for it is only
prosody that can enable us to decide conclusively. Thus, for example: Sir Oliver: Oh, hes a /\model for the 'young
man of the /\/age! He, he. But hows this, Sir Peter? You dont join us in your friend Jonsons praise, as I
expected. The intonation of the word model shows is again used enantiosemically. The tempo is reduced
(particularly noticeable is the excessive lengthening of the initial consonant). The falling tone is preceded by a rise,
that is to say, a rise-fall: the two together, according to English phoneticians, are typical of ironical utterances.
Example: Mrs. Candour: Ha, ha, ha! How I \hate to |hear you talk so! But surely now sister is or \/was
very /handsome.
Crab: Who. Mrs. Evergreen? O lord! Shes six-and fifty if shes an hour.
This example is especially interesting because her the enantiosemic expression is meliorative, in contrast with
the preceding example where the basic meaning of the word was meliorative and it was enantiosemy, which turned it
into a pejorative one, i.e. a basically pejorative word becomes meliorative under the influence of the factors described
above. What are the different prosodic factors which are realized in this case? They are: range middle, loudness
normal, tempo reduced, tone gradually descending, timbre neutral. All these factors could be characteristic of
the intonation of mild reproach, but they could never be used to express hatred and indignation. In this way the
intonation for the word hate as such tends to reduce its negative meaning to nought. At any rate it helps to reduce it
very considerably. At the same time the intonation of the last part of the utterance, raising the pitch almost to the upper
limit of the speakers voice range, and the gradual intensification of the timbre spread shows that the word hate is
used here enantiosemically. What we have discussed above is sufficient to enable us to formulate certain conclusions:
1.The enantiosemy of words is expressed by means of a particular emotionally coloured intonation. In certain
cased a very pronounced paralinguistic colouring is revealed not on the word in question, but on those words which
form part of the immediate context.
2.Enantiosemy is realized when there is a contradiction between the direct meaning of the word and the normal
meaning of the intonation with which this word is pronounced. In other words, an utterance the lexical content of
which should be taken to express a certain meliorative attitude of the speaker is accompanied by a prosody which
expresses some kind of negative or pejorative emotion. It is the presence of a contradiction of this kind which enables
the listener to understand that the word is used enantiosemically. In this connection the following question is justified:
can we speak of the English language, of languages in general being endowed with a stock of intonations which do
not express any particular emotion but show us quite clearly that the word in question should be apprehended
enantiosemically?...

3.We have already said that for enantiosemy generally the contradiction between the proper meaning of the words
and the intonation is typical. This, however, does not mean that any case of contradiction of this kind will necessarily
be a case of enantiosemy. Quite often a contradiction of this kind will not lead to a drastic change in the meaning of
the work, they will only tend to weaken it. Thus, for instance, the phrase Quite a pleasure when pronounced with a
high-fall will express pure joy, a real desire to please or be of use. If, however, the same phrase is pronounced with a
low fall, which expresses a quiet, neutral, and sometimes indifferent attitude to the interlocutor or to the subject of the
conversation, the meaning of the phrase will not be polarized, it will only be considerably weakened, and in the actual
fact reduced to formal politeness. To pronounce this sentence with an intonation of contempt or disgust would turn
into irony or enantiosemy. Thus, between the two polar cases: i.e. on the one hand, complete agreement between the
lexical and prosodic means and, on the other hand, their incompatibility we find a large number of intermediate or
boarderline cases.
4.Enantiosemy is not confined to certain types of classes of words. They can be words which belong to different
thematic groups, as well as different parts of speech. However different they may be, they are brought together by one
common characteristic: they all express the attitude of the speaker to the subject of conversation, his subjective
evaluation of what is taking place. The semantic range of expressing this attitude is very great. We can be dealing with
words which express the more concrete emotions (merry. sad), words expressing a more general evaluation (food m
bad and different modal words (certainly, by the way)
5.To describe the interaction of prosody and lexis from the point of view of enantiosemy, the opposition of two
kinds of connotation is found useful, i.e. of the positive, or meliorative, and negative, or pejorative ones. By using this
terminology we can say that for a great mass of words and word-combinations which are used enantiosemically an
inherent positive or negative connotation is typical, and that enantiosemy with a minus characteristic, i.e. the change
from ameliorative connotation to a pejorative one occurs more frequently than the other variant. Words with inherent
connotation are contrasted with those which have no definite connotation in spite of the fact that they belong to the
category of evaluative words, such as, for instance, the word remarkable. This word acquires a definite connotation
only in context and it is intonation which helps us to define with what connotation the word was used. It is interesting
to note that this group of words grows incessantly at the expense of those, the enantiosemic use of which has now
become part and parcel of everyday use to such an extent that they have particularly lost their inherent connotation
(L.Minajeva, M.Davydov, G.Egorov, E.Jakovleva, I.Magidova, O.Mindrul, E. Nifontova, T.Shishkina, S.Vardanean.
AN OUTLINE OF ENGLISH PHONETICS, MSU, 1973 (edited by O.Akhmanova and L.Minajeva)).

WORD-MEANING.
l. Referential Approach. There are broadly speaking two schools to Meaning of thought in present-day linguistics
representing the main lines of contemporary thinking on the problem: the referential approach, which seeks to
formulate the essence of meaning by establishing the interdependence between words and the things or concepts they
denote, and the functional approach, which studies the functions of a word in speech and is less concerned with what
meaning is than with how it works. All major works on semantic theory have so far been based on referential concepts
of meaning. The essential feature of this approach is that it distinguishes between the three components closely
connected with meaning: the sound-form of the linguistic sign, the concept underlying this sound-form, and the actual
referent, i.e. that part or that aspect of reality to which the linguistic sign refers. The best known referential model of
meaning is the so-called "basic triangle", which, with some variations, underlies the semantic systems of all the
adherents of this school of thought. In a simplified form the triangle may be represented as shown below: concept
sound -form [dv]. As can be seen from the diagram the sound-form of the linguistic sign, e.g. [d v], is connected
with our concept of the bird, which it denotes and through it with the referent, i.e. the actual bird.1 The common
feature of any referential approach is the implication that meaning is in some form or other connected with the
referent. Let us now examine the place of meaning in this model. It is easily observed that the sound-form of the word
is not identical with its meaning, e.g. [dv] is the sound-form used to denote a peal-grey bird. There is no inherent
connection, however, between this particular sound-cluster and the meaning of the word dove. The connection is

conventional and arbitrary. This can be easily proved by comparing the sound-forms of different languages conveying
one and the same meaning, e.g. English [dv], Russian [golub'], German [taube] and so on. It can also be proved by
comparing almost identical sound-forms that possess different meaning in different languages. The sound-cluster
[kot], e.g. in the English language means 'a small, usually swinging bed for a child', but in the Russian language
essentially the same sound-cluster possesses the meaning 'male cat'. For more convincing evidence of the
conventional and arbitrary nature of the connection between sound-form and meaning all we have to do is to point to
the homonyms. The word seal [si:l], e.g., means 'a piece of wax, lead', etc. stamped with a design; its homonym seal
[si:l] possessing the same sound-form denotes 'a sea animal'. Besides, if meaning were inherently connected with the
sound-form of a linguistic unit, it would follow that a change in sound-form would necessitate a change of meaning.
We know, however, that even considerable changes in the sound-form of a word in the course of its historical
development do not necessarily affect its meaning. The sound-form of the OE. word lufian [luvian] has greatly
changed, and has been transformed into love [lv], yet the meaning 'hold dear, bear love', etc. has remained
essentially unchanged. When we examine a word we see that its meaning though closely connected with the
underlying concept or concepts is not identical with them. To begin with, concept is a category of human cognition.
Concept is the thought of the object that singles out its essential features. Our concepts abstract and reflect the most
common and typical features of the different objects and phenomena of the world. Being the result of abstraction and
generalization all concepts are thus intrinsically almost the same for the whole of humanity in one and the same period
of its historical development. The meanings of words however are different in different languages. That is to say,
words expressing identical concepts may have different meanings and different semantic structures in different
languages. The concept of a building for human habitation is expressed in English by the word house, in Russian by
the word , but the meaning of the English word is not identical with that of the Russian as house does not possess
the meaning of 'fixed residence of family or house-hold which is one of the meanings of the Russian word ; it is
expressed by another English polysemantic word, namely home which possesses a number of other meanings not to
.be found in the Russian word .
The difference between meaning and concept can also be observed by comparing synonymous words and wordgroups expressing essentially the same concepts but possessing linguistic meaning which is felt as different in each of
the units under consideration, e.g. big, large; to die, to pass away, to kick the bucket, to join the majority; child,
baby, babe, infant. The precise definition of the content of a concept comes within the sphere of logic but it can be
easily observed that the word-meaning is not identical with it. For instance, the content of the concept six can be
expressed by 'three plus three', 'five plus one', or 'ten minus four', etc. Obviously, the meaning of the word six cannot
be identified with the meaning of these word-groups. To distinguish meaning from the referent, i.e. from the thing
denoted by the linguistic sign is of the utmost importance, and at first sight does not seem to present difficulties. To
begin with, meaning is linguistic whereas the denoted object or the referent is beyond the scope of language. We can
denote one and the same object by more than one word of a different meaning. For instance, in a speech situation an
apple can be denoted by the words apple, fruit, something, this, etc. as all of these words may have the same
referent. Meaning cannot be equated with the actual properties of the referent, e.g. the meaning of the word water
cannot be regarded as identical with its chemical formula H2O as water means essentially the same to all English
speakers including those who have no idea of its chemical composition. Last but not least there are words that have
distinct meaning but do not refer to any existing thing, e.g. angel or phoenix. Such words have meaning, which is
understood by the speaker-hearer, but the objects they denote do not exist.
Thus, meaning is not to be identified with any of the three points of the triangle.
It should be pointed out that among the adherents of the referentia1 approach there are some who hold that the
meaning of a linguistic sign is the concept underlying it, and consequently they substitute meaning for concept in the
basic triangle. Others identify meaning with the referent. They argue that unless we have a scientifically accurate
knowledge of the referent we cannot give a scientifically accurate definition of the meaning of a word. According to
them the English word salt, e.g., means 'sodium chloride (NaCl)'. But how are we to define precisely the meanings of
such words as love or hate, etc.? We must admit that the actual extent of human knowledge makes it impossible to
define word-meanings accurately.1 It logically follows that any study of meanings in linguistics along these lines must
be given up as impossible. Here we have sought to show that meaning is closely connected but not identical with
sound-form, concept or referent. Yet even those who accept this view disagree as to the nature of meaning. Some

linguists regard meaning as the interrelation of the three points of the triangle within the framework of the given
language, i.e. as the interrelation of the sound-form, concept and referent, but not as an objectively existing part of the
linguistic sign. Others and among them some outstanding Soviet linguists, proceed from the basic assumption of the
objectivity of language and meaning and understand the linguistic sign as a two-facet unit. They view meaning as "a
certain reflection in our mind of objects, phenomena or relations that makes part of the linguistic sign-its so-called
inner facet, whereas the sound-form functions as its outer facet." The outer facet of the linguistic sign is indispensable
to meaning and intercommunication. Meaning is to be found in all linguistic units and together with their sound-form
constitutes the linguistic signs studied by linguistic science. The criticism of the referential theories of meaning may
be briefly summarized as follows: 1.Meaning, as understood in the referential approach, comprises the interrelation of
linguistic signs with categories and phenomena outside the scope of language. As neither referents (i.e. actual things,
phenomena, nor concepts belong to language, the analysis of meaning is confined either to the study of the
interrelation of the linguistic sign and referent or that of the linguistic sign and concept, all of which, properly
speaking, is not the object of linguistic study. 2. The great stumbling block in referential theories of meaning has
always been that they operate with subjective and intangible mental processes. The results of semantic investigation
therefore depend to a certain extent on "the feel of the language" and cannot be verified by another investigator
analysing the same linguistic data. It follows that
semasiology has to rely too much on linguistic intuition and
unlike other fields of linguistic inquiry (e.g. phonetics, history of language) does not possess objective methods of
investigation. Consequently it is argued, linguists should either give up the study of meaning and the attempts to
define meaning altogether, or confine their efforts to the investigation of the function of linguistic signs in speech.
Functional Approach to Meaning. In recent years a new and entirely different approach to meaning known, as
the meaning functional approach has begun to take shape in linguistics and especially in structural linguistics. The
functional approach maintains that" the meaning of a linguistic unit may be studied only through its relation to other
linguistic units and not through its relation to either concept or referent. In a very simplified form this view may be
illustrated by the following: we know, for instance, that the meaning of the two words move and movement is
different because, they function in speech differently. Comparing the contexts in which we find these words we cannot
fail to observe that they occupy different positions in relation to other words. (To) move, e.g., can be followed by a
noun (move the chair), preceded by a pronoun (we move), etc. The position occupied by the word movement is
different: it may be followed by a preposition (movement of smth), preceded by an adjective (slow movement), and
so on. As the distribution 1 of the two words is different, we are entitled to the conclusion that not only do they belong
to different classes of words, but that their meanings are different too. The same is true of the different meanings of
one and the same word. Analysing the function of a word in linguistic contexts and comparing these contexts, we
conclude that meanings are different (or the same) and this fact can be proved by an objective investigation of
linguistic data. For example we can observe the difference of the meanings of the word take if we examine its
functions in different linguistic contexts, take the tram (the taxi, the cab,, etc.) as opposed to to take to somebody.
It follows that in the functional approach (1) semantic investigation is confined to the analysis of the difference or
sameness of meaning; (2) meaning is understood essentially as the function of the use-of linguistic units. As a matter
of fact, this line of semantic investigation is the primary concern, implied or expressed, of all structural linguists.
Relation between the Two Approaches
When comparing the two approaches described above in terms of
methods of the Two Approaches to linguistic analysis we see that the functional approach should not be considered an
alternative, but rather a valuable complement to the referential theory. It is only natural that linguistic investigation
must start by collecting an adequate number of samples of contexts.1 On examination the meaning or meanings of
linguistic units will emerge from the contexts themselves. Once this phase had been completed it seems but logical to
pass on to the referential phase and try to formulate the meaning thus identified. There is absolutely no need to set the
two approaches against each other; each handles its own side of the problem and neither is complete without the other.
R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M.,1966)
TYPES OF MEANING
It is more or less universally recognized that word-meaning is not homogeneous but is made up of various components
the combination and the interrelation of which determine to a great extent the inner facet of the word. These

components are usually described as types of meaning. The two main types of meaning that are readily observed are
the grammatical and the lexical meanings to be found in words and word-forms.
Grammatical Meaning. We notice, e.g., that word-forms, such as girl, winters, joys, tables though denoting
widely different objects of reality have something in common. This common element is the grammatical meaning of
plurality, which can be found in all of them. Thus grammatical meaning may be defined as the component of meaning
recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words, as, e.g., the tense meaning in the word-forms of verbs
(asked, thought, walked, etc.) or the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns (girl's, boy's, night's, etc.).
In a broad sense it may be argued that linguists who make a distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning are,
in fact, making a distinction between the functional (linguistic) meaning, which operates at various levels as the
interrelation of various linguistic units and referential (conceptual) meaning as the interrelation of linguistic units and
referents (or concepts).
In modern linguistic science it is commonly held that some elements of grammatical meaning can be identified by
the position of the linguistic unit in relation to other linguistic units, i.e. by its distribution. Word-forms speaks, reads,
writes have one and the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in identical distribution, e.g. only after
the pronouns he, she, it and before adverbs like well, badly, to-day, etc. It follows that a certain component of the
meaning of a word is described when you identify it as a part of speech, since different parts of speech are
distributionally different (cf. my work and I work).
Lexical Meaning. Comparing word-forms of one and the same word we observe that besides grammatical
meaning, there is another component of meaning to be found in them. Unlike the grammatical meaning this
component is identical in all the forms of the word. Thus, e.g. the word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone possess
different grammatical meanings of tense, person and so on, but in each of these forms we find one and the same
semantic component denoting the process of movement. This is the lexical meaning of the word, which may be
described as the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this
word. The difference between the lexical and the grammatical components of meaning is not to be sought in the
difference of the concepts underlying the two types of meaning, but rather in the way they are conveyed. The concept
of plurality, e.g., may be expressed by the lexical meaning of the world plurality; it may also be expressed in the
forms of various words irrespective of their lexical meaning, e.g. boys, girls, joys, etc. The concept of relation may be
expressed by the lexical meaning of the word relation and also by any of the prepositions, e.g. in, on, behind, etc. (cf.
the book is in/on, behind the table). It follows that by lexical meaning we designate the meaning proper to the given
linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions, while by grammatical meaning we designate the meaning proper to
sets of word-forms common to all words of a certain class. Both the lexical and the grammatical meaning make up the
word-meaning, as neither can exist without the other. That can be also observed in the semantic analysis of correlated
words in different languages.
Part-of-speech Meaning. It is usual to classify lexical items into major word-classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives and
adverbs) and minor word-classes (articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc.). All members of a major word-class share a
distinguishing semantic component which though very abstract may be viewed as the lexical component of part-ofspeech meaning. For example, the meaning of 'thing-ness' or substantiality may be found in all the nouns e.g. table,
love, sugar, though they possess different grammatical meanings of number, case, etc. It should be noted, however,
that the grammatical aspect of the part-of-speech meanings is conveyed as a rule by a set of forms. If we describe the
word as a noun we mean to say that it is bound to possess a set of forms expressing the grammatical meaning of
number (cf. table- tables), case (cf. boy, boy's) and so on. A verb is understood to possess sets of forms expressing,
e.g., tense meaning (worked-works), mood meaning (work!-(I) work), etc. The part-of-speech meaning of the words
that possess only one form, e.g. prepositions, some adverbs, etc., is observed only in their distribution (cf. to come in
(here, there) and in (on, under) the table).
One of the levels at which grammatical meaning operates is that of minor word classes like articles, pronouns, etc.
Members of these word classes are generally listed in dictionaries just as other vocabulary items, that belong to major
word-classes of lexical items proper (e.g. nouns, verbs, etc.). One criterion for distinguishing these grammatical items
from lexical items is in terms of closed and open sets. Grammatical items form closed sets of units usually of small
membership (e.g. the set of modern English pronouns, articles, etc.). New items are practically never added.

Lexical terms proper belong to open sets, which have indeterminately large membership; new lexical items which
are constantly coined to fulfill the needs of the speech community are added to these open sets. The interrelation of
the lexical and the grammatical meaning and the role played by each varies in different word-classes and even in
different groups of words within one and the same class. In some parts of speech the prevailing, component is the
grammatical type of meaning. The lexical meaning of prepositions for example is, as a rule, relatively vague
(independent of smb, one of the students, the roof of the house). The lexical meaning of some prepositions,
however, may be comparatively distinct (cf. in/on, under the table). In verbs the lexical meaning usually comes to
the fore although in some of them, the verb to be, e.g., the grammatical meaning of a linking element prevails (cf. he
works as a teacher and he is a teacher).
Denotational and Connotational Meaning. Proceeding with the semantic analysis , - we observe that lexical
meaning is not homogenous either and may be analysed as including denotational and connotational components. As
was mentioned above one of the functions of words is to denote things, concepts and so on. Users of a language
cannot have any knowledge or thought of the objects or phenomena of the real world around them unless this
knowledge is ultimately embodied in words which have essentially the same meaning for all speakers of that
language. This is the denotational meaning, i.e. that component of the lexical meaning which makes communication
possible. There is no doubt that a physicist knows more about the atom than a singer does, or that an arctic explorer
possesses a much deeper knowledge of what arctic ice is like than a man who has never been in the North.
Nevertheless they use the words atom, Arctic, etc. and understand each other. The second component of the lexical
meaning is the connotational component, i.e. the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word.
Emotive charge. Words contain an element of emotive meaning; e.g. a hovel denotes 'a small house or cottage'
and besides implies that it is a miserable dwelling place, dirty, in bad repair and in general unpleasant to live in. When
examining synonyms large, big, tremendous and like, love, worship or words such as girl, girlie; dear, dearie we
cannot fail to observe the difference in the emotive charge of the members of these sets. The emotive charge of the
words tremendous, worship and girlie is heavier than that of the words large, like and girl. This does not depend on
the "feeling" of the individual speaker but is true for all speakers of English. The emotive charge varies in different
word-classes. In some of them, in interjections, e.g., the emotive element prevails, whereas in conjunctions the
emotive charge is as a rule practically non-existent. The emotive charges one of the objective semantic features proper
to words as linguistic units and forms part of the connotational component of meaning. It should not be confused with
emotive implications that the words may acquire in speech. The emotive implication of the word is to a great extent
subjective as it greatly depends of the personal experience of the speaker, the mental imagery the word evokes in him.
Words seemingly devoid of any emotional element may possess in the case of individual speakers strong emotive
implications as may be illustrated, e.g. by the word hospital. What is thought and felt when the word hospital is used
will be different in the case of an architect who built it, the invalid staying there after an operation, or the man living
across the road.
Stylistic Reference. Words differ not only in their emotive charge but also in their stylistic reference. Stylistically
words can be roughly subdivided into literary, neutral and colloquial layers. The greater part of the literary layer of
Modern English vocabulary are words of general use, possessing no specific stylistic reference and known as neutra1
words. Against the background of neutral words we can distinguish two major subgroups - standard colloquial words
and literary or bookish words. This may be best illustrated by comparing words almost identical in their denotational
meaning, e. g., 'parent-father-dad'. In comparison with the word father which is stylistically neutral, dad stands out
as colloquial and parent is felt as bookish. The stylistic reference of standard colloquial words is clearly observed
when we compare them with their neutral synonyms, e.g. chum-friend, rot-nonsense, etc. This is also true of literary
or bookish words, such as, e.g., to presume (cf. to suppose), to anticipate (cf. to expect) and others.
Literary (bookish) words are not stylistically homogeneous. Besides general-literary (bookish) words, e.g.
harmony, calamity, alacrity, etc., we may single out various specific subgroups, namely: 1) terms or scientific words
such as, e. g., renaissance, genocide, teletype, etc.; 2) poetic words and archaisms such as, e.g., whilom - 'formerly',
aught-'anything', ere-'before', albeit-'although', fare-'walk', etc., tarry-'remain', nay-'no'; 3) barbarisms and foreign
words, such as, e.g., bon mot-'a clever or witty saying', apropos, faux pas, bouquet, etc. The colloquial words may.
be subdivided into: 1) Common colloquial words. 2) Slang, i.e. words which are often regarded as a violation of the
norms of Standard English, e.g. governor for 'father', missus for 'wife', a gag for 'a joke', dotty for 'insane'. 3)

Professionalisms, i.e. words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation, such as, e.g., lab for 'laboratory',
hypo for 'hypodermic syringe', a buster for 'a bomb', etc. 4) Jargonisms, i.e. words marked by their use within a
particular social group and bearing a secret and cryptic character, e.g. a sucker- 'a person who is easily deceived', a
squiffer -'a concertina'. 5) Vulgarisms, i.e. coarse words that are not generally used in public, e.g. bloody, hell,
damn, shut up, etc. 6) Dialectical words, e.g. lass, kirk, etc. 7) Colloquial coinages, e.g. newspaperdom,
allrightnik, etc.
Emotive Charge and Stylistic reference. Stylistic Reference and emotive charge words are closely connected
and to a certain degree interdependent. As a rule stylistically coloured words, i.e. words belonging to all stylistic
layers except the neutral style are observed to possess a considerable emotive charge. That can be proved by
comparing stylistically labeled words with their neutral synonyms. The colloquial words daddy, mammy are more
emotional than the neutral father, mother; the slang words mum, bob are undoubtedly more expressive than their
neutral counterparts silent, shilling, the poetic yon and steed carry a noticeably heavier emotive charge than their
neutral synonyms there and horse. Words of neutral style, however, may also differ in the degree of emotive charge.
We see, e.g., that the words large, big, tremendous, though equally neutral as to their stylistic reference are not
identical as far as their emotive charge is concerned. 1. In the present book word-meaning is viewed as closely
connected but not identical with either the sound-form of the word or with its referent.
Proceeding from the basic assumption of the objectivity of language and from the understanding of linguistic
units as two-facet entities we regard meaning as the inner facet of the word, inseparable from its outer facet which is
indispensable to the existence of meaning and to intercommunication. 2. The two main types of word-meaning are the
grammatical and the lexical meanings found in all words. The interrelation of these two types of meaning may be
different in different groups of words. 3. Lexical meaning is viewed as possessing denotational and connotational
components. The denotational component is actually what makes communication possible. The connotational
component comprises the stylistic reference and the emotive charge proper to the word as a linguistic unit in the given
language system. The subjective emotive implications acquired by words in speech lie outside the semantic structure
of words as they may vary from speaker to speaker but are not proper to words as units of language. (A Course in
Modern English Lexicology R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M.,1966)
WORD-MEANING AND MEANING IN MORPHEMES
In modern linguistics it is more or less universally recognized that the smallest two-facet language unit possessing
both sound-form and meaning is the morpheme. Yet, whereas the phono-morphological structure of language has been
subjected to a thorough linguistic analysis, the problem of types of meaning and semantic peculiarities of morphemes
has not been properly investigated. A few points of interest, however, may be mentioned in connection with some
recent observations in this field.
Lexical Meaning It is generally assumed that one of the semantic features of some morphemes which
distinguishes them from words is that they do not possess grammatical meaning. Comparing the word man, e.g., and
the morpheme man-(in manful, manly, etc.) we see that we cannot find in this morpheme the grammatical meaning
of case and number observed in the word man. Morphemes are consequently regarded as devoid of grammatical
meaning. Many English words consist of a single root-morpheme, so when we say that most morphemes posses?
lexical meaning we imply mainly the root-morphemes in such words. It may be easily observed that the lexical
meaning of the word boy and the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme boy-in such words as boyhood, boyish and
others is very much the same. Just as in words lexical meaning in morphemes may also be analysed into denotational
and connotational components. The connotational component of meaning may be found not only in root-morphemes
but in affixational morphemes as well. Endearing and diminutive suffixes, e.g. -ette (kitchenette), -ie(y) (dearie,
girlie), -ling (duckling), clearly bear a heavy emotive charge. Comparing the derivational morphemes with the same
denotational meaning we see that they sometimes differ in connotation only. The morphemes, e.g. -ly, -like, -ish, have
the denotational meaning of similarity in the words womanly, womanlike, womanish, the connotational component,
however, differs and ranges from the, positive evaluation in -ly (womanly) to the derogatory in -ish (womanish).1
Stylistic reference may also be found in morphemes of different types. The stylistic value of such derivational
morphemes as, e.g. -ine (chlorine), -oid (rhomboid), -escence (effervescence) is clearly perceived to be bookish or
scientific.

Functional (part-of-speech) meaning. The lexical meaning of the affixal morphemes is, as a rule, of a more
generalizing character. The suffix -er, e.g. carries the meaning 'the agent, the doer of the action', the suffix-less denotes
lack or absence of something. It should also be noted that the root-morphemes do not possess the part-of-speech
meaning (cf. manly, manliness, to man); in derivational morphemes the lexical and the part-of-speech meaning may
be so blended as to be almost inseparable. In the derivational morphemes -er and -less discussed above the lexical
meaning is just as clearly perceived as their part-of-speech meaning. In some morphemes, however, for instance
-ment or -ous (as in movement or laborious), it is the part-of-speech meaning that prevails, the lexical meaning is but
vaguely felt. In some cases the functional meaning predominates. The morpheme -ice in the word justice, e.g., seems
to serve principally to transfer the part-of-speech meaning of the morpheme just-into another class and namely that of
noun. It follows that some morphemes possess only the functional meaning, i.e. they are the carriers of part-of-speech
meaning.
Differential Meaning. Besides the types of meaning proper both to words and morphemes the latter may possess
specific meanings of their own, namely the differential and the distributional meanings. Differential meaning is the
semantic component that serves to distinguish one word from all others containing identical morphemes. In words
consisting of two or more morphemes, one of the constituent morphemes always has differential meaning. In such
words as, e. g., bookshelf, the morpheme -shelf serves to distinguish the word from other words containing the
morpheme book", e.g. from bookcase, book-counter and so on. In other compound words, e.g. notebook, the
morpheme note- will be seen to possess the differential meaning which distinguishes notebook from exercise-book,
copybook, etc. It should be clearly understood that denotational and differential meanings are not mutually exclusive.
Naturally the morpheme -shelf in bookshelf possesses denotational meaning which is the dominant component of
meaning. There are cases, however, when it is difficult or even impossible to assign any denotational meaning to the
morpheme, e.g. cran- in cranberry, yet it clearly bears a relationship to the meaning of the -word as a whole through
the differential component (cf. cranberry and blackberry, gooseberry) which in this particular case comes to the
fore. One of the disputable points of morphological analysis is whether such words as deceive, receive, perceive
consist of two' component morphemes. If we assume that the morpheme -ceive may be singled out it follows that 'the
meaning of the morphemes re-, per, de- is exclusively differential, as, at least synchronically, there is no denotational
meaning proper to them.
Distributional Meaning. Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement of morphemes
making up the word. It is found in all words containing more than one morpheme. The word singer, e.g., is composed
of two morphemes sing- and -er both of which possess the denotational meaning and namely 'to make musical sounds'
(sing-) and 'the doer of the action' (-er). There is one more element of meaning, however, that enables us to understand
the word and that is the pattern of arrangement of the component morphemes, A different arrangement of the same
morphemes, e.g. *ersing, would make the word meaningless. Compare also boyishness and *nessishboy in which a
different pattern of arrangement of the three morphemes boy-ish-ness turns it into a meaningless string of sounds. (A
Course in Modern English Lexicology (ed. O.Akhmanova and L.Minajeva) R.S.Ginsburg, S.S.Khidekel,
G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)
WORD-MEANING AND MOTIVATION
From what was said about the distributional meaning in morphemes it follows that there are cases when we can
observe a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning. This relationship between
morphemic structure and meaning is termed morphological motivation.
Morphological Motivation. The main criterion in morphological motivation is the relationship between
morphemes. Hence all one-morpheme words, e.g. sing, tell, eat, are by definition non-motivated. In words composed
of more than one morpheme the carrier of the word-meaning is the combined meaning of the component morphemes
and the meaning of the structural pattern of the word. This can be illustrated by the semantic analysis of different
words composed of phonemically identical morphemes with identical lexical meaning. The words finger-ring and
ring-finger, e.g., contain two morphemes, the combined lexical meaning of which is the same; the difference in the
meaning of these words can be accounted for by the difference in the arrangement of the component morphemes. If
we can observe a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning, we say that this word is
motivated. Consequently words such as singer, rewrite, eatable, etc., are described as motivated. If the connection

between the structure of the lexical unit and its meaning is completely arbitrary and conventional, we speak of nonmotivated or idiomatic words, e.g. matter, repeat. It should be noted in passing that morphological motivation is
"relative", i.e. the degree of motivation may be different. Between the extremes of complete motivation and lack of
motivation, there exist various grades of partial motivation. The word endless, e.g., is completely motivated as both
the lexical meaning of the component morphemes and the meaning of the pattern is perfectly transparent. The word
cranberry is only partially motivated because of the absence of the lexical- meaning in the morpheme cran-. One
more point should be noted in connection with the problem in question. A synchronic approach to morphological
motivation presupposes historical changeability of structural patterns and the ensuing degree of motivation. Some
English place-names may serve as an illustration. Such place-names as Newtowns and Wildwoods are lexically and
structurally motivated and may be easily analysed into component morphemes. Other place-names, e.g. Essex,
Norfolk, Sutton, are non-motivated. To the average English speaker these names are non-analysable lexical units like
sing or tell. However, upon examination the student of language history will perceive their components to be
East+Saxon, North+Folk and South+Town which shows that in earlier days they were just as completely motivated as
Newtowns or Wildwoods are in Modern English.
Phonetical Motivation. Motivation is usually thought of as procceeding from form or structure to meaning.
Morphological motivation as discussed above implies a direct connection between the morphological structure of the
word and its meaning. Some linguists, however, argue that words can be motivated in more than one way and suggest
another type of motivation which may be described as a direct connection between the phonetical structure of the
word and its meaning. It is argued that speech sounds may suggest spatial and visual dimensions, shape, size, etc.
Experiments carried out by a group of linguists showed that back open vowels, are suggestive of big size, heavy
weight, dark colour, etc. The experiments were repeated many times and the results were always the same. Native
speakers of English were asked to listen to pairs of antonyms from an unfamiliar (or non-existent) language unrelated
to English, e.g. ching-chung and then to try to find the English equivalents, e.g. light-heavy, (big-small, etc.), which
foreign word translates which English word. About 90 per cent of English speakers felt that ching is the equivalent of
the English light (small) and chung of its antonym heavy (large). It is also pointed out that this type of phonetic
motivation may be observed in the phonemic structure of some newly coined words. For example, the small
transmitter that specializes in high frequencies is called 'a tweeter', the transmitter for low frequencies - 'a woofer'.
Another type of phonetic motivation is represented by such words as swish, sizzle, boom, splash, etc. These words
may be defined as phonetically motivated because the sound-clusters [swi, sizl, bum, spl] are a direct imitation of
the sounds these words denote. It is also suggested that sounds themselves may be emotionally expressive which
accounts for the phonetic motivation in certain words. Initial [f] and [p], e.g., are felt as expressing scorn, contempt,
disapproval or disgust which can be illustrated by the words pooh! fie! fiddle-sticks, flim-flam and the like. The
sound-cluster [in] is imitative of sound or swift movement as can be seen in words ring, sing, swing, fling, etc. Thus,
phonetically such words may be considered motivated.
This hypothesis seems to require verification. This of course is not to deny that there are some words, which
involve phonetic symbolism: these are the onomatopoeic, imitative or echoic words such as the English cuckoo,
splash and whisper. And even these are not completely motivated but seem to be conventional to quite a large extent
(cf. k, cucurigu and cock-a-doodle-doo). In any case words like these constitute only a small and untypical
minority in the language. As to symbolic value of certain sounds, this too is disproved by the fact that identical sounds
and sound-clusters may be found in words of widely different meaning, e.g. initial [p] and [f], are found in words
expressing contempt and disapproval (fie, pooh) and also in such words as plough, fine, and others. The soundcluster [ig] which is supposed to be imitative of sound or swift movement (ring, swing) is also observed in
semantically different words, e.g. thing, king, and others.
Semantic Motivation. The term motivation, is also used by a number of linguists to denote the relationship
between the central and the coexisting meaning or meanings of a word which are understood as a metaphorical
extension of the central meaning. Metaphorical extension may be viewed as generalization of the denotational
meaning of a word permitting it to include new referents, which are in some way like the original class of referents.
Similarity of various aspects and/or functions of different classes of referents may account for the semantic motivation
of a number of minor meanings. For example, a woman who has given birth is called a mother; by extension, any act
that gives birth is associated with being a mother, e.g. in Necessity is the mother of invention. The same principle

can be observed in other meanings: a mother looks after a child, so that we can say She became a mother to her
orphan nephew, or Romulus and Remus were supposedly mothered by a wolf. Cf. also mother country, a
mother's mark (= a birthmark), mother tongue, etc. Such metaphoric extension may be observed in the so-called
trite metaphors, such as burn with anger, break smb's heart, jump at a chance, etc. If metaphorical extension is
observed in the relationship of the central and a minor word meaning it is often observed in the relationship between
its synonymic or antonymic meanings. Thus, a few years ago the phrases a meeting at the summit, a summit
meeting appeared in the newspapers. Cartoonists portrayed the participants of such summit meetings sitting on
mountain tops. Now when lesser diplomats confer the talks are called foothill meetings. In t-his way both summit
and its antonym foothill undergo the process of metaphorical extension. (A Course in Modern English Lexicology.
R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)
CHANGE OF MEANING
Word-meaning is liable to change in the course of the historical development of language. Changes of lexical
meaning may be illustrated by a diachronic semantic analysis of many commonly used English words. The word fond
(OE. fond) used to mean 'foolish', 'foolishly credulous'; glad (OE, glaed) had the meaning of 'bright', 'shining' and so
on.
Change of meaning has been thoroughly studied and as a matter of fact monopolized the attention of all
semanticists whose work up to the early 1930's was centered almost exclusively on the description and classification
of various changes of meaning. Abundant language data can be found in almost all the books dealing with semantics.
Here we shall confine the discussion to a brief outline of the problem as it is viewed in modern linguistic science. To
avoid the ensuing confusion of terms and concepts it is necessary to discriminate between the causes of semantic
change, the results and the nature of the process of change of meaning. These are three closely bound up, but
essentially different aspects of one and the same problem. Discussing the causes of semantic change we concentrate
on the factors bringing about this change and attempt to find out why the word changed its meaning. Analysing the
nature of semantic change we seek to clarify the process of this change and describe how various changes of meaning
were brought about. Our aim in investigating the results of semantic change is to find out what was changed, i.e. we
compare the resultant and the original meanings and describe the difference between-them mainly in terms of the
changes of the denotational components.
Causes of Semantic Change. The factors accounting for semantic change may be roughly subdivided into two
groups: a) extra-linguistic and b) linguistic causes. By extra-linguistic causes we mean various changes in the life of
the speech community, changes in economic and social structure, changes in ideas, scientific concepts, way of life and
other spheres of human activities as reflected in word meanings. Although objects, institutions, concepts, etc. change
in the course of time in many cases the sound form of the words which denote them is retained but the meaning of the
words is changed. The word car, e.g., ultimately goes back to Latin carrus which meant 'a four-wheeled wagon' (ME.
carre) but now that other means of transport are used it denotes 'a motor-car', 'a railway carriage' (in the USA), 'that
portion of an airship, or balloon which is intended to carry personnel, cargo or equipment'. Some changes of meaning
are due to what may be described as purely linguistic causes, i.e. factors acting within the language system. The
commonest form, which this influence takes is the so-called ellipsis. In a phrase made up of two words one of these is
omitted and its meaning is transferred to its partner. The verb to starve, e.g., in Old English (Of. steorfan) had the
meaning 'to die' and was habitually used in collocation with the word hunger (ME. sterven of hunger). Already in the
16th century the verb itself acquired the meaning 'to die of hunger'. Similar semantic changes may be observed in
Modern English when the meaning of one word is transferred to another because they habitually occur together in
speech. Another linguistic cause is discrimination of synonyms, which can be illustrated by the semantic development
of a number of words. The word land, e.g., in Old English (OE. land) meant both 'solid part of earth's surface' and 'the
territory of a nation'. When in the Middle English period the word country (OFr. contree) was borrowed as its
synonym, the meaning of the word land was somewhat altered and 'the territory of a nation' came to be denoted
mainly by the borrowed word country. Some semantic changes may be accounted for by the influence of a peculiar
factor usually referred to as linguistic analogy. It was found out,' e.g., that if one of the members of a synonymic set
acquires a new meaning other members of this set change their meanings too. It was observed, e.g., that all English
adverbs which acquired the meaning 'rapidly' (in a certain period of time-before 1300) always develop the meaning

'immediately', similarly verbs synonymous with catch, e.g. grasp, get, etc., by semantic extension acquired another
meaning-' to understand'.
Nature of Semantic Change. Generally speaking, a necessary condition of any semantic change, no matter what
its cause, is some connection, some association between the old meaning and the new. There are two kinds of
association involved as a rule in various semantic changes namely: a) similarity of meanings, and b) contiguity of
meanings. Similarity of meanings or metaphor may be described as a semantic process of associating two referents,
one of which in some way resembles the other. The word hand, e.g., acquired in the 16th century the meaning of 'a
pointer of a clock or a watch' because of the similarity of one of the functions performed by the hand (to point at
something) and the function of the clock pointer. Since metaphor is based on the perception of similarities it is only
natural that when an analogy is obvious, it should give rise to a metaphoric meaning. This can be observed in the wide
currency of metaphoric meanings of words denoting parts of the human body in various languages (cf. 'the leg of the
table', 'the foot of the hill', etc.). Sometimes it is similarity of form, outline, etc. that underlies the metaphor. The words
warm and cold began to denote certain qualities of human voices because of some kind of similarity between these
qualities and warm and cold temperature. It is also usual to perceive similarity between colours and emotions. It has
also been observed that in many speech communities colour terms, e.g. the words black and white, have metaphoric
meanings in addition to the literal denotation of colours. Contiguity of meanings or metonymy may be described as
the semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely connected with it.
This can be perhaps best illustrated by the use of the word tongue- 'the organ of speech' in the meaning of 'language'
(as in mother tongue; cf. also L. lingua,). The word bench acquired the meaning 'judges, magistrates' because it was
on the bench that the judges used to sit in law courts, similarly the House acquired the meaning of 'members of the
House' (Parliament). It is generally held that metaphor plays a more important role in the change of meaning than
metonymy. A more detailed analysis would show that there are some semantic changes that fit into more than the two
groups discussed above. A change of meaning, e.g., may be brought about by the association between the sound-forms
of two words. The word boon, e.g., originally meant 'prayer, petition', 'request', but then came to denote 'a thing
prayed or asked for'. Its current meaning is 'a blessing, an advantage, a thing to be thanked for.' The change of
meaning was probably due to the similarity to the sound-form of the adjective boon (an Anglicised form of French
bon denoting 'good, nice'). Within metaphoric and metonymic changes we can single out various subgroups. Here,
however, we shall confine ourselves to a very general outline of the main types of semantic association as discussed
above. A more detailed analysis of the changes of meaning and the nature of such changes belongs in the diachronic or
historical lexicology and lies outside the scope of the present' textbook.
Results of Semantic Change. Results of semantic change can be generally observed in the changes of the
denotational meaning of the word (restriction and extension of meaning) or in the alteration of its connotational
component (amelioration and deterioration of meaning). Changes in the denotational meaning may result in the
restriction of the types or range of referents denoted by the word. This may be illustrated by the semantic development
of the word hound (Of. hund), which used to denote 'a dog of any breed' but now denotes only 'a dog used in the
chase'. This is also the case with the word fowl (OE. fugol, fugel) which in old English denoted 'any bird', but in
Modern English denotes 'a domestic hen or cock'. This is generally described as "restriction of meaning" and if the
word with the new meaning comes to be used in the specialized vocabulary of some limited group within the speech
community it is usual to speak of specialization of meaning. For example, we can observe restriction and
specialization of meaning in the case of the verb to glide (OE. glidan) which had the meaning 'to move gently and
smoothly' and has now acquired a restricted and specialized meaning 'to- fly with no engine' (cf. a glider). Changes in
the denotational meaning may also result in the application of the word to a wider variety of referents. This is
commonly described as extension of meaning and may be illustrated by the word target, which originally meant 'a
small round shield' (a diminutive of targe, c f. ON. targa), (cf. Modern Romanian targa) but now means 'anything
that is fired at' and also figuratively 'any result aimed at'. If the word with the extended meaning passes from the
specialized vocabulary into common use, we describe the result of the semantic change as the generalization of
meaning. The word camp, e.g., which originally was used only as a military term and meant 'the place where troops
are lodged in tents' (cf. L. campus-'exercising ground for the army') extended and generalized its meaning and now
denotes 'temporary quarters' (of travellers, nomads, etc.). As can be seen from the examples discussed above it is
mainly the denotational component of the lexical meaning that is affected while the connotational component remains

unaltered. There are other cases, however, when the changes in the connotational meaning come to the fore. These
changes, as a rule accompanied by a change in the denotational component, may be subdivided into two main groups:
a) pejorative development or the acquisition by the word of some derogatory emotive charge, and b) ameliorative
development or the improvement of the connotational component of meaning. The semantic change in the word boor
may serve to illustrate the first group. This word was originally used to denote 'a villager, a peasant' (cf. OE. ebur
'dweller') and then acquired a derogatory, contemptuous connotational meaning and came to denote 'a clumsy or illbred fellow'. The ameliorative development of the connotational meaning may be observed in the change of the
semantic structure of the word minister which in one of its meanings originally denoted 'a servant, an attendant', but
now-'a civil servant of higher rank, a person administering a department of state or accredited by one state to another'.
It is of interest to note that in derivational clusters a change in the connotational meaning of one member does not
necessarily affect all the others. This peculiarity can be observed in the words accident and accidental. The lexical
meaning of the noun accident has undergone pejorative development and denotes not only 'something that happens by
chance', but usually 'something unfortunate'. The derived adjective accidental does not possess in its semantic
structure this negative connotational meaning (cf. also fortune: bad fortune, good fortune and fortunate).
Interrelation of Causes, Nature and Results of Semantic Change. As can be inferred from the analysis of
^various changes of word-meanings, they can be classified according to the social causes that bring about change of
meaning (socio-linguistic classification), the nature of these changes (psychological classification) and the results of
semantic changes (logical classification). Here it is suggested that causes, nature and results of semantic changes
should be viewed as three essentially different but inseparable aspects of one and the same linguistic phenomenon as
any change of meaning may be investigated from the point of view of its cause, nature and its consequences.
Essentially the same causes may bring about different results, e.g. the semantic development in the word knight (OE'.
cniht) from 'a boy servant' to 'a young warrior' and eventually to the meaning it possesses in Modern English is due to
extra-linguistic causes just as the semantic change in the word boor, but the results are different. In the case of boor
we observe pejorative development whereas in the case of knight we observe amelioration of the connotational
component. And conversely, different causes may lead to the same result. Restriction of meaning, for example, may be
the result of the influence of extra-linguistic factors as in the case of glide (progress of science and technique) and also
of purely linguistic causes (discrimination of synonyms) as is the case with the word fowl. Changes of essentially
identical nature, e. g. similarity of referents as the basis of association, may bring about different results, e.g. extension
of meaning as in target and also restriction of meaning as in the word fowl. To avoid terminological confusion it is
suggested that the terms restriction and extension or amelioration and deterioration of meaning should be used to
describe only the resu1ts of semantic change irrespective of its nature or causes. When we discuss metaphoric or
metonymic transfer of meaning we imply the nature of the semantic change whatever its results may be. It also
follows that a change of meaning should be described so as to satisfy all the three criteria. In the discussion of
semantic changes we confined ourselves only to the type of change which results in the disappearance of the old
meaning which is replaced by the new one. The term change of meaning however is also used to describe a change in
the number (as a rule an increase) and arrangement of word-meanings without a single meaning disappearing from its
semantic structure. (A Course in Modern English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva,
A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)
MEANING AND POLYSEMY
So far we have been discussing the concept of meaning, different types of word-meanings and the changes they
undergo in the course of the historical development of the English language. When analysing the word-meaning we
observe, however, that words as a rule are not units of a single meaning. Monosemantic words, i.e. words having only
one meaning are comparatively few in number, these are mainly scientific terms, such as hydrogen, molecule and the
like. The bulk of English words are polysemantic, that is to say possess more than one meaning. The actual number of
meanings of the commonly used words ranges from five to about a hundred. In fact, the commoner the word the more
meanings it has.
Semantic Structure of Polysemantic Words. The word table, e.g., has at least nine meanings in Modern English;
- 1. a piece of furniture; 2. the persons seated at a table; 3. sing. the food put on a table, meals; 4. a thin flat piece of
stone, metal, wood, etc.; 5. pi. slabs of stone; 6. words cut into them or written on them (the ten tables); 7. an orderly

arrangement of facts, figures, etc.; 8. part of a machine-tool on which the work is put to be operated on; 9. a level area,
a plateau. Each of the individual meanings can be described in terms of the types of meanings discussed above. We
may, e.g., analyse the eighth meaning of the word table into the part-of-speech meaning- that of the noun (which
presupposes the grammatical meanings of number and case) combined with the lexical meaning made up of two
components. The denotational semantic component, which can be interpreted as the dictionary definition, part of a
machine-tool on which the work is put, and the connotational component which can be identified as a specific stylistic
reference of this particular meaning of the word table. In polysemantic words, however, we are faced not with the
problem of analysis of individual meanings, but primarily with the problem of the interrelation and interdependence of
the various meanings in the semantic structure of one and the same word.
Diachronic Approach. If polysemy is viewed diachronically, it is understood as the growth and development of
or, in general, as a change in the semantic structure of the word. Polysemy in diachronic terms implies that a word
may retain its previous meaning or meanings and at the same time acquire one or several new ones. Then the problem
of the interrelation and interdependence of individual meanings of a polysemantic word may be roughly formulated as
follows: did the word always possess all its meanings or did some of them appear earlier than the others? Are the new
meanings dependent on the already existing meanings? And if so what is the nature of this dependence can we observe
any changes in the arrangement of the meanings and so on. In the course of a diachronic semantic analysis of the
polysemantic word table we find that of all the meanings it has in Modern English, the primary meaning is 'a flat slab
of stone or wood' which is proper to the word in the Old English period (OE. tabule from L. tabula); all other
meanings are secondary as they are derived from the primary meaning of the word and appeared later than the primary
meaning. The terms secondary and derived meaning are to a certain extent synonymous. When we describe the
meaning of the word as "secondary" we imply that it could not have appeared before the primary meaning was in
existence. When we refer to the meaning as "derived" we imply not only that, but also that it is dependent on the
primary meaning and somehow subordinate to it. In the case of the word table, e.g., we may say that the meaning 'the
food put on the table' is a secondary meaning as it is derived from the meaning 'a piece of furniture (on which meals
are laid out)'. It follows that the main source of polysemy is a change in the semantic structure of the word. Polysemy
may also arise from homonymy. When two words become identical in sound-form, the meanings of the two words are
felt as making up one semantic structure. Thus, the human ear and the ear of corn are from the diachronic point of
view two homonyms. One is etymologically related to L. auris, the other to L. acus, aceris. Synchronically, however,
they are perceived as two meanings of one and the same word. The ear of corn is felt to be a metaphor of the usual
type (cf. the eye of the needle, the foot of the mountain) and consequently as one of the derived or, synchronically,
minor meanings of the polysemantic word ear.1 Cases of this type are comparatively rare and, as a rule, illustrative of
the vagueness of the border-line between polysemy and homonymy. Semantic changes result as a rule in new
meanings being added to the ones already existing in the semantic structure of the word. Some of the old meanings
may become obsolete or even disappear, but the bulk of English words tend to an increase in number of meanings.
Synchronic Approach. Synchronically we understand polysemy as the coexistence of various meanings of the
same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English language. In this case the problem of the
interrelation and interdependence of individual meanings making up the semantic structure of the word must be
investigated along different lines. In connection with the polysemantic word table discussed above we are mainly
concerned with the following problems: are all the nine meanings equally representative of the semantic structure of
this word? Is the order in which the meanings are enumerated (or recorded) in dictionaries purely arbitrary or does it
reflect the comparative value of individual meanings, the place they occupy in the semantic structure of the word
table? Intuitively we feel that the meaning that first occurs to us whenever we hear or see the word table, is 'an
article of furniture'. This emerges as the basic or the central meaning of the word and all other meanings are minor in
comparison. It should be noted that whereas the basic meaning occurs in various and widely different contexts, minor
meanings are observed only in certain contexts, e.g. 'to keep the table amused', 'table of contents' and so on. Thus we
can assume that the meaning 'a piece of furniture' occupies the central place in the semantic structure of the word
table. As to other meanings of this word we find it hard to grade them in order of their comparative value. Some may,
for example, consider the second and the third meanings ('the persons seated at the table' and 'the food put on the
table') as equally "important", some may argue that the meaning 'food put on the table' should be given priority. As
synchronically there is no objective criterion to go by, we may find it difficult in some cases to single out even the

basic meanings since two or more meanings of the word may be felt as equally "central" in its semantic structure. If
we analyse the verb to get, e.g., which of the two meanings 'to obtain' (get a letter, knowledge, some sleep) or 'to
arrive' (get to London, to get into bed) shall we regard as the basic meaning of this word? A more objective
criterion of the comparative value of individual meanings seems to be the frequency of their occurrence in speech.
There is a tendency in modern linguistics to interpret the concept of the central meaning in terms of the frequency of
occurrence of this meaning. In a study of five million words made by a group of linguistic scientists it was found that
the frequency value of individual meanings is different. As far as the word table is concerned the meaning 'a piece of
furniture' possesses the highest frequency value and makes up 52% of all the uses of this word, the meaning 'an
orderly arrangement of facts' (table of contents) accounts for 35%, all other meanings between them make up just
13% of the uses of this word.
Of great importance is the stylistic stratification of meanings of a polysemantic word as individual meanings may
differ in their stylistic reference. Stylistic (or regional) status of monosemantic words is easily perceived. For instance
the word daddy can be referred to the colloquial stylistic, layer, the word parent to the bookish. The word movie is
recognizably American and barnie is Scottish. Polysemantic words as a rule cannot be given any such restrictive
labels. To do it we must state the meaning in which they are used. There is nothing colloquial or slangy or American
about the words yellow denoting colour, jerk in the meaning 'a sudden movement or stopping of movement' as far as
these particular meanings are concerned. But when yellow is used in the meaning of 'sensational' or when Jerk is used
in the meaning of 'an odd person' it is both slang and American. Stylistically neutral meanings are naturally more
frequent. The polysemantic words worker and hand, e.g., may both denote 'a man who does manual work', but
whereas this is the most frequent and stylistically neutral meaning of the word worker, it is observed only in 2.8% of
all occurrences of the word hand, in the semantic structure of which the meaning 'a man who does manual work' (to
hire factory hands) is one of its marginal meanings characterized by colloquial stylistic reference. It should also be
noted that the meaning, which has the highest frequency is the one representative of the whole semantic structure of
the word. This can be illustrated by analysing the words under discussion. For example the meaning representative of
the word hand, which first occurs to us is 'the end of the arm beyond the wrist'. This meaning accounts for at least
77% of all occurrences of this word. This can also be observed by comparing the word hand with its Russian
equivalents. We take it for granted that the English word hand is correlated with the Russian , but not with the
Russian though this particular equivalent may also be found, e.g. in the case of to hire factory hands.
Historical Changeability of Semantivc Structure. From the discussion of the diachronic and synchronic
approach to polysemy it follows that the interrelation and the structure interdependence of individual meanings of the
word may be described from two different angles. These two approaches are not mutually exclusive but are viewed
here as supplementing each other in the linguistic analysis of a polysemantic word. It should be noted, however, that
as the semantic structure is never static, the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic evaluation of
individual meanings may be different in different periods of the historical development of language. This is perhaps
best illustrated by the semantic analysis of the word revolution. Originally, when this word first appeared in ME in
1350-1450 it denoted 'the revolving motion of celestial bodies' and also 'the return or recurrence of a point or a period
of time'. Later on the word acquired other meanings and among them that of 'a complete overthrow of the established
government or regime' and also 'a complete change, a great reversal of conditions'. The meaning 'revolving motion' in
ME was both primary (diachronically) and central (synchronically). In Modern English, however, while we cart still
diachronically describe this meaning as primary it is no longer synchronically central as the arrangement of meanings
in the semantic structure of the word revolution has considerably changed and its central and the most frequent
meaning is 'a complete overthrow of the established government or the regime'. It follows that the primary meaning of
the word may become synchronically one of its minor meanings and diachronically a secondary meaning may become
the central meaning of the word. The actual arrangement of meanings in the semantic structure of any word in any
historical period is the result of the semantic development of this word within the system of the given language.
Polysemy and Arbitrariness of Semantic Structure. The words of different languages, which are similar or
identical in lexical meaning especially in the denotational meaning are termed correlated words. The wording of
the habitual question of English learners, e.g. "What is the English for ?", and the answer "The English for is
'table'" also shows that we take the words table to be correlated. Semantic correlation, however, is not to be
interpreted as semantic identity. From what was said about the arbitrariness of the sound-form of words and

complexity of their semantic structure, it can be inferred that one-to-one correspondence between the semantic
structure of correlated polysemantic words in different languages is scarcely possible. Arbitrariness of linguistic signs
implies that one cannot deduce from the sound-form of a word the meaning or meanings it possesses. Languages differ
not only in the sound-form of words; their systems of meanings are also different. It follows that the semantic
structures of correlated words of two different languages cannot be co-extensive, i.e. can never "cover each other". A
careful analysis invariably shows that semantic relationship between correlated words, especially polysemantic words
is very complex.
The actual meanings of polysemantic words and their arrangement in the semantic structure of correlated words in
different languages may be altogether different. This may be seen by comparing the semantic structure of correlated
polysemantic words in English and in Russian. As a rule it is only the central-meaning that is to a great extent
identical, all other meanings or the majority of meanings usually differ. If we compare, e.g., the nine meanings of the
English word table and the meanings of the Russian word , we shall easily observe not only the difference in the
arrangement and the number of meanings making up their respective semantic structures, but also the difference in the
individual meanings that may, at first sight, appear similar.
Table: 1. A piece of furniture 2. The persons seated at a table 3. The food put on a table, meals; cooking Note. This
meaning is rare in Modern English. Usually the word board (or cooking) is used. (Cf. board and lodging, plain
cooking.) 4. A flat slab of stone or board 5. Labs of stone (with words written on them or cut into them) 6. Bibl. Words
cut into slabs of stone (the ten tables). 7. An orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc. 8. Part of a machine-tool 9. A
level area, plateau
: 1. ( ) 2. . . 3. ), Note.
Commonly used, stylistically neutral. ( , , , ). 4. . 5.
. 6. . 7. . 8. . 9. . As can be seen from the above,
only one of the meanings and namely the central meaning 'a piece of furniture' may be described as identical. The
denotational meaning 'the food put on the table' although existing in the words of both languages has different
connotational components in each of them. The whole of the semantic, structure of these words is altogether different.
The difference is still more pronounced if we consider all the meanings of the Russian word , e.g. 'department,
section, bureau' (cf. , ) not to be found in the semantic structure of the word table. The
problem of polysemy is mainly the problem of interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings of the same
word. Polysemy viewed diachronically is a historical change in the semantic structure of the word resulting in
disappearance of some meanings (or) and in new meanings being added to the ones already existing and also in the
rearrangement of these meanings in its semantic structure. Polysemy viewed synchronically is understood as coexistence of the various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period and the arrangement of these
meanings in the semantic structure of the word. 2. The concepts of central (basic) and marginal (minor) meanings
may be interpreted in terms of their relative frequency in speech. The meaning having the highest frequency is usually
the one representative of the semantic structure of the word, i.e. synchronically its central (basic) meaning. 3. As the
semantic structure is never static the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic evaluation of the individual
meanings of the same word may be different in different "periods of the historical development of language. 4. The
semantic structure of polysemantic words is not homogeneous as far as the status of individual meanings is concerned.
Some meaning (or meanings) is representative of the word in isolation, others are perceived only in certain contexts.
5. The whole of the semantic structure of correlated polysemantic words of different languages can never be identical.
Words are felt as correlated if their basic (central) meanings coincide. (A Course in Modern English Lexicology.
R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)
POLYSEMY AND HOMONYMY
When we analyze the word meaning we observe that words as a rule are not units of a single meaning.
Monosemantic words, i.e. words having only one meaning are comparatively few in number, these are mainly
scientific terms, such as 'hydrogen, molecule' and the like. The bulk of English words are poly semantic, that is to say
possess more than one meaning. The actual number of meanings of the commonly used words ranges from five to
about a hundred. In fact, the commoner the word the more meanings it has. Thus, the words 'air' has the meanings: I.
'the mixture of gases that surrounds the earth and which we breathe'; 2.'a very light wind'; 3.'a tune or melody' 4.'a.

style or manner'; 5.'a way of acting or behaving'. In a polysemantic word the main (or central) and secondary
meanings are distinguished. In the above case the main meaning of the word 'air' is the first one, all the other meanings
are secondary. The word is polysemantic in the language but in actual speech it is always monosemantic, that is it has
only one meaning. It is the context that makes the polysemantic word monosemantic, e.g.: The air was close and
dusky, He looked at him with a piteous air of uncertainty. In the first sentence the meaning of the word air is 'the
mixture of gases', whereas in the second sentence the meaning is 'a way of acting or behaving'. 'There is obvious
semantic connection, direct or indirect, between the secondary meanings and the central meaning. Thus, the word
'hand' is the name of the part of the body - 'the end of the arm beyond the wrist', and this meaning is its central
meaning, its secondary meanings are: 'a worker in a factory or dockyard'; 'a member of a ship crew' ; 'a person who
does something'; 'skill with the hands'; 'a pointer on a watch or clock'; 'a side or direction'; 'handwriting'; 'a signature';
'a measurement (four inches, the breadth of the hand)'. All these meanings are in some way or other connected with
the central meaning - 'the terminal part of human arm'. It is due to this particular semantic interrelation that we
consider all these meanings as forming different meanings of one and the same word. There are cases, however, when
the central and the secondary meanings of the same word drift apart to such an extent that there is no obvious semantic
connection between them. Now polysemy is broken and gives place to lexical homonymy, whereas the unity of the
word is destroyed. As an example of this process we may take: pupil - one receiving instructions; pupil - the circular
opening in the center of the eye. There might be dubious cases when it is hardly possible to say where polysemy ends
and where homonymy begins. To give only one example: foot (part of the human body) and foot (part of the measure
system). Are they the two meanings of the polysemantic word or are they homonyms?
Homonyms and Their Classification. Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at
least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning. E.g. bank, n. a shore; (bank, n. - an institution for
receiving, lending, exchanging and safeguarding money. English vocabulary is rich in such pairs and even groups of
words. Their identical forms are mostly accidental: the majority of homonyms coincide due to phonetic changes,
which they suffer during their development. In the process of communication they are more of an encumbrance,
leading sometimes to confusion and misunderstanding. Yet it is this very characteristic which makes them one of the
most important sources of popular humor. The pun is a joke based upon the play upon words of simi lar form but
different meaning (i.e. on homonyms) as in the following: "A tailor guarantees to give each of his customers a perfect
fit". (The joke is based upon the homonyms: I. Fit, n. - perfectly fitting clothes; II. fit, n. - a nervous spasm).
Homonyms, which are the same in sound and spelling are traditionally termed homonyms proper. (See the examples
given at the beginning of this chapter). Homonyms which are the same in sound but different in spelling are called
homophones. E.g. night, n. knight, n.; peace, n. piece, n.; sea, n. to see, v. The third type of homonyms
is called homographs. These are words, which are the same in spelling but different in sound. E.g. : to bow [bau] , v.
to incline the head or body in a salutation; bow [bou]. , n. - a flexible strip of wood for propelling arrows.
Consequently all cases of homonymy may be classified into fu1l and partial homonyms, i.e. homonymy of words
and homonymy of individual word-forms. The bulk of full homonyms are to be found within the same parts of
speech (e.g. seali n - sealg n), partial homonymy as a rule is observed in word-forms belonging to different parts of
speech (e.g. seali n - seals v). This is not to say that partial homonymy is impossible within one part of speech. For
instance in the case of the two verbs-lie [lai]-'to be in a horizontal or resting position' and lie [lai]-'to make an untrue
statement'-we also find partial homonymy as only two word-forms [lai], [laiz] are homonymous, all other forms of the
two verbs are different. Cases of full homonymy may be found in different parts of speech too; e.g. for [fo:]preposition, for [fo:]-conjunction and four [fo:]-numeral, as these parts of speech have no other word-forms.
Homonyms may be also classified by the type of meaning into lexical, lexico-grammatical and grammatical
homonyms. In seal; n and seals n, e.g., the part-of-speech meaning of the word and the grammatical meanings of all
its forms are identical (cf. seal [si:l] Common Case Singular, seal's [si:lz] Possessive Case Singular for both seal and
seal). The difference is confined to the lexical meaning only: seali denotes 'a sea animal', 'the fur of this animal', etc.,
seals-'a design printed on paper, the stamp by which the design is made', etc. So we can say that seal;; and seali are
lexical homonyms because they differ in lexical meaning. If we compare seal,-'a sea animal', and (to) seal,-'to close
tightly, we shall observe not only a difference in the lexical meaning of their homonymous word-forms but a
difference in their grammatical meanings as well. Identical sound-forms, i.e. seals [si:lz] (Common Case Plural of the
noun) and (he) seals [si:lz] (third person Singular of the verb) possess each of them different grammatical meanings.

As both grammatical and lexical meanings differ we describe these homonymous word-forms as lexico-grammatical.
Lexico-grammatical homonymy generally implies that the homonyms in question belong to different parts of speech
as the part-of-speech meaning is a blend of the lexical and grammatical semantic components. There may be cases
however when lexico-grammatical homonymy is observed within the same part of speech, e.g., in the verbs (to) find
[faind] and (to) found [faund], where the homonymic word-forms: found [faund] - Past Tense of (to) find and found
[faund]-Present Tense of (to) found differ both grammatically and lexically. Modern English abounds in homonymic
word-forms differing in grammatical meaning only. In the paradigms of the majority of verbs the form of the Past
Tense is homonymous with the form of Participle II, e.g. asked [a:skt] - asked [a:skt]; in the paradigm of nouns we
usually find homonymous forms of the Possessive Case Singular and the Common Case Plural, e.g. brother's brothers. It may be easily observed that grammatical homonymy is the homonymy of different word-forms of one
and the same word. The two classifications: full and partial homonymy and lexical, lexico-grammatical and
grammatical homonymy are not mutually exclusive. All homonyms may be described on the basis of the two criteria
-homonymy of all forms of the word, or only some of the word-forms and also by the type of meaning in which
homonymous words or word-forms differ. So we speak of full lexical homonymy of seal (n) and seals ", and of partial
lexico-grammatical homonymy of seal n and seal v.
Sources of Homonymy. The description of various types of homonyms in Modern English would be incomplete if
we did not give a brief outline of the diachronic processes that account for their appearance. The two main sources of
homonymy are: 1) diverging meaning development of a polysemantic word, and 2) converging sound development of
two or more different words. The process of diverging meaning development can be observed when different
meanings of the same word move so far away from each other that they come to be regarded as two separate units.
This happened", for example, in the case of Modern English flower and flour which originally were one word (ME.
flour, cf. OFr. flour, flor, L. flos-florem) meaning 'the flower' and 'the finest part of wheat'. The difference in spelling
underlines the fact that from the synchronic point of view they are two distinct words even though historically they
have a common origin. Convergent sound development is the most potent factor in the creation of homonyms. The
great majority of homonyms arise as a result of converging sound development which leads to the coincidence of two
or more words which were phonetically distinct at an earlier date. For example, OE. ic and OE. eage have become
identical in pronunciation (MnE. I [ai] and eye [ai]). A number of lexico-grammatical homonyms appeared as a result
of convergent sound development of the verb and the noun (cf. MnE. love-(to) love and OE. lufu- lufian). Words
borrowed from other languages may through phonetic convergence become homonymous.- ON. ras and Fr. race are
homonymous in Modern English (cf. racei [reis]-'running' and races [reis]-'a distinct ethnical stock').
Polysemy and Homonymy: Etymological and Semantic Criteria. One of the most debatable problems in
semasiology is the demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between different meanings of one word
and the meanings of two homonymous words. If homonymy is viewed diachronically then all cases of sound
convergence of two or more words may be safely regarded as cases of homonymy, as, e.g., race, and races can be
traced back to two etymologically different words. The cases of semantic divergence, however, are more doubtful. The
transition from polysemy to homonymy is a gradual process, so it is hardly possible to point out the precise stage at
which divergent semantic development tears asunder all ties between the meanings and results in the appearance of
two separate words. In the case of flower, flour, e.g., it is mainly the resultant divergence of graphic forms that gives
us grounds to assert that the two meanings, which originally made up the semantic structure of one word are now
apprehended as belonging to two different words. Synchronically the differentiation between homonymy and
polysemy is as a rule wholly based on the semantic criterion. It is usually held that if a connection between the various
meanings is apprehended by the speaker, these are to be considered as making up the semantic structure of a
polysemantic word, otherwise it is a case of homonymy, not polysemy. Thus the semantic criterion implies that the
difference between polysemy and homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation between related and unrelated
meanings. This traditional semantic criterion does not seem to be reliable, firstly, because various meanings of the
same word and the meanings of two or more different words may be equally apprehended by the speaker as
synchronically unrelated. For instance, the meaning 'a change in the form of a noun or pronoun' which is usually listed
in dictionaries as one of the meanings of case, seems to be synchronically just as unrelated to the meanings of this
word as 'something that has happened', or 'a-question decided in the court of law' to the meaning of case 2-'a box, a
container', etc. Secondly, in the discussion of lexico-grammatical homonymy it was pointed out that some of the

meanings of homonyms arising from conversion (e.g. seal;, n-seaL v; paper n-paper v) are related, so this criterion
cannot be applied to a large group of homonymous word-forms in Modern English. This criterion proves insufficient
in the synchronic analysis of a number of other borderline cases, e.g. brother-brothers-'sons of the same parent' and
brethren - 'fellow members of a religious society'. The meanings may be apprehended as related and then we can
speak of polysemy pointing out that the difference in the morphological structure of the plural form reflects the
difference of meaning. Otherwise we may regard this as a case of partial lexical homonymy. It is sometimes argued
that the difference between related and unrelated meanings may be observed in the manner in which the meanings of
polysemantic words are as a rule relatable. If is observed that different meanings of one word have certain stable
relationship, which are not to be found between the meanings of two homonymous words. A clearly perceptible
connection, e.g., can be seen in all metaphoric or metonymic meanings of one word (cf., e.g., foot of the man-foot of
'the mountain, loud voice-loud colours, etc., cf. also deep well and deep knowledge, etc.). Such semantic
relationships are commonly found in the meanings of one word and are considered to be indicative of polysemy. It is
also suggested that the semantic connection may be described in terms of such features as, e.g., form and function (cf.
horn of an animal and horn as an instrument), or process and result (to run-'move with quick steps' and a run-act of
running). Similar relationships, however, are observed between the meanings of two partially homonymic words, e.g.
to run and a run in the stocking.
Moreover in the synchronic analysis of polysemantic words we often find meanings that cannot be related in any
way, as, e.g. the meanings of the word case discussed above. Thus the semantic criterion proves not only untenable in
theory but also rather vague and because of this impossible in practice as in many cases it cannot be used to
discriminate between several meanings of one word and the meanings of two different words.
Formal Criteria: Distribution and Spelling. The criterion of distribution suggested by some linguists is
undoubtedly helpful, but mainly in cases of lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonymy. For example, in the
homonymic pair paper n-(to) paper v the noun may be preceded by the article and followed by a verb; (to) paper can
never be found in identical distribution. This formal criterion can be used to discriminate not only lexico-grammatical
but ' also grammatical homonyms, but it often fails in cases of lexical homonymy, not differentiated by means of
spelling. Homonyms differing in graphic form, e.g. such lexical homonyms as knight-night or flower-flour, are easily
perceived to be two different lexical units as any formal difference of words is felt as indicative of the existence of two
separate lexical units. Conversely lexical homonyms identical both in pronunciation and spelling are often
apprehended as different meanings of one word. It is often argued that in general the context in which the words are
used suffices to establish the borderline between homonymous words, e.g. the meaning of case in several cases of
robbery can be easily differentiated from the meaning of case in a jewel case, a glass case. This however is true of
different meanings of the same word as recorded in dictionaries, e.g. of case as can be seen by comparing the case
will be tried in the law-court and the possessive case of the noun. Thus, the context serves to differentiate meanings
but is of little help in distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy. Consequently we have to admit that no formal
means have as yet been found to differentiate between several meanings of one word and the meanings of its
homonyms. In the discussion of the problems of polysemy and homonymy we proceeded from the assumption that
the word is the basic unit of language. Some linguists hold that the basic and elementary units at the semantic level of
language are the lexico-semantic variants of the word, i.e. individual word-meanings. In that case, naturally, we can
speak only of homonymy of individual lexico-semantic variants, as polysemy is by definition, at least on the
synchronic plane, the co-existence of several meanings in the semantic structure of the word.
EXERCISES
Exercise. I. Find homonyms in the following extracts. Classify them into homonyms proper, homographs and
homophones. I. "Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. "It is a long tail,
certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?" 2. a) My seat was in
the middle of a row. b) "I say, you haven't had a row with Corky, have you?" 3. a) 0ur Institute football team got a
challenge to a match from the University team and we accepted it. b) Somebody struck a match so that we could see
each other. 4. a) It was nearly December but California sun made a summer morning of the season. b) And not for the
first time during those fourteen years old Jolyon wondered whether he had been a little to blame in the matter of his
son. c) 0n the way home Crane no longer drove like a nervous old maid. 5. a) She loved to dance and had every right
to expect the boy she was seeing almost every night in the week to take her dancing at least once on the week-end. b)

"That's right," she said. c) Write to me as often as you can, please. 6 .a) Do you always forget to wind up your watch?
b) Crane had an old Ford without a top and it rattled so much and the wind made so much noise. 7. a) In Brittany there
was once a knight called Eliduc. b) She looked up through the window at the night. 8. a) He had a funny round face. b)
-How does your house face? - It faces the South. 9. a) He didn't shake his hand because he didn't shake cowards'
hands, see, and somebody else was elected captain. b) Mel's plane had been shot down into the sea. I0. a.) He was a
lean, wiry Yankee who knew which side his experimental bread was buttered on. b) He had a wife of excel lent and
influential family, as finely bred, as she was faithful to him. II .a) He was growing progressively deafer in the left ear.
b) I saw that I wag looking down into another cove similar to the one I had left.' 12. a) Iron and lead are base metals.
b) Where does the road lead? I3. a) He had never been seen since that day. b) We can't agree on this point, but please
don't make a scene. 14. Krkanius invited him and a couple of the other boys to join him for a drink, and while Hugo
didn't drink, he went along for the company.
Exercise. II. Find homophones to the following words.
Translate them into your native language or explain their meanings in English: heir, dye, cent, tale, sea, week, peace,
sun, meat, steel, cum, coarse, write, sight, hare, aloud, bear, beach, beet, berry, berth, blue, been, brake, bred, bow,
current, deer, due, fare, flour, for, fir, gate, grate, grown, heal, horse, hole, lane, led, made, miner, pane, mane, prey,
pare, pale, sail, sole, sought, stake, site, way, waste, whether, vein, sow, saw.
Exercise. III. Find homophones in the following sentences. State to what part of speech they belong. 1. The
advancing tide rolled nearer than usual to the foot of the crags. In the same way his other articles were tied up with the
other reading San Francisco paper. 2. About life and the book he knew more than they. Alice and Fat were rather like
new acquaintances. 3. We used to have street parties and banners across the road. He rode up to the little wicket of
Alice'a garden. The dogs stood aloof and bayed loudly. He bade them all farewell. 5. At school he'd won first prize.
The only way they can beat us is by making us turn on one another (id.) 6. The scene was worthy of an artist's pencil.
There was laughter in the heart of Sam Du Plessis and it was to be seen in his eyes. 7. Ravenswood answered this
observation with a cold and distant assent. They divided into two groups so as to move with more rapidity and make
the ascent on the hill by dusk. 8. The funeral rites were always considered as a period of festival to the living. The
Marchioness of writes in this fashion. 9. Mrs. Crawley made an expedition into England leaving behind her little son
upon the Continent, under the care of her French maid. 10. You will hardly see them in any public place without a
shabby companion in a dyed silk, sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them. But no Forsyte had yet died; they
did not die; death being contrary to their principles... 11. All night long he paced the room. They were not actual
diamonds. They were the very brightest paste and shone prodigiously.
Exercise IV. Which of the following words are monosemantic (use a dictionary).
aphorism, apathy, application, arch, band, behold, cave, central, denture, divide, intercede, measure, mischance, miser,
minx, prominent, promise, promote, prompt.
Exercise V. Analyze the following text, classifying elements comprising it into two groups: categorematic words
(normal words ) and syncategorematic words (form-words). Looking at words, we soon become aware that they fall
into two rough categories words that mean something, when in isolation, like 'apple', 'gramophone', 'tulip'; words
that only possess meaning when combined with other words in phrases or sentencessuch as 'it', 'and', 'if, 'or'. These
are, of course, analogous to the two types of morpheme that can exist within the word itself, like the free form 'eat' and
the bound form '-ing' in 'eating'. So in the statement 'The orange is yellow', we can pick out 'orange' and 'yellow' as
words, which carry meaning if chalked up singly or written in the sky by sky-writing aircraft. These free forms,
because they possess independent meaning, are called autosemantic words. 'The' and 'is', on the other hand, mean
nothing outside the context of a sentence; they only develop meaning when we make a synthesis of them with words
like 'orange' and 'yellow'. We can say that they are synsemantic.
(Anthony Burgess. Words)
ExerciseVI. Read the passages given below and answer questions, which follow them.
Ambiguity of the Term 'Word'. The term 'word' has been used in the preceding paragraphs in three quite different
senses. The first two senses are readily distinguished in terms of the notion of 'realization'. Just as we must distinguish
between the morph as the phonological (or orthographical) representation of the morpheme, so we must distinguish
between phonological (or orthographical) words and the grammatical words which they represent. For example, the
phonological word [seen] and the corresponding orthographic word sang represent a particular grammatical word,

which is traditionally referred to as 'the past tense of sing'; whereas the phonological word [] and the
corresponding orthographic word cut represent three different grammatical words: 'the present tense of cut', 'the past
tense of cut', and the 'past participle of cut'. It has already been mentioned that phonological and orthographical
words in English are generally in one-to-one correspondence with one another in the sense that they represent the
same set of (one or more) grammatical words (cf. the examples just given). But there are some instances of (a) onemany or (b) many-one correspondence between phonological and grammatical words: cf. (a) postman,
postmen; [mi:t]: meat, meet, etc.; (b) [ri:d], [red]: read ('the present tense of read', 'the past tense of read'; [red] is
also in correspondence with the orthographic word red, and [ri:d] with the orthographic word reed). Many other
languages besides English, whose spelling conventions are popularly said to be only partly 'phonetic' (in a nontechnical usage of the term 'phonetic'), provide similar examples of one-many or many-one correspondence between
phonological and orthographic words.
Word and lexeme. There is a third, more 'abstract', usage of the term 'word'. It was this usage that we employed
above when we said, for instance, that in traditional grammar 'whereas singing is but a form of the word sing ... singer
is a different word, with its own set of forms, or 'paradigm'; and the same, more 'abstract' sense was implicit in our
reference to sang as 'the past tense of sing'. Modern linguists have tended to neglect, or even to condemn, this more
'abstract' usage. Bloomfield, for example, says that the school tradition is 'inaccurate' in referring to units like book,
books, or do, does, did, done, as 'different forms of the same word'. But it is Bloomfield himself who is here guilty of
inaccuracy. It is up to us to decide which way we wish to define, the term 'word'. The important thing is to keep the
three senses apart. Modern linguists have not always done this consistently and as a result they have frequently
misinterpreted traditional grammatical theory. It is, of course, the more abstract sense that the term 'word' bears in
classical grammar. However, since most linguists now employ the term 'word' to refer to such phonological or
orthographic units as or sang, on the one hand, or to the grammatical units they represent, on the other (and
indeed do not always distinguish even between these two senses), we shall introduce another term, lexeme, to denote
the more 'abstract' units which occur in different inflexional 'forms' according to the syntactic rules involved in the
generation of sentences. (John Lyons. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics, pp. 196-197)

WORD-MEANING IN SYNTAGMATICS AND PARADIGMATICS

It is more or less universally recognized that word-meaning can be perceived through intralinguistic relations that
exist between words. This approach does not in any way deny that lexical items relate to concrete features of the real
world but it is suggested that word-meaning is not comprehensible solely in terms of the referential approach.
Intralinguistic relations of words are basically of two main types: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. Syntagmatic
relations define the meaning the word possesses when it is used in combination with other words in the flow of
speech. For example, compare the meaning of the verb to get in He got a letter, He got tired, He got to London and
He could not get the piano through the door. Paradigmatic relations are those that exist between individual lexical
items which make up one of the subgroups of vocabulary items, e.g. sets of synonyms, lexico-semantic groups, etc.
Paradigmatic relations define the word-meaning through its interrelation with other members of the subgroup in
question. For example, the meaning of the verb to get can be fully understood only in comparison with other items of
the synonymic set: get, obtain, receive, etc. Cf. He got a letter, he received a letter, he obtained a letter, etc. Comparing
the sentences discussed above we may conclude that an item in a sentence can be usually substituted by one or more
than one other items that have identical part-of-speech meaning and similar though not identical lexical meaning. The
difference in the type of subgroups the members of which are substitutable in the flow of speech is usually described
as the difference between closed and open sets of lexical items. For example, any one of a number of personal
pronouns may occur as the subject of a sentence and the overall sentence structure remains the same. These pronouns
are strictly limited in number and therefore form a closed system in which to say he is to say not I, not you, etc. To
soma extent the meaning of he is defined by the other items in the system. The sets of items in which the choice is
limited to a finite number of alternatives as here are described as closed systems. The members of closed systems are
strictly limited in number and no addition of new items is possible. The sets in which the number of alternatives is
practically infinite as they are continually being adapted to new requirements by the addition of new lexical items are
described as open systems. Closed systems are traditionally considered to be the subject matter of grammar, open

systems such as lexico-semantic fields, hyponymic, synonymic sets, etc.1 are studied by lexicology. The distinction
between syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations is conventionally indicated by horizontal and vertical presentation as
is shown below.
Polysemy and Context. From the discussion of the paradigmatic (-He got a letter - I received a note ) She
obtained an epistle and syntagmatic relations it follows that a full understanding of the semantic structure of any
lexical item can be gained only from the study of a variety of contexts in which the word is used, i.e. from the study of
the intralinguistic relations of words in the flow of speech. This is of greatest importance in connection with the
problem of the synchronic approach to polysemy. It will be recalled that in analysing the semantic structure of the
polysemantic word table we observed that some meanings are representative of the word in isolation, i.e. they
invariably occur to us when we hear the word or see it written on paper. Other meanings come to the fore only when
the word is used in certain contexts. This is true of all polysemantic words. The adjective yellow, e.g., when used in
isolation is understood to denote a certain colour, whereas other meanings of this word, e.g. 'envious', 'suspicious' or
'sensational', 'corrupt', are perceived only in certain contexts, e.g. 'a yellow look', 'the yellow press', etc. As can be seen
from the examples discussed above we understand by the term context the minimal stretch of speech determining each
individual meaning of the word. This is not to imply that polysemantic words have meanings only in the context. The
semantic structure of the word has an objective existence as a dialectical entity, which embodies dialectical
permanency and variability. The context individualises the meanings, brings them out. It is in this sense that we say
that meaning is determined by context. The meaning or meanings representative of the semantic structure of the word
and least dependent on context are usually described as free or denominative meanings. Thus we assume that the
meaning 'a piece of furniture' is the denominative meaning of the word table, the meaning 'construct, produce' is the
free or denominative meaning of the verb make, The meaning or meanings of polysemantic words observed only in'
certain contexts may be viewed as determined either by linguistic (or verbal) contexts or extra-linguistic (non-verbal)
contexts. The two more or less universally recognized main types of linguistic contexts, which serve to determine
individual meanings of words are the lexical context and the grammatical context. These types are differentiated
depending on whether the lexical or the grammatical aspect is predominant in determining the meaning.
Lexical Context. In lexical contexts of primary importance are the groups of lexical items combined with the
polysemantic word under consideration. This can be illustrated by analysing different lexical contexts in which
polysemantic words are used. The adjective heavy, e.g., in isolation is understood as meaning 'of great weight,
weighty' (heavy load, heavy table, etc.). When combined with the lexical group of words denoting natural
phenomena such as wind, storm, snow, etc., it means 'striking, falling with force, abundant' as can be seen from the
contexts, e.g. heavy rain, wind, snow, storm, etc. In combination with the words industry, arm's, artillery and the
like, heavy has the meaning 'the larger kind of something' as in heavy industry, heavy artillery, etc. The verb take in
isolation has primarily the meaning 'lay hold of with the hands, grasp, seize', etc. When combined with the lexical
group of words denoting some means of transportation (e.g. to take the tram, the bus, the train, etc.) it acquires the
meaning synonymous with the meaning of the verb go. It can be easily observed that the main factor in bringing out
this or that individual meaning of the words is the lexical meaning of the words with which heavy and take are
combined. This can be also proved by the fact that when we want to describe the individual meaning of a
polysemantic word, we find it sufficient to use this word in combination with some members of a certain lexical
group. To describe the meanings of the word handsome, for example, it is sufficient to combine it with the following
words-a) man, person, b) size, reward, sum. The meanings 'good-looking' and 'considerable, ample' are adequately
illustrated by the contexts. The meanings determined by lexical contexts are sometimes referred to as lexically (or
phraseologically) bound meanings, which implies that such meanings are to be found only in certain lexical contexts.
Some linguists go so far as to assert that word-meaning in general can be analysed through its collocability with other
words. They hold the view that if we know all the possible collocations (or word-groups) into which a polysemantic
word can enter, we know all its meanings. Thus, the meanings of the adjective heavy, for instance, may be analysed
through its collocability with the words weight, safe, table,, snow, wind, rain; industry, artillery, etc" The
meaning at the level of lexical contexts is sometimes described as meaning by collocation.
Grammatical Context. In grammatical contexts it is the grammatical (mainly the syntactic) structure of the
context that serves to determine various individual meanings of a polysemantic word. One of the meanings of the verb
make, e.g. 'to force, to enduce', is found only in the grammatical context possessing the structure to make somebody

do something or in other terms this particular meaning occurs only if the verb make is followed by a noun and the
infinitive of some other verb (to make smb. laugh, go, work, etc.). Another meaning of this verb 'to become', 'to turn
out to be' is observed in the contexts of a different structure, i.e. make followed by an adjective and a noun (to make a
good wife, a good teacher, etc.). Such meanings are sometimes described as grammatically (or structurally) bound
meanings. Cases of the type she will make a good teacher may be referred to as syntactically bound meanings,
because the syntactic function of the verb make in this particular context (a link verb, part of the predicate) is
indicative of its meaning 'to become, to turn out to be'. A different syntactic function of the verb, e.g. that of the
predicate (to make machines, tables, etc.) excludes the possibility of the meaning 'to become, turn out to be'. In a
number of contexts, however, we find that both the lexical and the grammatical aspects should be taken into
consideration. The grammatical structure of the context although indicative of the difference between the meaning of
the word in this structure and the meaning of the same word in a different grammatical structure may be insufficient to
indicate in which of its individual meanings the word in question is used. If we compare the contexts of different
grammatical structures we can safely assume that they represent different meanings of the verb, but it is only when we
specify the lexical context, i.e. the lexical group with which the verb is combined in the structure to take +noun (to
take coffee, tea; books, pencils; the bus, the tram) that we can say that the context determines the meaning. It is
usual in modern linguistic science to use the terms pattern or structure to denote grammatical contexts. Patterns may
be represented in conventional symbols, e.g. to take smth as take+Pr, to take to smb as take to+Pr. It is argued that
difference in the distribution of the word is indicative of the difference in meaning. Sameness of distributional pattern,
however, does not imply sameness of meaning. As was shown above, the same pattern to take-i-YV may represent
different meanings of the verb to take dependent mainly on the lexical group of the nouns with which it is combined.
Extra-Linguistic Context (Context of Situation). Dealing with verbal contexts we consider linguistic factors:
lexical groups of words, syntactic structure of the context and so on. There are cases, however, when the meaning of
the word is ultimately determined not by these linguistic factors, but by the actual speech situation in which this word
is used. The meanings of the noun ring, e.g. in to give somebody a ring, or of the verb get in I've got it are
determined not only by the grammatical or lexical context, but much more so by the actual speech situation. The noun
ring in such context may possess the meaning 'a circlet of precious metal' or 'a call on the telephone'; the meaning of
the verb to get in this linguistic context may be interpreted as 'possess' or 'understand' depending on the actual
situation in which these words are used. It should be pointed out, however, that such cases, though possible, are not
actually very numerous. The linguistic context is by far a more potent factor in determining word-meaning. It is of
interest to note that not only the denotational but also the connotational component of meaning may be affected by the
context. Any word, which as a language unit is emotively neutral may in certain contexts acquire emotive
implications. Compare, e.g., fire in to insure one's property against fire and fire as a call for help. A stylistically and
emotively neutral noun, e.g. wall, acquires tangible emotive implication in Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream
(Act V, Scene 1) in the context "O wall, O sweet and lovely wall". Here we clearly perceive the combined effect of
both the linguistic and the extra-linguistic context. The word wall does not ordinarily occur in combination with the
adjectives sweet and lovely. So the peculiar lexical context accounts for the possibility of emotive overtones which are
made explicit by the context of situation.
Common Contextual Associations Thematic Groups. Another type of classification almost universally used in
practical classroom teaching is known as thematic grouping. Classification of vocabulary items into thematic groups is
based on the co-occurrence of words in certain repeatedly used contexts. In linguistic contexts co-occurrence may be
observed on different levels. On the level of word-groups the word question, for instance, is often found in collocation
with the verbs raise, put forward, discuss, etc., with the adjectives urgent, vital, disputable and so on. The verb
accept occurs in numerous contexts together with the nouns proposal, invitation, plan and others. As a rule,
thematic groups deal with contexts on the level of the sentence. Words in thematic groups are joined together by
common contextual associations within the framework of the sentence and reflect the interlinking of things or events.
Common contextual association of the words, e.g. tree-grow-green; journey-train-taxi-bags-ticket or sunshinebrightly-blue-sky, is due to the regular co-occurrence of these words in a number of sentences. Words making up a
thematic group belong to different parts of speech and do not possess any common denominator of meaning.
Contextual associations formed by the speaker of a language are usually conditioned by the context of situation, which
necessitates the use of certain words. When watching a play, for example, we naturally speak of the actors who act

the main parts, of good (or bad) staging of the play, of the wonderful scenery and so on. When we go shopping it is
usual to speak of the prices, of the goods we buy, of the shops, etc.
MEANING RELATIONS IN PARADIGMATICS AND SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS
Modern English has a very extensive vocabulary. A question naturally arises whether this enormous word-stock is
composed of separate independent lexical units, or it should perhaps be regarded as a certain structured system made
up of numerous interdependent and interrelated sub-systems or groups of words. This problem may be viewed in
terms of the possible ways of classifying vocabulary items. Attempts to study the inner structure of the vocabulary
revealed that in spite of its heterogeneity the English word-stock may be analysed into numerous sub-systems the
members of which have some features in common, thus distinguishing them from the members of other lexical subsystems. Words can be classified in various ways. Here, however, we are concerned only with the semantic
classification of words. Classification into monosemantic and polysemantic words is based on the number of meanings
the word possesses. More detailed semantic classifications are generally based on the semantic similarity (or polarity)
of words or their component morphemes. The scope and the degree of similarity (polarity) may be different.
Conceptual or semantic Fields. Words may be classified according to the
concepts underlying their meaning. This classification is closely connected with
the theory of conceptual or semantic fields. By the term "semantic fields" we understand closely knit sectors of
vocabulary each characterized by a common concept. For example, the words blue, red, yellow, black, etc. may be
described as making up the semantic field of colours, the words mother, father, brother, cousin, etc.-as members of
the semantic field of kinship terms, the words joy, happiness, gaiety, enjoyment, etc. as belonging to the field of
pleasurable emotions, and so on. The members of the semantic fields are not synonyms but all of them are joined
together by some common semantic component the concept of colours or the concept of kinship, etc. This semantic
component common to all the members of the field is sometimes described as the common denominator of meaning.
All members of the field are semantically interdependent as each member helps to delimit and determine the meaning
of its neighbours and is semantically delimited and determined by them. It follows that the word-meaning is to a great
extent determined by the place it occupies in its semantic field. Thus the semantic field may be viewed as a set of
lexical items in which the meaning of each is determined by the co-presence of the others. It is' argued that we cannot
possibly know the exact meaning of the word if we do not know the structure of the semantic field to which the word
belongs, the number of the members and the concepts covered by them, ' etc. The meaning of the word captain, e.g.,
cannot be properly understood until we know the semantic field in which this term operates-the army, the navy, or
the merchant service. It follows that the meaning of the word captain is determined by the place it occupies among
the terms of the relevant rank system. In other words we know what captain means only if we know whether his
subordinate is called mate or first officer (merchant service), commander ('navy') or lieutenant ('army'). Semantic
dependence of the word on the structure of the field may be also illustrated by comparing members of analogous
conceptual fields in different languages. Comparing, for example, kinship terms in Russian and in English we observe
that the meaning of the English term mother-in-law is different from either the Russian or as the
English term covers the whole area which in Russian is divided between the two words. The same is true of the
members of the semantic field of colours (cf. blue-, ), of human body (cf. hand, arm- ) and others.
Lexical groups described above may be very extensive and may cover big conceptual areas, e.g. space, matter,
intellect, etc. Words making up such semantic fields may belong to different parts of speech. For example, in the
semantic field of space we find nouns: expanse, extent, surface, etc.; verbs: extend, spread, span, etc.; adjectives:
spacious, roomy, vast, broad, etc. There may be comparatively small lexical groups" of words belonging to the
same part of speech and linked by a common concept. The words bread, cheese, milk, meat, etc. make up a group
with the concept of food as-the common denominator, of meaning. Such smaller lexical groups consisting of words of
the same part of speech are usually termed lexico-semantic groups. It is observed that the criterion for joining words
together into semantic fields and lexico-semantic groups is the identity of one of the components of their meaning
found in all the lexical units making up these lexical groups. Any of the semantic components may be chosen to
represent the group. For example, the word saleswoman may be analysed into the semantic components 'human',
'female', 'professional'. Consequently the word saleswoman may be included into a lexico-semantic group under the
heading of human together with the words man, woman, boy, girl, etc. and under the heading female with the words

girl, wife woman and also together with the words teacher, pilot, butcher, etc., as professionals. It should also be
pointed but that different meanings of polysemantic words make it possible to refer the same word to different lexicosemantic groups. Thus, e.g. make in the meaning of 'construct' is naturally a member of the same lexico-semantic
group as the verbs produce, manufacture, etc., whereas in the meaning of compel it is regarded as a member of a
different lexico-semantic group made up by the verbs force, induce, etc. Lexico-semantic groups seem to play a very
important role in determining individual meanings of polysemantic words in lexical contexts. Analysing lexical
contexts we saw that the verb take, e.g., in combination with any member of the lexical group denoting means of
transportation is synonymous with the verb go (take the tram, * the bus, etc.), When combined with members of
another lexical group the same verb is synonymous with to drink (to take tea, coffee, etc.). Such word-groups are
often used not only in scientific lexicological analysis, but also in practical class-room teaching. In a number of
textbooks we find words with some common denominator of meaning listed under the headings Flowers, Fruit,
Domestic Animals, and so on.
Hyponymic (Hierarchical) Structures and Lexico-Semantic Groups.
Another approach to the classification of vocabulary items into lexico-semantic groups is the study of hyponymic
relations between words. By hyponymy is meant a semantic relationship of inclusion. Thus, e.g., vehicle includes car,
bus, taxi and so on; oak implies tree; horse entails animal; table entails furniture. Thus the hyponymic relationship
may be viewed as the hierarchical relationship between the meaning of the general and the individual terms. The
general term (vehicle, tree, animal, etc.) is sometimes referred to as the classifier and serves to describe the lexicosemantic groups, e.g. Lexico-semantic groups (LSG) of vehicles, movement, emotions, etc. The individual terms can
be said to contain (or entail) the meaning of the general term in addition to their individual meanings, which
distinguish them from each other (cf. the classifier move and the members of the group walk, run, saunter, etc.).
It is of importance to note that in such hierarchical structures certain words may be both classifiers and members
of the groups. This may be illustrated by the hyponymic structure represented below. Plant - grass, flower, bush,
shrub, tree; Tree - maple, oak, ash, pine; Pine - white pine, yellow pine. Another way to describe hyponymy is in
terms of genus and differentia. The more specific term is called the hyponym of the more general, and the more
general is called the hyperonym or the classifier. It is noteworthy that the principle of such hierarchical classification
is widely used by scientists in various fields of research: botany, geology, etc. Hyponymic classification may be
viewed as objectively reflecting the structure of vocabulary and is considered by many linguists as one of the most
important principles for the description of meaning.
A general problem with this principle of classification (just as with lexico-semantic group criterion) is that there
often exist overlapping classifications. For example, persons may be divided into adults (man, woman, husband, etc.)
and children (boy, girl, lad, etc.) but also into national groups (American, Russian, Chinese, etc.), professional
groups (teacher, butcher, baker, etc.), social and economic groups, and so on. Another problem of great importance
for linguists is the dependence of the hierarchical structures of lexical units not only on the structure of the
corresponding group of referents in real world but also on the structure of vocabulary in this or that language. This can
be easily observed when we compare analogous groups in different languages. Thus, e.g., in English we may speak of
the lexico-semantic group of meals, which includes: breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, snack, etc. The word meal is
the classifier whereas in Russian we have no word for meals in general and consequently no classifier though we have
several words for different kinds of meals.
EXERCISES
Exercise. I. a) Translate the following into your native language. b) Give examples of your own with the underlined
words using them in other meanings. I. A ball might have done for me in the course of the war and may still, and how
will Emmy be bettered by being left a beggar's widow?. 2. As the time passed he started to set the type for the little
sheet they published weekly. 3. The slender, flexible right hand was badly cut and grazed. The Gadfly held it up. 4.
Considerable scandal, indeed, arose against Sir Geoffrey Peveril, as having proceeded with indecent severity and haste
upon this occasion; and rumor took care to make the usual additions to the reality. 5. One evening Mr.Venus passed a
scrap of paper into Mr. Boffin's hand, and laid his finger on his lips. 6. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for
Thornfield is a fine old Hall rather neglected of late years perhaps. 7. I was honored by a cordiality of reception that
made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him; and that these evening conferences were sought as much for

his pleasure as for my own benefit (id.). 8. What of that? More unequal matches are made every day (id.). 9. Listen,
then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: tomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture,
faithfully, without softening one defect (id.). 10. Taggart sat down too, lit his own pipe, took a sheet of paper and
scrawled the words: "Georgie Grebe Article" across the top. 11. ... I think I have a right to know why you ask me that.
12. "No crowding," said Mr.Rochester; "take the drawings from my hand as I finish with them; but don't push your
faces up to mine". 13. It appeared as if there were a sort of match or trial of skill you must understand, between the
kettle and the cricket
Exercise. II. Comment on the different meanings of the word "one" as used in the following sentences. Translate
them into your native language. He lit his pipe; and almost at once began to revolve the daily problem of how to get a
job, and why he had lost the one he had. 2. The Gadfly shuddered: "Ah!" he said softly, "that hurts, doesn't it, little
one?" 3. But it is not easy for one to climb up out of the working class - especially if he is handicapped by the
possession of ideals and illusions. 4. For it is in the nature of a Forsyte to be ignorant that he is a Forsyte, but young
Jolyon was well aware of being one. 5. One cold, rainy day at the end of April George Osborne came into the Coffee
House, looking very agitated and pale. 6. He did not utter one word of reproach. 7. One mighty groan of terror started
up from the massed people. 8. One can't eat One's cake and have it. 9. To bite off one's nose in order to spite one's
face. 10. "One minute!'' said Soames suddenly, and crossing the room, he opened a door opposite.
Exercise. III. Comment on the meaning of the word "thing" as used in the following sentences. Translate them
into your native language. 1. Everything was very good; we did not spare the wine, and he exerted himself so
brilliantly to make the thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity. 2. "Dora, indeed!" returned my
aunt. "And you mean to say the little thing in very fascinating, I suppose?" 3. I began by being singularly cheerful and
light-hearted, all sorts of half-forgotten things to talk about came rushing into my mind, and made me hold forth in a
most unwonted manner. 4. Sir Barnet was proud of making people acquainted with people. He liked the thing for its
own sake, and it advanced him. 5. When he wanted a thing, a fresh obstacle only rendered him the more resolute. 6.
"Don't cry, Miss Bombay," said Sir Walter, in a transport of enthusiasm. "What a wonderful thing for me that I am
here..." 7. Logical positivists never talk about "things-in-themselves" or about the "unknowable", because they regard
such talk as senseless. 8. This is very bad, for fog is the only thing that can spoil any plan. 9. He was satisfied with
most things and, above all other things, with himself. 10. "No," she answered. "I am not I can't be. I am no such
thing. Why should 1 be penitent, and all the world goes free..." 11. For my sake you are prepared to do this terrible
thing. 12. Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once. 13. "The very thing" said Jacob, "I will
charter two river steamboats, pack them full of these unfortunate children". 14. That I can't tell you much about: a man
doesn't remember the next few days after a thing of that kind, as a rule. 15.Tranto. Well, John. How are things?
16.Mrs. Culver. I quite agree that titles have degraded. Quite! The thing is to make them respectable again. 17. "We
are both miserable as it is," said she. "What is the use of trying to make things worse? Lot us find things to do, and
forget things". 18. Your letter in the first consoling thing I have had since my disaster ten days ago. 19. Delia
Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly.
Exercise. IV. Translate into your native language the examples given bellow. Discuss the various meanings of the
underlined words. I. She was still in her pretty ball dress, her fair hair hanging on her neck, and the circles round her
eyes dark with watching. 2. Mr. Boffin lighted his pipe and looked with beaming eyes into the opening world before
him. 3. Accordingly, mysterious shapes were made of tables in the middle of rooms, and covered over with great
winding sheets.
ANTONYMS
Antonyms may be defined as two or rarely more words of the same language belonging to the same part of
speech, identical in style and nearly Identical in distribution, associated and used together so that their denotative
meanings render contrary or contradictory notions. Antonyms form binary oppositions, the distinctive feature of
which is semantic polarity! Its basis is regular co-occurance in typical contexts combined with approximate sameness
of distribution and stylistic and emotional equivalence. Antonymy is not evenly distributed among the categories of
parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives, which is natural because qualitative characteristics are easily
compared and contrasted: strong - weak, old - young, friendly - hostile.
Exercises

Exercise I. Give antonyms to the following words. alert, discord, amity, alive, active, post-meridian, ugly, artless,
appearance, assist, arrange, courage, attentive, descend, safety, consistent, aware, benefactor, timidity, convenient,
competent:, continue, conductor, preceding, correct, sufficient, frequent, distinct, faulty, expensive, afterthought,
hostile, faithful, wet, enemy, employed, lower, kind, misanthropy, final, improper, temporary, order, polite, uniformity,
slow, sane, exhale, rational, post-war, distrust, progressive, normal, underestimate, painful, thesis.
Exercise II. Find antonyms for the words given below. Just, justice, use (n), use (v), fortunate, fortune, grateful,
gratitude, like (v), like (adv.), life, lively, movable, moved, related, relative: good, deep, narrow, clever, young, strong,
black, sad, big, to love, to reject, to give, to laugh, to tie, to open up, slowly, joy, evil, darkness.
Exercise III. Change the following sentences to express opposite meanings. I. All the seats were occupied.
2.He always wore striped shirts with attached collars. 3.The room was lighted by the strong rays of the sun. 4.He
added three hundred to the sum. 5. I came in while you were asleep. 6. A lamp is a necessary thing in this room.
7.The door was closed and looked. 8.Light curtains hung in the dining-room windows; therefore it was light. 9.In the
second year of their residence the company seemed especially to increase. 10.The little boy was outside the car.
11.Food and water were scarce during the long summer. 12. He drew two crooked lines.
Exercise IV. Fill in the blanks with words antonymous to those underlined. 1.Why did you reject my offer
and his... 2.He may be dexterous at football, but he is very ... on the dance floor. 3.Although the temporary effect of
the drugs seems beneficial, the ultimate effect is... 4.1 enjoy a climate that is rigorous in winter and ... in summer.
5.Don't be antagonistic to my suggestions. I am making them in ... way. 6.The basket was disposed on a low settee
beside the ... cupboard. 7.Some of the books were excluded from the list, but those that were ... were obligatory. 8. I'm
afraid the sweet cream will get ... if you keep it in the warm. 9. Most of the exercises, she did, were correct, several
were not... . 10.Near the bank the river was shallow, and we had to go to the middle where it was ... enough to swim.
Exercise V. Fill in the blanks with adjectives antonymous to those given in brackets. I. (light): a ... blue dress.
2. (old): a ... man! (light) a ... box: (old (a ... house. 3. (hard): an... task, a ... bed. 4. (soft): a ... voice, a ... cushion. 5.
(fresh): ... bread, ... flowers. 6. (wild) ... birds, ... flowers. 7. (clever): a ... little boy, a ... student. 8. (straight); a ...
line. a ... roof. 9. (rough): a ... surface. a ... person. 10. (lose); to ... a book, to ... a bottle.
SYNONYMY
Synonyms can be defined as two or more words of the same language, belonging; to the same part of speech and
possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, but differing in morphemic composition,
phonemic shape, shades of meaning, style and idiomatic use. If we take, for instance, the synonyms "face" and
"visage" we see that they come together as both of them denote the front part of human head; ''large" and ''big are
synonyms as they indicate a considerable size. Synonyms are usually arranged into synonymic groups or sets. The
number of words in a synonymic group depends upon the principles, which lie at the basis of grouping synonyms and
it may range from two words to ten. Few words in a language are identical in meaning, for instance, "semasiology
and "semantics". Such synonyms are called complete or absolute synonyms. Two words denoting the same thing,
having the same denotative meaning but differing in style are called as stylistic synonyms. Thus, "begin and
commence" are stylistic synonyms, also "enemy and "foe". There are synonyms that may differ in emotive
connotation (father-daddy). They can be referred to stylistic synonyms. Synonyms that differ in additional
implications, which constitute the semantic components of the denotational meaning are known as ideographic
synonyms. For example, the adjectives 'fast', ''rapid", "swift", "quick", "speedy", "hasty" agree in meaning hut each of
them has its own additional implication - "fast" emphasizes the way in which the moving object covers the ground,
"rapid" characterizes the movement itself, "swift implies great rapidity and so on. Due to the difference in
significance, synonyms are not usually used indiscriminately. Few words are complete synonyms and are
interchangeable in any context. Some synonyms may be interchangeable within certain limits. For instance: "wide
(broad) river road", but only "wide interest" and "broad mind.''
Semantic Equivalence and Synonymy. Lexical units may also be classified by
the criterion of semantic similarity and semantic contrasts. The terms generally used to denote these two types of
semantic relatedness are synonymy and antonymy. Synonymy is often understood as semantic equivalence. Semantic
equivalence however can exist between words and word-groups, word-groups and sentences, sentences and sentences.
For example, John is taller than Bill is semantically equivalent to Bill is shorter than John. John sold the book to
Bill and Bill bought the book from John may be considered semantically equivalent. As can be seen from the above

these sentences are paraphrases and denote the same event. Semantic equivalence may be observed on the level of
word-groups. Thus we may say that to win a victory is synonymous with to gain a victory, etc. Here we proceed
from the assumption that the terms synonymy and synonyms should be confined to semantic relation between words
only. Similar relations between word-groups and sentences are described as semantic equivalence. Synonyms may be
found in different parts of speech and both among notional and functional words. For example, though and albeit, .on
and upon, since and as are synonymous because these phonemically different words are similar in their denotational
meaning. Synonyms are traditionally described as words different in sound-form but identical or similar in meaning.
This definition has been severely criticized on many points. Firstly, it seems impossible to speak of identical or similar
meaning of words as such as this part of the definition cannot be applied to polysemantic words. It is inconceivable
that polysemantic words could be synonymous in all their meanings. The verb look, e.g., is usually treated as a
synonym of see, watch, observe, etc., but in another of its meanings it is not synonymous with this group of words
but rather with the verbs seem, appear (cf. to look at smb and to look pale). The number of synonymic sets of a
polysemantic word tends as a rule to be equal to the number of individual meanings the word possesses. In the
discussion of polysemy and context we have seen that one of the ways of discriminating between different meanings
of a word is the interpretation of these meanings in terms of their synonyms, e.g. the two meanings of the adjective
handsome are synonymously interpreted as handsome-'beautiful' (usually about men) and handsome-'considerable,
ample' (about sums, sizes, etc.). Secondly, it seems impossible to speak of identity or similarity of lexical meaning as
a who1e as it is only the denotational component that may be described as identical or similar. If we analyse words
that are usually considered synonymous, e.g. to die, to pass away; to begin, to commence, etc., we find that the
connotational component or, to be more exact, the stylistic reference of these words is entirely different and it is only
the similarity of the denotational meaning that makes them synonymous. The words, e.g. to die, to walk, to smile,
etc., may be considered identical as to their stylistic reference or emotive charge, but as there is no similarity of
denotational meaning they are never felt as synonymous words. 'Thirdly, it does not seem possible to speak of identity
of mea-n-i n g as a criterion of synonymity since identity of meaning is very rare even among monosemantic words. In
fact, cases of complete synonymy are very few and are, as a rule, confined to technical nomenclatures where we can
find monosemantic terms completely identical in meaning as, for example, spirant and fricative in phonetics. Words
in synonymic sets are in general differentiated because of some element of opposition in each member of the set. The
word handsome, e.g., is distinguished from its synonym beautiful mainly because the former implies the beauty of a
male person or broadly speaking only of human beings, whereas beautiful is opposed to it as having no such
restrictions in its meaning. Thus it seems necessary to modify the traditional definition and to formulate it as follows:
synonyms are words different in sound-form but similar in their denotational meaning or meanings. Synonymous
relationship is observed only between similar denotational meanings of phonemically different words. Differentiation
of synonyms may be observed in different semantic components - denotational or connotational.
It should be noted, however, that the difference in denotational meaning cannot exceed certain limits, and is always
combined with some common denotational component. The verbs look, seem, appear, e.g., are viewed as members of
one synonymic set as all three of them possess a common denotational semantic component "to be in one's view, or
judgement, but not necessarily in fact" and come into comparison in this meaning (cf. he seems (looks), (appears),
tired). A more detailed analysis shows that there is a certain difference in the meaning of each verb: seem suggests a
personal opinion based on evidence (e.g. nothing seems right when one is out of sorts); look implies that opinion is
based on a visual impression (e.g. the city looks its worst in March), appear sometimes suggests a distorted
impression (e.g. the setting sun made the spires appear ablaze). Thus similarity of denotational meaning of all
members of the synonymic series is combined with a certain difference in the meaning of each member. It follows
that relationship of synonymity implies certain differences in the denotational meaning of synonyms. In this
connection a few words should be said about the traditional classification of vocabulary units into ideographic and
stylistic synonyms. This classification proceeds from the assumption that synonyms may differ either in the
denotational meaning (ideographic synonyms) o r the connotational meaning, or to be more exact stylistic reference.
This assumption cannot be accepted as synonymous words always differ in the denotational component irrespective of
the identity or difference of stylistic reference. In the synonymous verbs seem, appear, look the stylistic reference
may be regarded as identical though we observe some difference in their denotational component. Difference in the
denotational semantic component is also found in synonymous words possessing different connotational components.

The verbs see and behold, e.g., are usually treated as stylistic synonyms; see is stylistically neutral and behold is
described as bookish or poetic. It can be readily observed, however, that the difference between the two verbs is not
confined solely to their stylistic reference. Though they have a common denotational component 'to take cognizance
of something by physical (or mental) vision', there is a marked difference in their comparable meanings. The verb
behold suggests only 'looking at that which is seen', e.g. "behold them sitting in their glory" (Shelley). The verb see
denotes 'have or use power of sight' (e.g. the blind cannot see), 'understand' (e.g. don't you see my meaning?), 'have
knowledge or experience of (e.g. he has seen a good deal in his long life) and others. Consequently, the interrelation
of the denotational and the connotational meaning of synonyms is rather complex. Difference of the connotational
semantic component is invariably accompanied by some difference of the denotational meaning of synonyms.
Therefore it would be more consistent to subdivide synonymous words into purely ideographic (denotational) and
ideographic-stylistic synonyms.
Criteria of Synonymy. It should be pointed out that neither the traditional definition of synonyms nor the
modified version suggested here provide for any objective criterion of simi1arity of meaning. It is sometimes argued
that the meaning of two words is identical if they can denote the same referent, in other words, if an object or a certain
class of objects can always be denoted by either of the two words. This approach to synonymy does not seem
acceptable because the same referent in different speech situations can always be denoted by different words, which
cannot be considered synonyms. For example, the same woman can be referred to as my mother by her son and my
wife by her husband. Both words denote obviously the same referent but there is no semantic relationship of
synonymy between them. Attempts have been made to introduce into the definition of synonymy the criterion of
interchangeability in linguistic contexts. It is argued that for the linguist similarity of meaning implies that the words
are synonymous if either of them can occur in the same context. The definition of synonyms proceeding from the
contextual approach is often worded as follows: synonyms are words which can replace each other in any given
context without the slightest alteration in the denotational or connotational meaning. The contextual approach invites
criticism for many reasons. Words interchangeable in any given context are very rare. Modern linguists generally
assume that there are no complete synonyms, i.e. if two words are phonemically different then their meanings are also
different. Thus buy and purchase are similar in meaning but differ in their stylistic reference and therefore are not
completely interchangeable. That department of an institution, which is concerned with acquisition of materials is
normally the Purchasing Department rather than the Buying Department. A wife however would rarely ask her
husband to purchase a pound of butter. It follows that practically no words are substitutable for one another in all
contexts. This fact may be explained as follows: firstly, words synonymous in some lexical contexts may display no
synonymy in others. As one of the English scholars aptly remarks, the comparison of the sentences the rainfall in
April was abnormal and the rainfall in April was exceptional may give us grounds for assuming that exceptional
and abnormal are synonymous. The same adjectives in a different context are by no means synonymous, as we may
see by comparing my son is exceptional and my son is abnormal. Secondly, it is evident that interchangeability
alone cannot serve as a criterion of synonymy. We may safely assume that synonyms are words interchangeable in
some contexts. But the reverse is certainly not true as semantically different words of the same part of speech are, as a
rule, interchangeable in quite a number of contexts. For example, in the sentence I saw a little girl playing in the
garden the adjective little may be formally replaced by a number of semantically different adjectives, e.g. pretty, tall,
English, etc. Thus a more acceptable definition of synonyms seems to be the following: synonyms are" words
different in their sound-form, but similar in their denotational meaning or meanings and interchangeable at least in
some contexts.
Patterns of Synonymic Sets in Modern English. The English word-stock is extremely rich in synonyms which
can be largely accounted for by abundant borrowing. Quite a number of words in synonymic sets are usually of Latin
or French origin. For instance, out of thirteen words making up the set see, behold, descry, espy, view, survey,
contemplate, observe, notice, remark, note, discern, perceive only see and behold can be traced back to Old
English (OE. seon and behealdan), all others are either French or Latin borrowings. Thus a characteristic pattern of
English synonymic sets is the pattern including the native and the borrowed words. Among the best investigated are
the so-called double-scale patterns: native versus Latin (e.g. bodily-corporal, brotherly-fraternal); native versus
Greek or French (e.g. answer-reply, fiddle-violin). In most cases the synonyms differ in their stylistic reference, too.

The native word is usually colloquial (e.g. bodily, brotherly), whereas the borrowed word may as a rule be described
as bookish or highly literary (e.g. corporal, fraternal).
Side by side with this pattern there exists in English a subsidiary one based on a triple-scale of synonyms;
native-French and Latin or Greek (e.g. begin (start)-commence (Fr.) - initiate (L.); rise-mount (Fr.)-ascend (L.).
In most of these sets the native synonym is felt as more colloquial, the Latin or Greek one is characterized by
bookish stylistic reference, whereas the French stands between the two extremes. There are some minor points of
interest that should be discussed in connection with the problem of synonymy. It has often been found that subjects
prominent in the interests of a community tend to attract a large number of synonyms. It is common knowledge
that in "Beowulf" there are 37 synonyms for hero and at least a dozen for battle and fight. The same epic contains
17 expressions for sea to which 13 more may be added from other English poems of that period. In Modern
American English there are at least twenty words used to denote money: beans, bucks, the chips, do-re-mi, the
needful, wherewithal, etc. This linguistic phenomenon is usually described as the law of synonymic attraction.
It has also been observed that when a particular word is given a transferred meaning its synonyms tend to develop
along parallel lines. We know that in early New English the verb overlook was employed in the meaning of 'look with
an evil eye upon, cast a spell over' from which there developed the meaning 'deceive' first recorded in 1596. Exactly
half a century later we find oversee a synonym of overlook employed in the meaning of 'deceive'.! This form of
analogy active in the semantic development of synonyms is referred to as radiation of synonyms. Another feature of
synonymy is that the bulk of synonyms may be referred to stylistically marked words, i.e. they possess a peculiar
connotational component of meaning. This can be observed by examining the synonyms for the stylistically neutral
word money listed above. Another example is the set of synonyms for the word girl (young female.): doll, flame,
skirt, tomato, broad, bag, dish, etc. all of which are stylistically marked. Many synonyms seem to possess common
emotive charge. Thus it was found that according to Roget 2 44 synonyms of the word whiteness imply something
favourable and pleasing to contemplate (purity, cleanness, immaculateness, etc.).
Semantic Contrasts and Antonymy. Antonymy in general shares many features typical of synonymy. Like
synonyms, perfect or complete antonyms are fairly rare. It is usual to find the relations of antonymy restricted to
certain contexts. Thus thick is only one of the antonyms of thin (a thin slice-a thick slice), another is fat (a thin mana fat man). The definition of antonyms as words characterized by semantic polarity or opposite meaning is open to
criticism on the points discussed already in connection with synonymy. It is also evident that the term opposite
meaning is rather vague and allows of essentially different interpretation. If we compare the meaning of the words
kind-'gentle, friendly, showing love, sympathy or thought for others' and cruel-'taking pleasure in-giving pain to
others, without mercy', we see that they denote concepts that are felt as completely opposed to each other. Comparing
the adjective kind and unkind we do not find any polarity of meaning as here semantic opposition is confined to
simple negation. Unkind may be interpreted as not kind which does not necessarily mean cruel, just as not beautiful
does not necessarily mean ugly. It is more or less universally recognized that among the cases that are traditionally
described as antonyms there are at least the following groups.
1. Contradictories which represent the type of semantic relations that exist between pairs like dead and alive,
single and married, perfect and imperfect, etc. To use one of the terms is to contradict the other and to use not
before one of them is to make it semantically equivalent to the other, cf. not dead-alive, not single-married. Among
contradictories we find a subgroup of words of the type young - old, big - small, and so on. The difference between
these and the antonymic pairs, described above lies in the fact that to say not young is not necessarily to say old. In
fact terms like young and old, big and small or few and many do not represent absolute values. To use one of the
terms is to imply comparison with some norm: young means 'relatively young'. We can say She is young but she is
older than her sister. To be older does not mean 'to be old'. It is also usual for one member of each pair to always
function as the unmarked or generic term for the common quality involved in both members: age, size, etc. This
generalized denotational meaning comes to the fore in certain contexts. When we ask How old is the baby? we do not
imply that the baby is old. The question How big is it? may be answered by It is very big or It is very small. It is of
interest to note that quality nouns such as length, breadth, width, thickness, etc. also are generic, i.e. they cover the
entire measurement range while the corresponding antonymous nouns shortness, narrowness, thinness apply only to
one of the extremes.

2. Contraries differ from contradictories mainly because contradictories admit of no possibility between them.
One is either single or married, either dead or alive, etc. whereas contraries admit such possibilities. This may be
observed in cold - hot, and cool and warm which seem to be intermediate members. Thus we may regard as antonyms
not only cold and hot but also cold and warm. Contraries may be opposed to each other by the absence or presence
of one of the components of meaning like sex or age. This can be illustrated by such pairs as man-woman, man-boy.
3. Incompatibles. Semantic relations of incompatibility exist among the antonyms with the common component of
meaning and may be described as the reverse of hyponymy, i.e. as the relations of exclusion but not of contradiction.
To say morning is to say not afternoon, not evening, not night. The negation of one member of this set however
does not imply semantic equivalence with the other but excludes the possibility of the other words of this set. A
relation of incompatibility may be observed between colour terms since the choice of red, e.g., entails the exclusion of
black, blue, yellow and so on. Naturally not all colour terms are incompatible. Semantic relations between scarlet and
red are those of hyponymy.
We know that polysemy may be analysed through synonymy. For example, different meaning of the polysemantic
word handsome can be singled out by means of synonymic substitution a handsome man-a beautiful man; but a
handsome reward-a generous reward. In some cases polysemy may be also analysed through antonymy (e.g. a
handsome man-an ugly man, a handsome reward-an insufficient reward, etc.). This, is naturally not to say that
the number of meanings of a polysemantic word is equal to the number of its antonyms. Not all words or all meanings
have antonyms (e.g. table, book, etc. have no antonyms). In some cases, however, antonymy and synonymy serve to
differentiate the meanings as in the word handsome discussed above.
Interchangeability in certain contexts analysed in connection with synonyms is typical of antonyms as well. In a
context where one member of the antonymous pair can be used, it is, as a rule, interchangeable with the other member.
For instance, if we take the words dry and wet to be antonymous, they must be interchangeable in the same context
(e.g. a wet shirt-a dry shirt). This is not to imply that the same antonyms are interchangeable in all contexts. It was
pointed out above that antonyms that belong to the group of contraries are found in various antonymic pairs. Thus, for
instance there are many antonyms of dry- damp, wet, moist, etc. The interchangeability of each of them with dry is
confined to certain contexts. In contrast to dry air we select damp air and in contrast to dry lips-we would probably
use moist lips. It is therefore suggested that the term "antonyms" should be used as a general term to describe words
different in sound-form and characterized by different types of semantic contrast of denotational meaning and
interchangeability at least in some contexts.
Semantic Similarity of Morphemes and Word-Families.
Lexical groups composed of words with
semantically and phonemically identical root-morphemes are usually defined as word-families or word-clusters. The
term itself implies close links between the members of the group. Such are word-families of the type: lead, leader,
leadership; dark, darken, darkness; form, formal, formality and others. It, should be noted that members of a
word-family as a rule belong to different parts of speech and are joined together only by the identity of rootmorphemes. In the word-families discussed above the root-morphemes are identical not only in meaning but also in
sound-form. There are cases, however, when the sound-form of root-morphemes may be different, as for example in
sun, sunny, solar; mouth, oral, orally; brother, brotherly, fraternal, etc.; their semantic similarity however, makes
it possible to include them in a word-family. In such cases it is usual to speak of lexical suppletion, i.e. formation of
related words of a word-family from phonemically different roots. As a rule in the word-families of this type we are
likely to encounter etymologically different words, e.g. the words brother and mouth are of Germanic origin,
whereas fraternal and oral can be easily traced back to Latin. We frequently find synonymic pairs of the type
fatherly- paternal, brotherly-fraternal. Semantic and phonemic identity of affixational morphemes can be observed
in the lexical groups of the type darkness, cleverness, calmness, etc.; teacher, reader, writer, etc. In such wordgroups as, e.g. teacher, musician, etc., only semantic similarity of derivational affixes is observed. As derivational
affixes impart to the words a certain generalized meaning, we may single out lexical groups denoting the agent, the
doer of the action (Nomina Agenti) - teacher, reader, etc. or lexical groups denoting actions (Nomina Acti) movement, transformation, etc. and others.
Exercises
Exercise I. Using dictionary definitions find out the difference between the following pairs of synonyms:
abdomen belly; adherent - supporter; aliment - food; ambuscade - ambush; annunciation announcement; anomaly

irregularity; arbiter - judge; aught anything; behest -command; benison benediction; bevy company; bourn
stream; calligraphy handwriting; chastisement punishment; clough ravine; coadjutor - assistant; commendation
praise; commixture - blending; concomitance coexistence; contention strife; contusion - bruise; conundrum
riddle; dale valley; delectation enjoyment; erudition learning; exodus - departure; extrusion expulsion;
hegemony leadership; hilarity - merriment; homogeneity uniformity; incentive motive; inception - beginning;
inebriate drunkard; ingress entrance; interim - meantime; interment burial; Ire - anger: irruption - invasion;
jeopardy - danger; jobation - reprimand; larceny - theft; malefactor - criminal; malnutrition - under-feeding;
mendicant - beggar; moiety - half; mulct - fine; munificence - liberality; obsecration - entreaty; obsequies -funeral;
occident - the west; orthography - spelling; pabulum - food; pixy - fairy; poltroon - coward; poniard - dagger;
promontory - headland; pugilist - boxing; pustule - pimple; sepulchre - tomb; sobriquet - nickname; spook - ghost;
steed -horse; thurible - censer; tintinnabulation - tinkling; tiro - beginner; unanimity agreement; vendor seller;
vocable word; allot assign; annunciate - proclaim; banquet regale; bemoan - lament; command order; conserve
- preserve; decode - decipher; decrease - diminish; embolden - encourage; endorse - confirm; enounce - enunciate;
entice - allure; exasperate - irritate; entwine - interweave; exhume - disinter; exile -banish; flurry - agitate; fondlecaress; imperil endanger; infringe - transgress; infuriate - enrage; jam - squeeze; leap - jump; merit - deserve;
misguide mislead; outbalance - outweigh; shove - push; shriek - scream; splutter - sputter; stifle - smother; sunder sever; tally - correspond; thrust - push.
Exercise II. Give synonyms of Germanic origin to the following words: vital, voluntary, to reply, to inquire, faith,
error, to cease, beverage, enemy, to support (a claim), to educate (a child).
Exercise VIII. Give synonyms of Romanic origin: speech, thoughtful, happiness, wood, king, book, freedom, corner,
napkin, end, enough, home.
Exercise IX. Give synonyms of Scandinavian origin: heaven, lacking, row.

Word-Groups and Phraseological Units.

Words put together to form lexical units make phrases or word-groups. It will be recalled that lexicology deals
with words, word-forming morphemes and word-groups. We assume that the word is the basic lexical unit. The
smallest two-facet unit to be found within the word is the morpheme which is studied on the morphological level of
analysis. The largest two-facet lexical limit comprising more than one word is the word-group observed on the
syntagmatic level of analysis of the various ways words are joined together to make up single self-contained lexical
units.
The degree of structural and semantic cohesion of word-groups may vary. Some word-groups, e.g. at least, point
of view, by means of, take place, seem to be functionally and semantically inseparable. Such word-groups are
usually described as set-phrases, word-equivalents or phraseological units and are traditionally regarded as the
subject matter of the branch of lexicological science that studies phraseology. The component members in other
word-groups, e.g. a week ago, man of wisdom, take lessons, kind to people, seem to possess greater semantic and
structural independence. Word-groups of this type are defined as free or variable word-groups or phrases and are
habitually studied in syntax.
Here, however, we proceed from the assumption that before touching on the problem of phraseology it is essential
to briefly outline the features common to various types of word-groups viewed as self-contained lexical units
irrespective of the degree of structural and semantic cohesion of the component words.

SOME BASIC FEATURES OF WORD-GROUPS

To get a better insight into the essentials of structure and meaning of word-groups we must begin with a brief
survey of the main factors active in uniting words into word-groups. The two main linguistic factors to be considered
in this connection are the lexical and the grammatical valency of words.
Lexical Valency (Collocability). It is an indisputable fact that words
are used in certain lexical contexts, i.e. in combination with other words. The

noun question, e.g., is often combined with such adjectives as vital, pressing, urgent, disputable, delicate, etc. This
noun is a component of a number of other word-groups, e.g. to raise a question, a question of great importance, a
question of the agenda, of the day, and many others. The aptness of a word to appear in various combinations is
described as its lexical valency or collocability. The range of the lexical valency of words is linguistically restricted
by the inner structure of the English word-stock. This can be easily observed in the selection of synonyms found in
different word-groups. Though the verbs lift and raise, e.g., are usually treated as synonyms, it is only the latter that is
collocated with the noun question. The verb take may be synonymically interpreted as 'grasp', 'seize', 'catch', 'lay hold
of, etc. but it is only take that is found in collocation with the nouns examination, measures, precautions, etc., only
catch in catch smb. napping and grasp in grasp the truth. There is a certain norm of lexical valency for each word
and any departure from this norm is felt as a literary or rather a stylistic device. Such word-groups as for example a
cigarette ago, shove a question and the like are illustrative of the point under discussion. It is because we recognize
that shove and question are not normally collocable that the junction of them can be effective. Words habitually
collocated in speech tend to constitute a cliche. We observe, for example, that the verb put forward and the noun
question are habitually collocated and whenever we hear the verb put forward or see it written on paper it is natural
that we should anticipate the word question. So we may conclude that put forward a question constitutes a habitual
word-group, a kind of cliche. This is also true of a number of other word-groups, e.g. to win (or gain) a victory, keen
sight (or hearing). Some linguists hold that most of the English in ordinary use is thoroughly saturated with cliches.
The lexical valency of correlated words in different languages is not identical. Both the English word flower and its
Russian counterpart- , for example, may be combined with a number of other words all of which denote the
place where the flowers are grown, e.g. garden flowers, hot-house flowers, etc. One more point of importance
should be discussed in connection with the problem of lexical valency - the interrelation of lexical valency and
polysemy as found in word-groups. Firstly, the restrictions of lexical valency of words may manifest themselves in the
lexical meanings of the polysemantic members of word-groups. The adjective heavy, e.g., is combined with the words
food, meals, supper, etc. in the meaning 'rich and difficult to digest'. But not all the words with more or less the same
component of meaning can be combined with this adjective. One cannot say, for instance, heavy cheese or heavy
sausage implying that the cheese or the sausage is difficult to digest. Secondly, it is observed that different meanings
of a word may be described through the possible types of lexical contexts, i.e. through the lexical valency of the word,
for example, the different meanings of the adjective heavy may be described through the word-groups heavy weight
(book, table, etc.), heavy snow (storm, rain, etc.), heavy drinker (eater, etc.), heavy sleep (disappointment,
sorrow, etc.), heavy industry (tanks, etc.), and so on. From this point of view word-groups may be regarded as the
characteristic minimal lexical sets that operate as distinguishing clues for each of the multiple meanings of the word.
Grammatical Valency. Words are used also in grammatical contexts. The minimal grammatical context in which
words are used when brought together to form word-groups is usually described as the pattern of the word-group. For
instance, the adjective heavy discussed above can be followed by a noun (e.g. heavy storm or by the infinitive of a
verb (e.g. heavy to lift), etc. The aptness of a word to appear in specific grammatical (or rather syntactic) structures
is termed grammatical valency. The grammatical valency of words may be different. To begin with, the range of
grammatical valency is delimited by the part of speech the word belongs to. It follows that the grammatical valency of
each individual word is dependent on the grammatical structure of the language.
This is not to imply that grammatical valency of words belonging to the same part of speech is necessarily
identical. This can be best illustrated by comparing the grammatical valency of any two words belonging to the same
part of speech, e.g. of the two synonymous verbs suggest and propose. Both verbs can be followed by a noun (to
propose or suggest a plan, a resolution). It is only propose, however, that can be followed by the infinitive of a verb
(to propose to do smth.). The adjectives clever and intelligent are seen to possess different grammatical valency as
clever can be used in word-groups haying the pattern: (clever at mathematics), whereas intelligent can never be
found in exactly the same word-group pattern. Specific linguistic restrictions in the range of grammatical valency of
individual words imposed on the lexical units by the inner structure of the language are also observed by comparing
the grammatical valency of correlated words in different languages. The English verb influence, for example, can be
followed only by a noun (to influence a person, a decision, choice, etc.).

No departure from the norm of grammatical valency is possible as this can make the word-group unintelligible
to English speakers. Thus e.g. the word-group mathematics at clever is likely to be felt as a meaningless string of
words because the grammatical valency of English nouns does not allow of the structure Noun+at+Adjective.
It should-also be pointed out that the individual meanings of a polysemantic word may be described through its
grammatical valency. Thus, different meanings of the adjective keen may be described in a general way through
different structures of the word-groups keen+V,- keen sight (hearing, etc.), keen + on +-N-keen on sports (on
tennis, etc.), kieen+-V(inf.)-keen to know (to find out, etc.).
From this point of view word-groups may be regarded as minimal syntactic (or syntagmatic) structures that operate
as distinguishing clues for different meanings of a polysemantic word. (A Course in Modern English Lexicology.
R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)
STRUCTURE OF WORD-GROUPS
Distribution as the Criterion of Classification. Structurally word-groups may be approached in various ways. We
know that word-groups may be described through the order and arrangement of the component members. The wordgroup to see something can be classified as a verbal-nominal group, to see to smth as verbal-prepositional-nominal,
etc. All word-groups may be also analysed by the criterion of distribution into two big classes. If the word-group has
the same linguistic distribution as one of its members, it is described as endocentric, i.e. having one central member
functionally equivalent to the whole word-group. The word-groups, e.-g., red flower, bravery of all kinds, are
distributionally identical with their central components flower and bravery (cf., e.g., I saw a red flower-I saw a
flower). If the distribution of the word-group is different from either of its members, it is regarded as exocentric, i.e.
as having no such central member, for instance side by side or grow smaller and others where the component words
are not syntactically substitutable for the whole word-group. In endocentric word-groups the central component that
has the same distribution as the whole group is clearly the dominant member or the head to which all other members
of the group are subordinated. In the word-group red flower, e.g., the head is the noun flower and in the word-group
kind to people the head is the adjective kind, etc. It follows that word-groups may be classified according to their
headwords into nominal groups or phrases (e.g. red flower), adjectiva1 groups (e.g. kind to people), verbal groups
(e.g. to speak well), etc. The head is not necessarily the component that occurs first in the word-group. In such
nominal word-groups as, e.g., very great bravery, bravery in the struggle the noun bravery is the head whether
followed of preceded by other words.
Word-groups are also classified according to their syntactic pattern into predicative and non-predicative groups.
Such word-groups as, e.g., John works, he went that have a syntactic structure similar to that of a sentence, are
classified as predicative, and all others as non-predicative.-1 Non-predicative word-groups may be subdivided
according to the type of syntactic relations between the components into subordinative and coordinative. Such wordgroups as red flower, a man of wisdom and the like are termed subordinative because the words red and of wisdom
are subordinated to flower and man respectively and function as their attributes. Such phrases as women and
children, day and night, do or die are classified as coordinative. A Course in Modern English Lexicology
R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel et.al.( M., 1966).

MEANING OF WORD-GROUPS
As with word-meaning, the meaning of word-groups may be analysed into lexical and grammatical components.
Lexical Meaning. The lexical meaning of the word-group may be defined as the combined lexical meaning of the
component words. Thus the lexical meaning of the word-group red flower may be described denotationally as the
combined meaning of the words red and flower. It should be pointed out, however, that the term combined lexical
meaning is not to imply that the meaning of the word-group is a mere additive result of all the lexical meanings of the
component members. As a rule, the meanings of the component words are mutually dependent and the meaning of the
word-group naturally predominates over the lexical meaning of its constituents. Even in word-groups made up of
technical terms, which are traditionally held to be monosemantic the meaning of the word-group cannot be described
as the sum total of the meanings of its components. For example, though the same adjective atomic is a component of
a number of terminological word-groups, e.g. atomic weight, atomic warfare, etc., the lexical meaning of the

adjective is different and to a certain degree subordinated to the meaning of the noun in each individual word-group
and consequently the meaning of the whole group is modified. Interdependence of the lexical meanings of the
constituent members of word-groups -can be readily observed in word-groups made up of polysemantic words. For
example, in the nominal group blind man (cat, horse) only one meaning of the adjective blind, i.e. 'unable to see', is
combined with the lexical meaning of the noun man (cat, horse) and it is only one of the meanings of the noun
man-'human being' that is perceived in combination with the lexical meaning of this adjective. The meaning of the
same adjective in blind type (print," handwriting) is different. As can be seen from the above examples,
polysemantic words are used in word-groups only in one of their meanings. These meanings of the component words
in such word-groups are mutually interdependent and inseparable. Semantic inseparability of word-groups that allows
us to treat them as self-contained lexical units is also clearly perceived in the analysis of the connotational component
of their lexical meaning. Stylistic reference of word-groups, for example, may be essentially different from that of the
words making up these groups. There is nothing colloquial or slangy about such words as old, boy, bag, fun, etc.
when taken in isolation. The word-groups made up of these words, e.g. old boy, bags of fun, are recognizably
colloquial.
Structural Meaning. As with polymorphemic words, word-groups possess not only lexical meaning, but also the
meaning conveyed mainly by the pattern of arrangement of their constituents. A certain parallel can be drawn between
the meaning conveyed by the arrangement of morphemes in words and the structural meaning of word-groups. It will
be recalled that two compound words made up of lexically identical stems may be different in meaning because of the
difference in the pattern of arrangement of the stems. For example, the meaning of such words as dog-house and
house-dog is different though the lexical meaning of the components is identical. This is also true of word-groups.
Such word-groups as school grammar and grammar school are semantically different because of the difference in
the pattern of arrangement of the component words. It is assumed that the structural pattern of word-groups is the
carrier of a certain semantic component not necessarily dependent on the actual lexical meaning of its members. In the
example discussed above (school grammar) the structural- meaning of the word-group may be abstracted from the
group and described as 'quality-substance' meaning. This is the meaning expressed by the pattern of the word-group
but not by either the word school or the word grammar. It follows that we have to distinguish between the structural
meaning of a given type of word-group as such and the lexical meaning of its constituents.
Interrelation of Lexical and Structural Meaning in Word Groups. The lexical and structural components of
meaning in word-groups are interdependent inseparable. The inseparability of these two semantic components in
word-groups can, perhaps, be best illustrated by the semantic analysis of individual word-groups in which the norms
of conventional collocability of words seem to be deliberately overstepped. For instance, in the word-group all the
sun long we observe a departure from the norm of lexical valency represented by such word-groups as all the day
long, all the night long, all the week long, and a few others. The structural pattern of these word-groups in ordinary
usage and the word-group all the sun long is identical. The generalized meaning of the pattern may be described as 'a
unit of time'. Replacing day, night, week by another noun the sun we do not find any change in the structural
meaning of the pattern. The group all the sun long functions semantically as a unit of time. The noun sun, however,
included in the group continues to carry the semantic value or, to be more exact, the lexical meaning that it has in
word-groups of other structural patterns (cf. the sun rays, African sun, etc.). This is also true of the word-group a
grief ago made up by analogy with the patterns a week ago, a year ago, etc. It follows that the meaning of the wordgroup is derived from the combined lexical meanings of its constituents and is inseparable from the meaning of the
pattern of their arrangement. Comparing two nominal phrases a factory hand-'a factory worker' and a hand bag-'a
bag carried in the hand' we see that though the word hand makes part of both its lexical meaning and the role it plays
in the structure of word-groups is different which accounts for the difference in the lexical and structural meaning of
the word-groups under discussion. It is often argued that the meaning of word-groups is also dependent on some extralinguistic factors, i.e. on the situation in which word-groups are habitually used by native speakers. For example, the
meaning of the nominal group wrong number is linguistically defined by the combined lexical meaning of the
component words and the structural meaning of the pattern. Proceeding from the linguistic meaning this group can
denote any number that is wrong. Actually, however, it is habitually used by English speakers in answering telephone
calls and, as a rule, denotes the wrong telephone number. (A Course in Modern English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg,
S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)

INTERDEPENDENCE OF STRUCTURE AND MEANING IN WORD-GROUPS

As both structure and meaning are parts of the word-group as a linguistic unit, the interdependence of these two
facets is naturally the subject matter of lexicological analysis.
Syntactic Structure (Formula) and Patterns of Word Groups.
In connection with the problem under discussion the term syntactic (or syntagmatic) structure requires some
clarification. We know that word-groups may be generally described through the pattern of arrangement of the
constituent members. The term syntactic structure (formula) properly speaking implies the. description of the order
and arrangement of member-words as parts of speech. We may, for instance describe the word-group as made up of an
Adjective and a Noun (clever man, red flower, etc.), a Verb-a Noun (take books, build houses, etc.), or a Noun, a
Preposition and a Noun (a touch of colour, a matter of importance, etc.). The syntactic structure (formula) of the
nominal group; clever man and red flower may be represented as A+N, that of the verb groups take books and build
houses as V+N, and so on. These formulas can be used to describe all the possible structures oi English word-groups.
We can say, e.g., that the verbal groups comprise the following structural formulas: V+N (to build houses), V+prp+N
(to rely on somebody), V+N+prp+N (to hold something against some' body), V+N+V(inf.) (to make somebody
work), V+V(inf.) (to get to know), and so on.
The structure of word-groups may be also described in relation to the head-word, e.g. the structure of the same
verbal groups (to build houses, to rely on somebody) is represented as to build + N, to rely + on + N. In this case it
is usual to speak of the patterns of word-groups but not of formulas. The term pattern implies that we are speaking of
the structure of the word-group in which a given word is used as its head. The interdependence of the pattern and
meaning of head-words can be easily perceived by comparing word-groups of different patterns in which the same
head-word is used. For example, in verbal groups the head word mean is semantically different in the patterns
mean+A^ (mean something) and mean+V (inf.) (mean to do something). Three patterns with the verb get as the
head-word represent three different meanings of this verb, e.g. get+A? (get a letter, information, money, etc.), get+
+to +N (get to Moscow, to the Institute, etc.), get+N+V(inf.) (get somebody to come, to do the work, etc.). This is
also true of adjectival word-groups, e.g. clever+W (clever man) and clever+at+V (clever at arithmetic), keen+V
(keen sight, hearing), keen+on+A (keen on sports, tennis). Notional member-words in such patterns are habitually
represented in conventional symbols whereas prepositions and other form-words are given in their usual graphic form.
This is accounted for by the fact that individual form-words may modify or change the meaning of the word with
which it is combined, as in, e.g., anxious+tor+ N (anxious for news), anxious+about+A (anxious about his health).
Broadly speaking we may conclude that as a rule the difference in the meaning of the head-word is conditioned by a
difference in the pattern/ of the word-group in which this word is used.
Polysemantic and Monosemantic Patterns. If the structure of word-groups is different, we have ample grounds
to infer that the difference in the syntactic (or syntagmatic) structure is indicative of a difference in the meaning of the
head-word, of word-groups. So we assume- that verbal groups represented by different structural formulas, e.g. V+N
and V+V(inf.) are as a rule semantically different because of the difference in the grammatical component of meaning.
This is also true of different patterns of word-groups, e.g. get+N and get+V(inf.). It should be pointed out, however,
that although difference in the pattern signals as a rule difference in the meaning of the head-word, identity of pattern
cannot be regarded as a reliable criterion for identity of meaning. Thus structurally identical patterns, e.g. heavy+A,
may be representative of different meanings of the adjective heavy which is perceived in the word-groups heavy rain
(snow, storm), cf. heavy smoker (drinker), heavy weight (table), etc. all of which have the same pattern- heavy+A.
Structurally simple patterns are as a rule polysemantic, i.e. representative of several meanings of a polysemantic headword, whereas structurally complex patterns are monosemantic and condition just one meaning of the head-member.
The simplest verbal structure V+N and the corresponding pattern are as a rule polysemantic (compare, e.g. take+N
(take tea, coffee); take the bus, the tram, take measures, precautions, etc.), whereas a more complex pattern, e.g.
take+to+N is monosemantic (e.g. take to sports, to somebody).
Motivation in Word Groups. Word-groups like words may also be analysed from the point of view of their
motivation. Word-groups may be described as lexically motivated if the combined lexical meaning of the groups is
deducible from the meaning of their components. The nominal groups, e.g. red flower, heavy weight and the verbal
group, e.g. take lessons, are from this point of view motivated, whereas structurally identical word-groups red

tape-'official bureaucratic methods', heavy father-'serious or solemn part in a theatrical play', and take place-'occur'
are lexically non-motivated. In these groups the constituents do not possess, at least synchronically, the denotation-al
meaning found in the same words outside these groups or, to be more exact, do not possess any individual lexical
meaning of their own, as the word-groups under discussion seem to represent single indivisible semantic entities.
Word-groups are said to be structurally motivated if the meaning of the pattern is deducible from the order and
arrangement of the member-words of the group. Red flower, e.g., is motivated as the meaning of the pattern qualitysubstance can be deduced from the order and arrangement of the words red and flower, whereas the seemingly
identical pattern red tape cannot be interpreted as quality-substance. The degree of motivation may be different.
Between the extremes of complete motivation and lack of motivation there are innumerable intermediate cases. For
example, the degree of lexical motivation in the nominal group black market is higher than in black death, but lower
than in black dress; though none of the groups can be considered as completely non-motivated. This is also true of
other word-groups, e.g. old man and old boy both of which may be regarded, as lexically and structurally motivated
though the degree of motivation in old man is noticeably higher. It is of interest to note that completely motivated
word-groups are, as a rule, correlated with certain structural types of compound words. Verbal groups having the
structure V+N, e.g. to read books, to love music, etc., are habitually correlated with the compounds of the pattern A'+
(F+er) (book-reader, music-lover); adjectival groups (e.g. rich in oil, shy before girls) are correlated with the
compounds of the pattern N+A, e.g. oil-rich, girl-shy. It should also be noted that seemingly identical word-groups
are sometimes found to be motivated or non-motivated depending on their semantic interpretation. Thus apple sauce,
e.g., is lexically and structurally motivated when it means 'a sauce made of apples' but when used to denote 'nonsense'
it is clearly non-motivated. In such cases we may even speak of homonymy of word-groups and not of polysemy. It
follows from the above discussion that word-groups may be also classified into motivated and non-motivated units.
Non-motivated word-groups are habitually described as phraseological units or idioms.
Word-Structure. Segmentation of Words into Morphemes. Close observation and comparison of words clearly
shows that a great many words have a composite nature and are made up of smaller units, each possessing sound-form
and meaning. These are generally referred to as morphemes defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language
units. For instance, words like boiler, driller fall into the morphemes boil-, drill- and -er by virtue of the recurrence
of the morpheme -er in these and other similar words and of the morphemes boil- and drill- in to boil, a boil, boiling
and to drill, a drill, drilling, a drill-press, etc. Likewise, words like flower-pot and shoe-lace are segmented into the
morphemes flower-, pot-, shoe- and lace- (cf. flower-show, flowerful, etc., shoe-brush, shoeless, etc., on the one
hand; and pot-lid, pottery, etc., lace-boots, lacing, etc., on the other). Like a word a morpheme is a two-facet
language unit, an association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern. Unlike a word a morpheme is not an
autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word. Morphemes cannot be segmented into
smaller units without losing their constitutive essence, i.e. two-facetedness, association of a certain meaning with a
given sound-pattern, cf. the morpheme lace- denoting 'a string or cord put through small holes in shoes', etc.; 'to draw
edges together' and the constituent phonemes [I], [ei], [s] entirely^ without meaning.
Identification of morphemes in various texts shows that morphemes may have different phonemic shapes. In the
word-cluster please, pleasing, pleasure, pleasant the root-morpheme is represented by phonemic shapes: [pli:z] in
please, pleasing, [pleg] in pleasure and [plez] in pleasant. In such cases we say that the phonemic shapes of the word
stand in complementary distribution or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme
that manifest alteration are called allomorphs of that morpheme or morpheme variants. Thus [pli:z, plez] and [pleg]
are allomorphs of one and the same morpheme. The root-morphemes in the word-cluster duke, ducal, duchess,
duchy or poor, poverty may also serve as examples of the allomorphs of one morpheme. A Course in Modern
English Lexicology R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel et.al.( M., 1966).

Principles of Morphemic Analysis. Types of Word Segmentability. As far as the complexity of the
morphemic structure of the word is concerned all English words fall into two large classes. To C1ass I belong
segmentable words, i.e. those allowing of segmentation into morphemes, e.g. agreement, information, fearless,
quickly, door-handle, etc. To C1ass II belong non-segmentable words, i.e. those not allowing of such segmentation,
e.g. house, girl, woman, husband, etc. The operation of breaking a segmentable word into the constituent
morphemes is referred to in present-day linguistic literature as the analysis of word-structure on the morphemic level.

The morphemic analysis aims at splitting a segmentable word into its constituent morphemes-the basic units at this
level of word-structure analysis-and at determining their number and types. The degree of morphemic segment-ability
is not the same for different words. Three types of morphemic segmentability of words are distinguished: complete,
conditional and defective. Complete segmentability is characteristic of a great many words the morphemic structure of
which is transparent enough, as their individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word lending themselves
easily to isolation.
As can be easily seen from the examples analysed above, the transparent morphemic structure of a segmentable
word is conditioned by the fact that its constituent morphemes recur with the same meaning in a number of other
words. There are, however, numerous words in the English vocabulary the morphemic structure of which is not so
transparent and easy to establish as in the cases mentioned above. Conditional morphemic segmentability
characterizes words whose segmentation into the constituent morphemes is doubtful for semantic reasons. In words
like retain, contain, detain or receive, deceive, conceive, perceive the sound-clusters [n-], [di-], [lon-1 seem, on the
one hand, to be singled out quite easily due to their recurrence in a number of words, on the other hand, they
undoubtedly have nothing in common with the phonetically identical morphemes re-, de-as found in words like
rewrite, re-organize, deorganize, decode; neither the sound-clusters [n-] or [di-] nor the [-tern] or [-si:v] possess any
lexical or. functional meaning of their own. The type of meaning that can be ascribed to them is only a differential and
a certain distributional meaning: 2 the
[n-] distinguishes retain from detain and the [-tern] distinguishes retain from receive, whereas their order and
arrangement point to the status of the re-, de-, con-, per- as different from that of the -tain and -ceive within the
structure of the words. The morphemes making up words of conditional segmentability thus differ from morphemes
making up words of complete segmentability in that the former do not rise to the full status of morphemes for
semantic reasons and that is why a special term is applied to them in linguistic literature: such morphemes are called
pseudo-morphemes or quasi-morphemes. It should be mentioned that there is no unanimity on the question and there
are two different approaches to the problem. Those linguists who recognize pseudo-morphemes, i.e. consider it
sufficient for a morpheme to have only a differential and distributional meaning to be isolated from a word regard
words like retain, deceive, etc. as segmentable; those who deem it necessary for a morpheme to have some
denotational meaning qualify them as non-segmentable words. Defective morphemic segmentability is the property of
words whose component morphemes-seldom or never recur in other words. One of the component morphemes is a
unique morpheme in the sense that it does not, as a rule, recur in a different linguistic environment. A unique
morpheme is isolated and understood as meaningful because the constituent morphemes display a more or less clear
denotational meaning. There is no doubt that in the nouns streamlet, ringlet, leaflet, etc. the morpheme'-let has the
denotational meaning of diminutiveness and is combined with the morphemes stream-, ring-, leaf-, etc. each having a
clear denotational meaning. Things are entirely different with the word hamlet. The morpheme-let retains the same
meaning of diminutive-ness, but the sound-cluster [haem] that is left after the isolation of the morpheme -let does not
recur in any other English word with anything like the meaning it has in the word hamlet. It is likewise evident that
the denotational and the differential meaning of [haem] which distinguishes hamlet from streamlet, ringlet, etc. is
upheld by the denotational meaning of -let. The same is examplified by the word pocket which may seem at first sight
non-segmentable. However, comparison with such words as locket, hogget, lionet, cellaret, etc. leads one to the
isolation of the morpheme -et having a diminutive meaning, the more so that the morphemes lock-, hog-, lion-,
cellar-, etc. recur in other words (cf. lock, locky; hog, hoggery; lion, lioness; cellar, cellarage). At the same time the
isolation of the morpheme -et leaves in the word pocket the sound-cluster [pok] that does riot occur in any other word
of Modern English but obviously has a status of a morpheme with a denotational meaning as it is the lexical nucleus
of the word. The morpheme [pok] clearly carries a differential and distributional meaning as it distinguishes pocket
from the words mentioned above and thus must be qualified as a unique morpheme. The morphemic analysis of words
like cranberry, gooseberry, strawberry shows that they also possess defective morphemic segmentability: the
morphemes cran-, goose-, straw- are unique morphemes.
The oppositions that the different types of morphemic segmentability are involved in hardly require any comments
with the exception of complete and conditional segmentability versus defective segmentability. This opposition is
based on the ability of the constituent morphemes to occur in a unique or a non-unique environment. In the former
case the linguist deals with defective, in the latter with complete and conditional segmentability. The distinction

between complete and conditional segmentability is based on semantic features of morphemes proper and pseudomorphemes.
Thus on the level of morphemic analysis the linguist has to operate with two types of elementary units, namely full
morphemes and pseudo-(quasi-)morphemes. It is only full morphemes that are genuine structural elements of the
language system so that the linguist must primarily focus his attention on words of complete morphemic
segmentability. On the other hand, a considerable percentage of words of conditional and defective segmentability
signals a relatively complex character of the morphological system of the language in question, reveals the existence
of various heterogeneous layers in its vocabulary.
Classification of morphemes. Morphemes may be classified: a) from the semantic point of view, b) from the
structural point of view. a) Semantically morphemes fall into two classes: root-morphemes and non-root or
affixational morphemes. Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of morphemes due to the different roles they
play in word-structure. Roots and affixational morphemes are generally easily distinguished and the difference
between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the rootmorphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, -fill are understood as the lexical centres of the words, as the basicconstituent part of a word without which the word is inconceivable. The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of a
word, it has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language. Besides it may also possess
all other types of meaning proper to morphemes1 except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots. The
root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up-a word-cluster, for example the
morpheme teach-in to teach, teacher, teaching, theor- in theory, theorist, theoretical, etc. Non-root morphemes
include inflectional morphemes or inflections and affixational morphemes or affixes. Inflections carry only
grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms, whereas affixes are relevant for
building various types of stems-the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Lexicology is
concerned only with affixational morphemes. Affixes are classified into prefixes and suffixes: a prefix precedes the
root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Affixes besides the meaning proper to root-morphemes possess the part-of-speech
meaning and a generalized lexical meaning. b) Structurally morphemes fall into three types: free morphemes, bound
morphemes, semi-free (semi-bound) morphemes. A free morpheme is defined as one that coincides with the stem 2 or
a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root-morpheme friend -- of the
noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun
friend. A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for
they always make part of a word, e.g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ize, etc., the prefixes un-, dis", de-, etc. (e.g.
readiness, comradeship, to activize; unnatural, to displease, to decipher). Many root-morphemes also belong to
the class of bound morphemes, which always occur in morphemic sequences, i.e. in combinations with roots or
affixes. All unique roots and pseudo-roots are bound morphemes. Such are the root-morphemes theor- in theory,
theoretical, etc., barbar - in barbarism, barbarian, etc., -ceive in conceive," perceive, etc. Semi-bound (semi-free)
morphemes1 are morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme. For
example, the morpheme well and half on the one hand occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and the
word-form in utterances like sleep well, half an hour, on the other hand they occur as bound morphemes in words
like well-known, half-eaten, half-done. The relationship between the two classifications of morphemes discussed
above can be graphically presented in the following diagram: structurally: free semi-free -bound- morphemes
semantically: roots. affixes. Speaking of word-structure on the morphemic level, two groups of morphemes should
be specially mentioned. To the first group belong morphemes of Greek and Latin origin often called combining forms,
e.g. telephone, telegraph, horoscope, microscope, etc. The morphemes tele-, graph-, scope-, micro-, hone- are
characterized by a definite lexical meaning and peculiar stylistic reference: tele- means 'far', graph- means 'writing',
scope- 'see- -'g', micro- implies smallness, phone- means 'sound.' Comparing words with tele- as their first
constituent, such as telegraph, telephone, telegram one may conclude that tele- is a prefix and graph-, phone-,
gram are root-morphemes. On the other hand, words like phonograph, seismograph, autograph may create the
impression that the second morpheme graph is a suffix, and the first-a root-morpheme. This undoubtedly would lead
to the absurd conclusion that words of this group contain no root-morpheme and are composed of a suffix and a prefix
which runs counter to the fundamental principle of word-structure. Therefore, there is only one solution to this
problem; these morphemes are all bound root-morphemes of a special kind and such words belong to words made up

of bound roots. The fact that these morphemes do not possess the part-of-speech meaning typical of affixational
morphemes evidences their status as roots. The second group embraces morphemes occupying a kind of intermediate
position, morphemes that are changing their class membership. The root-morpheme man- found in numerous words
like postman ['poustman], fisherman ['fimn], gentleman ['dgentlmn] in comparison with the same root used
in the words man-made ['mnmeid] and man-servant ['mn,s:vnt] is, as is well-known, pronounced,
differently, the [] of the root-morpheme becomes [a] and sometimes disappears altogether. The phonetic reduction of
the root vowel is obviously due to the decreasing semantic value of the morpheme and some linguists argue that in
words like cabman, gentleman, chairman it is now felt as denoting an agent rather than a male adult, becoming
synonymous with the agent suffix -er. However, we still recognize the identity of [mn] in postman, cabman and
[mn] in man-made, man-servant. Abrasion has not yet completely disassociated the two, and we can hardly regard
[man] as having completely lost the status of a root-morpheme. Besides it is impossible to say she is an Englishman
(or a gentleman) and the lexical opposition of man and woman is still felt in most of these compounds (cf. though
Madam Chairman in cases when a woman chairs a sitting and even all women are tradesmen). It follows from all
this that the morpheme -man as the last component may be qualified as semi-free.
Procedure of Morphemic Analysis. The procedure generally employed for the purposes of segmenting words
into the constituent morphemes is the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on a
binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each
stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents (ICs). Each IC at the next stage of analysis
is in turn broken into two smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents
incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. In terms of the method employed these are referred to as the Ultimate
Constituents (UCs). For example the noun friendliness is first segmented into the IC friendly recurring in the
adjectives friendly-looking and friendly and the -ness found in a countless number of nouns, such as happiness,
darkness, unselfishness, etc. The IC -ness is at the same time a UC of the noun, as it cannot be broken into any
smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. The IC friendly is next broken into the ICs friend-and -ly
recurring in friendship, unfriendly, etc. on the one hand, and wifely, brotherly, etc., on the other. Needless to say
that the ICs friend-and -ly are both UCs of the word under analysis. The procedure of segmenting a word into i-ts
Ultimate Constituent morphemes, may be conveniently presented with the help of a box-like diagram friendliness. In
the diagram showing the segmentation of the noun friendliness the lower layer contains the ICs resulting from the
first cut, the upper one those from the second, the shaded boxes representing the ICs which are at the same time the
UCs of the noun. The morphemic analysis according to the IC and UC may be carried out on the basis of two
principles: the so-called root principle and the affix principle. According to the affix principle the segmentation of the
word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of an affixational morpheme within a set of words;
for example, the identification of the suffixational morpheme -less leads to the segmentation of words like useless,
hopeless, merciless, etc., into the suffixational morpheme -less and the root-morphemes within a word-cluster; the
identification of. the root-morpheme agree- in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree makes it possible to split
these words into the root -agree- and the affixational morphemes -able, -ment, dis-. As a rule, the application of one
of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.
Morphemic Types of Words. According to the number of words are classified into monomorphic and
polymorphic. Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. All
po1ymorphic words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into two subgroups: monoradical (or
one-root words) and polyradical words, i.e. words, which consist of two or more roots. Monoradical words fall into
two subtypes: 1) radica1 suffixa1 words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and one or more suffixal
morphemes, e.g. acceptable, acceptability, blackish, etc.; 2) radical-prefixal words, i.e. words that consist of one
root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme, e.g. outdo, rearrange, unbutton, etc. and 3) prefixo-radical-suffixal, i.e.
words which consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal morphemes, e.g. disagreeable, misinterpretation, etc.
Polyradical words fall into two types: 1) polyradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational
morphemes, e.g. book-stand, eye-ball, lamp-shade, etc. and 2) words which contain at least two roots and one or
more affixational morphemes, e.g. safety-pin, wedding-pie, class-consciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder, etc.
Derivative Structure. The analysis of the morphemic of words defines the ultimate meaningful constituents
(UCs), their typical sequence and arrangement, but it does not reveal the hierarchy of morphemes making up the word,

neither does it reveal the way a word is constructed, nor how a new word of similar structure should be understood.
The morphemic analysis does not aim at finding out the nature and arrangement of ICs which underlie the structural
and the semantic type of the word, e.g. words unmanly and discouragement morphemically are referred to the same
type as both are segmented into three UCs representing one root, one prefixational and one suffixational morpheme.
However the arrangement and the nature of ICs and hence the relationship of morphemes in these words is different-in
unmanly the prefixational morpheme makes one of the ICs, the other IC is represented by a sequence of the root and
the suffixational morpheme and thus the meaning of the word is derived from the relations between the ICs un- and
manly- ('not manly'), whereas discouragement rests on the relations of the IC discourage- made up by the
combination of the prefixational and the root-morphemes and the suffixational morpheme -ment for its second IC
('smth that discourages'). Hence we may infer that these three-morpheme words should be referred to different
derivational types: unmanly to a prefixational and discouragement to a suffixational derivative.
The nature, type and arrangement of the ICs of the word is known as its derivative structure. Though the derivative
structure of the word is closely connected with its morphemic or morphological structure and often coincides with it, it
differs from it in principle.
Derivative Relations. According to the derivative structure words fall into two big classes: simplexes or simple,
non-derived words and complexes or derivatives. Simplexes are words, which derivationally cannot be segmented into
ICs. The morphological stem of simple words, i.e. the part of the word which takes on the system of grammatical
inflections is semantically non-motivated and independent of other words, e.g. hand, come, blue, etc. Morphemically
it may be monomorphic in which case its stem coincides with the free root-morpheme as in, e.g., hand, come, blue,
etc. or polymorphic in which case it is a sequence of bound morphemes as in, e.g., anxious, theory, public, etc.
Derivatives are words which depend on some other simpler lexical items that motivate them structurally and
semantically, i.e. the meaning and the structure of the derivative is understood through the comparison with the
meaning and the structure of the source word. Hence -derivatives are secondary, motivated units, made up as a rule of
two ICs, i.e. binary units, e.g. words like friendliness, unwifely, school-masterish, etc. are made up of the ICs
friendly+ -ness, un-+wifely, schoolmaster+ish. The ICs are brought together according to specific rules of order and
arrangement preconditioned by the system of the language. It follows that all derivatives are marked by the fixed order
of their ICs.
The basic elementary units of the derivative structure of words are: derivational bases, derivational affixes and
derivational patterns which differ from the units of the morphemic structure of words (different types of morphemes).
The relations between words with a common root but of different derivative structure are known as derivative
relations. The derivative and derivative relations make the subject of study at the derivational level of analysis; it aims
at establishing correlations between different types of words, th& structural and semantic patterns words are built on,
the study also enables one to understand how new words appear in the language. The constituents of the derivative
structure are functional units, i.e. units whose function is to indicate relationship between different classes of words or
differently-behaving words of the same class and to signal the formation of new words. It follows that derivational
functions are proper to different linguistic units which thus serve as ICs of a derivative. It must be also noted that the
difference between classes of words is signalled by both the derivative structure of the word, or to be more exact by
the stem it shapes, and by the set of paradigmatic inflections that this structure presupposes. For example, the nominal
class of words to which derivatives like historian, teacher, lobbyist are referred is signalled by both the derivative
structure, i.e. the unity of their ICs history+ian, teach+ +-er lobby+'ist shaping the stems of these words-and the
nominal set of paradigmatic inflections which these stems precondition, i.e. historian^), historian(s), historians},
historians'). The class of words like enrich, enlarge is likewise signalled by their derivative structure (en-+ +rich,
en'+large) and the verbal set of paradigmatic inflexions. Hence the paradigmatic systems of different classes of words
have, among their functions, the function of distinguishing the formal make-up of word classes. It follows that the
paradigmatic system of inflections in cases of meaningful absence of the IC, which determines the class membership
of the motivated stem functions as the sole indication of its derived nature.
Derivational Basis. A derivational base as a functional unit is defined as the constituent, to which a rule of wordformation is applied. It is the part of the word which establishes connection with the lexical unit that motivates the
derivative and determines its individual lexical meaning describing the difference between words in one and the same
derivative set, for example the individual lexical meaning of words like singer, rebuilder, whitewasher, etc. which all

denote active doers of action, is signalled by the lexical meaning of the derivational bases sing-, rebuild-, whitewashwhich establish connection with the motivating source verb. Structurally derivational bases fall into three classes: 1)
bases that coincide with morphological stems of different degrees of complexity, e.g. duti/y/, dutiful/;/; day-dream,
to day-dream, daydreame/-; 2) bases that coincide with word-forms; e.g. paper-hound, unsmiling, unknown; 3)
bases that coincide with word groups of different degrees of stability, e ,g. second-rateness, flat-waist-ed, etc.
Bases built on stems of different degree of complexity make the largest and commonest group of components of
derivatives of various classes, e.g. girlish-ness, colour-blind-ness, ex-film-star, unbutton, etc. Bases of this class are
functionally and semantically distinct from all kinds of stems. Functionally, the morphological stem is the part of the
word, which is the starting point for its forms, it is the part which semantically presents a unity of lexical and
functional meanings thus predicting the entire grammatical paradigm. The stem remains unchanged throughout all
word-forms, it keeps them together preserving the identity of the word. Thus the stems in the above-given words are
ex-filmstar, unbutton which remain unchanged in all the forms of each word as, e.g., ex-filmstar(s), ex-filmsiar(s),
ex-filmistar('s), ex-filmstars). Stems are characterized by a phonetic identity with the word-form that habitually
represents the word as a whole (the common case singular, the infinitive, etc.).
A derivational base unlike a stem does not predict the part of speech of the derivative, it only outlines a possible
range and nature of the second 1C and it is only the unity of both that determines the lexical-grammatical class of the
derivative. A derivational base is the starting-point for different words and its derivational potential outlines the type
and scope of existing words and new creations. The nominal base for example, hand- gives rise to nouns, e.g. handrail, hand-bag, shorthand, handful, to adjectives, e.g. handy, or verbs, e.g. to hand. Similarly the base rich- may
be one of the ICs of the noun richness, the adjective gold-rich, or the verb to enrich.
Semantically the stem stands for the whole semantic structure of the word. It represents all its lexical meanings. A
base, semantically, is also different in that it represents, as a rule, only one meaning of the source word or its stem.
The derivatives glassful and glassy, e.g., though connected with the stem of the same source word are built on
different derivational bases-, as glassful is the result of the application of the word-formation rule to the meaning of
the source word 'drinking vessel or its contents', whereas glassy - to the meaning 'hard, transparent, easily-broken
substance'. Derivatives fiery, fire-place, to fire, fire-escape, firearm, all have bases built on the stem of the same
source noun fire, but the words like fire-escape fire-engine and fire-alarm are semantically motivated by the
meaning 'destructive burning', the words fire-arms, ceasefire, (to) fire are motivated by another meaning 'shooting',
whereas the word fiery (as in fiery speech, eyes) is motivated by the meaning 'strong-emotion, excited feeling'. The
same difference can be exemplified by the words starlet, starry, starlike, starless which are all motivated by the
derivational base meaning 'a heavenly body seen in the night as distant point of light', as compared to stardom,
starlet, to star motivated by the base meaning 'a person famous as actor, singer' though both represent the same
morphological stem of the word star. Stems that serve as this class of bases may themselves be different
morphemically and derivationally thus forming derivational bases of different degrees of complexity, which affects
the range and scope of their collocability and their derivational capacity. Derivationally the stems may be: a) simple,
which consist of only one, semantically non-motivated constituent. The most characteristic feature of simple stems in
Modern English is the phonetic and graphic identity with the root-morpheme and the word-form that habitually
represents the word as a whole. As has been mentioned elsewhere simple stems may be both monomorphic units and
morphemic sequences made up of bound and pseudo-morphemes, hence morphemically segmentable stems in such
words as pocket, motion, retain, horrible, etc. should be regarded as derivationally simple. b) derived stems are
semantically and structurally motivated, and are the results of the application of word-formation rules; it follows that
they are as a rule binary, i.e. made up of two ICs, and polymorphic, e.g. the derived stem of the word girlish is
understood on the basis of derivative relations between girl and girlish; the derived stem of a greater complexity
girlishness is based on the derivative relations between girlish and girlishness. This is also seen in to weekend, to
daydream, derived from the nouns week-end and day-dream and are motivated by the derivative relations between
the noun and the verb. Derived stems, however, are not necessarily polymorphic. It especially concerns derivatives
with a zero IC, i.e. meaningful absence of the derivational means in which case the distinction between the stem of
the source word and the motivated stem of the derivative is signalled by the difference in paradigmatic sets of
inflections which they take. For example, the stem of the verb (to) parrot, though it consists of one overt constituent
and is a one-morpheme word, should be considered derived as it is felt by a native speaker as structurally and

semantically dependent on the simple stem of the noun parrot and because it conveys a regular relationship between
these two classes of words-verbs and nouns. The same is true of the stems in such words as (to) winter, a cut, a
drive, etc. c) compound stems are always binary and semantically motivated, but unlike the derived stems both ICs
of compound stems are stems themselves. The derivative structure and morphemic composition of each IC may be of
different degree of complexity, for example, the compound stem of the noun match-box consists of two simple stems,
the stem of the noun letter-writer-of one simple and one derived stem, and the stem aircraft-carrier of a compound
and derived stem.
The structural complexity of the derivational bases built on derived and compound stems is a heavy constraint
imposed on the collocability and semantic freedom of these bases and consequently on their derivative potential.
Compare, for example, the derivational capacity of the simple stem girl, which can give rise to girly, girlish, girlless,
girl-friend, and the limited capacity of girlish which gives only girlishness and girlishly. 2. The second class of
derivational bases is made up of word-forms. It is obvious that word-forms functioning as parts of the word lose all
syntactic properties they possess in independent use. This class of bases is confined to verbal word-forms-the present
and the past participles- which regularly function as ICs of non-simple adjectives, adverbs and nouns. The
collocability of this class of derivational bases is confined to just a few derivational affixes such as the prefix un-, the
suffix -ly, in e.g. unnamed, unknown, unwrapped, etc., smilingly, knowingly, etc. The derivational bases in
question may be also collocated with other bases which coincide only with nominal and adjectival stems, e.g.
mockingbird, dancing-girl, ice-bound, time-consuming, ocean-going, easy-going, etc. The third class of
derivational bases is made up of word-groups. Free word-groups make up the greater part of this class of bases. Like
word-forms, word-groups serving as derivational bases lose their morphological and syntactic properties proper to
them as self-contained lexical units. Bases of this class also allow of a rather limited range of collocability, they are
most active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns, e.g. in words like blue-eyed, long-fingered,
old-worldish, dogooder, second-rateness, etc. Thus, we may conclude that each class of bases, though it makes use
of one of the structural units of vocabulary, is distinct from it and differs from it both in form and meaning. The
greater the degree of structural complexity of the base, the more limited its derivative potential.
Derivational Affixes. Derivational affixes are ICs of numerous derivatives in all parts of speech. Derivational
affixes differ from affixational morphemes in their function within the word, in their distribution and in their meaning.
Derivational affixes possess two basic functions: 1) that of stem-building which is common to all affixational
morphemes: derivational and non-derivational. It is the function of shaping a morphemic sequence, or a word-form or
a phrase into the part of the word capable of taking a set of grammatical inflections and is conditioned by the part-ofspeech meaning these morphemes possess; 2) that of word-building which is the function of repatterning a
derivational base and building a lexical unit of a structural and semantic type different from the one represented by the
source unit. The repatterning results in either transferring it into the stem of another part of speech or transferring it
into another subset within the same part of speech. For example, the derivational suffix -ness applied to bases of
different classes shapes derived stems thus making new words. In kindliness, girlishness, etc. it repatterns the
adjectival stems kindly-, girlish-, in second-rate-ness, allatonceness it turns the phrases second rate, all at once into
stems and consequently forms new nouns. In most cases derivational affixes perform both functions simultaneously
shaping derived stems and marking the relationship between different classes of lexical items. However, certain
derivational affixes may in individual sets of words perform only one function that of stem-building. The derivational
^suffix -ic for example performs both functions in words like historic, economic, classic as it is applied to bases
history-, economy-, class- and forms stems of words of a different part of speech. But the same suffix -ic in public,
comic, music performs only its stem-building function shaping in this case a simple stem. The same is true of the
suffix -ous in such words as joyous, courageous, famous as compared with anxious, conscious, curious. Stembuilding is the common function shared by both derivational and non-derivational morphemes, but with the nonderivational morphemes it is the only structural function. Besides, the non-derivational affixes shape only simple
stems, for example, the morpheme -id in stupid, rapid, acid, humid; the morpheme -ish in publish, distinguish,
languish. It follows that non-derivational morphemes are not applied to stems, but only to root-morphemes or
morpheme sequences. Semantically derivational affixes are characterized by a unity of part-of-speech meaning,
lexical meaning and other types of morphemic meanings unlike non-derivational morphemes, which, as a rule, lack
the lexical type of meaning. It is true that the part-of-speech meaning is proper in different degrees to the derivational

suffixes and prefixes. It stands out clearly in derivational suffixes but it is less evident in prefixes; some prefixes lack
it altogether, in others it is very vague and in this case it finds expression in the fact that these prefixes tend to function
in- either nominal or verbal parts of speech. Prefixes like en-, un-, de-, out-, be-, unmistakably possess the part-ofspeech meaning and function as verb classifiers when they make an independent IC of the derivative, e.g. deice,
unhook, enslave; derivational prefixes a-, un-possess the adjectival part-of-speech meaning, e.g. unhesitating,
unknown, unkind, etc., amoral, asynthetic, asymmetric, etc. In prefixes co-, under-, mis- this type of meaning is
vague but they tend to be active in one part of speech only: co- in nominal parts of speech (i.e. nouns and adjectives),
e.g. copilot, co-star, co-president; mis-and under- are largely verbal prefixes, e.g. underwork, underdo,
underfeed, etc. The prefix over-evidently lacks the part-of-speech meaning and is freely used both for verbs and
adjectives, the same may be said about non-, pre-, post-. The lexical meaning in derivational affixes also has its
peculiarities and may be viewed at different levels. 1)The lexical (denotational) - meaning of a gene r-i c type proper
mostly not to an individual affix but to a set of affixes, forming a semantic subset such as, for example, the meaning of
resemblance found in suffixes -ish, -like, -y, -ly (spiderish, spiderlike, spidery); the causative meaning proper to the
prefix en- (enslave, enrich), the suffixes -ize, -(i)fy (brutalize, formalize, beautify, simplify, etc.); the meaning of
absence conveyed by the prefix un- and the suffix -less; the meaning of abstract quality conveyed by the suffixes
-ness, -ity, etc. 2) On the other hand derivational affixes possess another type of lexical meaning-a n individual
meaning shared by no other affix and thus distinguishing this particular affix from all other members of the same
semantic group. For example, suffixes -ish, -like, -y all have the meaning of resemblance, but -like conveys an overall
resemblance, -ish conveys likeness to the inner, most typical qualities of the object, -y in most cases conveys likeness
to outer shape, form, size of the object. Suffixes -er, -ist both possess the meaning of the agent, but the distinguishing
feature of the suffix -er is that it conveys the meaning of the active doer (animate or inanimate), whereas -ist conveys
the meaning of profession (flutist, biologist) and followers of principles and beliefs (socialist, leftist) and thus has the
meaning only of human beings. Derivational affixes semantically may be both mono- and polysemantic. Derivational
affixes are highly selective and each is applied to a specific set of bases, which is due to the distributional type of
meaning found in all affixes. All affixes are selective as to the structural peculiarities of bases (their morphemic,
derivational, phonological and etymological features), some in addition are highly responsive to the lexical-semantic
properties of the bases they are collocated with. For example, the adjectival suffix -able is collocated with verbal
bases with practically no semantic constraints imposed on them. On the other hand the adjective-forming suffix -ful is
restricted in its collocability to nominal bases of abstract meaning (useful, beautiful), while its homonym the nounforming -ful also collocating with nominal bases chooses bases of concrete meaning and within this class only nouns
which have in their semantic structure a semantic component 'container' (chestful, lungful, bagful).
Semi-Affixes. There is a specific group of morphemes whose derivational function does not allow one to refer
them unhesitatingly either to the derivational affixes or bases. In words like half-done, half-broken, half-eaten and
ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-dressed the ICs half- and ill- are given in linguistic literature different interpretations: they are
described both as bases and as derivational prefixes. The comparison of these ICs with .the phonetically identical
stems in independent words ill and half as used in such phrases as to speak ill of smb, half an hour ago makes it
obvious that in words like ill-fed, ill-mannered, half-done the ICs ill- and half- are losing both their semantic and
structural identity with the stems of the independent words. They are all marked by a different distributional meaning,
which is clearly revealed through the difference of their collocability as compared with the collocability of the stems
of the independently functioning words. As to their lexical meaning they have become more indicative of a
generalizing meaning of incompleteness and poor quality than the individual meaning proper to the stems of
independent words and thus they function more as affixational morphemes similar to the prefixes out-, over-, under-,
semi-, mis- regularly forming whole classes of words. Besides, the high frequency of these morphemes in the abovementioned generalized meaning in combination with the numerous bases built on past participles indicates their closer
ties with derivational affixes than bases. Yet these morphemes retain certain lexical ties with the root-morphemes in
the stems of independent words and that is why are felt as occupying an intermediate position/ as morphemes that are
changing their class membership regularly functioning as derivational prefixes but still retaining certain features of
root-morphemes. That is why they are sometimes referred to as semi-affixes. To this group we should also refer welland self- (well-fed, well-done, self-made), -man in words like postman, cabman, chairman, -looking in words like
foreign-looking, alive-looking, strange-looking, etc.

Derivational Patterns. Either bases nor affixes alone can predict all the structural and semantic properties of
words the ICs of which they may be. It is the combination of bases and affixes that makes up derivatives of different
structural and semantic classes. Both bases and affixes due to the distributional meaning they possess show a high
degree of consistency in their selection and are collocated according to a set of rules known as derivational patterns. A
derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes rigid rules on the order and the
nature of the derivational bases and affixes that may be brought together. A pattern is a generalization, a scheme
indicative of the type of ICs, their order and arrangement which signals the part of speech, the structural and semantic
peculiarities common to all the individual words for which the pattern holds true. Hence the derivational patterns (DP)
may be viewed as classifiers of non-simple words into structural types and within them into semantic sets and subsets.
DPs are studied with the help of distributional analysis at different levels. Patterns of derivative structures are usually
represented in a generalized way in terms of conventional symbols: small letters o, n, a, d, num. stand for the bases
which coincide with the stems of the respective part? of speech: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, numerals; v-ed, ving stand for the bases which are the past and present participles respectively. In words of the long-fingered or sitinner type the derivational bases are represented by bracketed symbols of the parts of speech making up the
corresponding collocations. In terms of patterns of this type, known as structural formulas,1 all words may be
classified into four classes: suffixal derivatives, e.g. friendship, glorified, blackness, skyward; prefixal derivatives,
e.g. rewrite, exboxer, non-smoker, unhappy, etc.; conversions, e.g. a cut, to parrot, to winter, etc.; compound
words key-ring, music-lover, wind-driven, etc. But derivational formulas are not indicative either of any one lexicalgrammatical or lexical class of words, as, for example, the formula a,+-s may equally represent suffixal nouns as in
blackness, possibility and verbs, as in sharpen, widen, or adjectives as in blackish. b) derivative structure and hence
derivative types of words may be represented at the level of structural patterns which specify the base classes and
individual affixes thus indicating the lexical-grammatical and lexical classes of derivatives within certain structural
classes of words. DPs of this level are based on the mutual interdependence of individual affixes and base classes and
may be viewed in terms of each. The suffixes refer derivatives to specific parts of speech and lexical subsets as, for
example, v+-er->-N signals that the derivatives built on this pattern are de-verbal nouns which represent a semantic set
of active agents, denoting both animate and inanimate objects, e.g. reader, runner, .singer, unlike, for example,
denominal nouns with the underlying pattern n-er-i-N which stands for agents denoting residents or occupations, e.g.
Londoner, villager, gardener. The DP n+-ish->-A signals a set of adjectives with the lexical meaning of resemblance,
whereas a--ish->A signals adjectives meaning a small degree of quality, etc. c) DPs may be specified as to the lexicalsemantic features of both ICs. DPs of this level specify the semantic constraints imposed upon the set of derivatives
for which the pattern is true and hence the semantic range of the pattern. For example, the nominal bases in the pattern
n+ess+N are confined to nouns having in their semantic structures a component 'a male animate being', e.g. lioness,
traitress, stewardess, etc.; the nominal bases in n+-ful+N are limited by nouns having a semantic component
'container', e.g. lungful, earful, mouthful, whereas in n+ful+A the nominal bases are confined to nouns of abstract
meaning. The same is true of the pattern n+-y->A which represents different semantic sets of derivatives specified by
semantic constraints imposed on "both the bases and the suffix: nominal bases denoting living beings are collocated
with the suffix -y meaning 'resemblance', e.g. birdy, spidery,' catty, etc., but nominal bases denoting material, parts of
the body attract another meaning of the suffix -y that of 'considerable amount, size' resulting in the adjectives like
powdery, grassy, leggy, starry, etc. It follows that derivational patterns may be classified into two types- structural
pattern and structural-semantic pattern.
Derivational Types of Words. According to their derivational structure there are to two large classes: simple, nonderived words or simplexes and derivatives or complexes. Complexes are classified according to the type of the
underlying derivational pattern into: derived arid compound words. Derived words fall into affixational words, which
in their turn must be classified into suffixal and prefixal derivatives, and conversions. Each derivational type of words
is unequally represented in different parts of speech.
Comparing the role each of these structural type of words plays in the language we can easily perceive that the clue
to the correct understanding of their comparative value lies in a careful consideration of 1) the importance of each type
in the existing word-stock and 2) their frequency value in actual speech. Of the two factors frequency is by far the
most important. According to the available word counts in different parts of speech, we find that derived words
numerically constitute the largest class of words in the existing word-stock, derived nouns comprise approximately

67% of the total number and adjectives about 86%, whereas compound nouns make about 15% and adjectives only
about 4%. Simple words come to 18% in nouns, i.e. a trifle more than the number of compound words; in adjectives
simple words come to approximately 12%. But if we now consider the frequency value of these types of words in
actual speech, we cannot fail to see that simple words occupy a predominant place in English. According to recent
frequency counts, about 60% of the total number of nouns and 62% of the total number of adjectives in current use are
simple words. Of the total number of adjectives and nouns, derived words comprise about 38% and 37% respectively
while compound words comprise an insignificant 2% in nouns and 0.2% in adjectives. Thus it is the simple, nonderived words that constitute the foundation and the backbone of the vocabulary and that are of paramount importance
in speech. It should also be mentioned that non-derived words are characterized by a high degree of collocability and a
complex variety of meanings in contrast with words of other structural types whose semantic structures are much
poorer. Simple words also serve as basic parent forms motivating all types of derived and compound words. At the
same time it should be pointed out that new words that appear in the vocabulary are mostly words of derived and
compound structure.
Historical Changeability of Word-Structure. Neither the morphemic nor the derivational structure of the word
remains the same but is subject to various changes in the course of time. Changes in the phonetic and semantic
structure and in the stress pattern of polymorphic words may bring about a number of changes in the morphemic and
derivational structure. Certain morphemes may become fused together or may be lost altogether. As a result of this
process, known as the process of simplification, radical changes in the structure of the word may take place: rootmorphemes may turn into affixational or semi-affixational morphemes, polymorphic words may become
monomorphic, compound words may be transformed into derived or even simple words. There is no doubt, for
instance, that the Modern English derived noun friendship goes back to the Old English compound freondscipe in
which the component scipe was a root-morpheme and a stem of the independently functioning word. The present-day
English suffixes -hood, -dom, -like are also known to have developed from root-morphemes. The noun husband is a
simple monomorphic word in Modern English, whereas in Old English it was a compound word consisting of two
bases built on two stems hus-bond-a. Sometimes the spelling of some Modern English words as compared with their
sound-form reflects the changes these words have undergone. The Modern English word cupboard judging by its
sound is a monomorphic non-motivated simple word. Yet its spelling betrays its earlier history. It consisted of two
bases represented by two monomorphic stems [kp] and [bo:d] and was pronounced ['kp bo:d]; it signified 'a board
to put cups on'; nowadays, however, having been structurally transformed into a simple word, it denotes neither cup
nor board as may be seen from the phrases like a boot cupboard, a clothes cupboard. A similar course of
development is observed in the words blackguard ['blga:d] traced to ['blk ga:d] etc. In the process of historical
development some word-structures underwent reinterpretation without radical changes in their phonemic shape; there
are cases when simple root-words came to be understood as derived consisting of two ICs represented by two
individual items, e.g. beggar, chauffeur, editor. The reinterpretation of such words led to the formation of simple
verbs like to edit, to beg, etc. (A Course in Modern English Lexicology R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel et.al., M.,
1966).

WORD BUILDING
Various Types and Ways of Forming Words. The available linguistic literature on the subject cites various types
and ways of forming words. Earlier books, articles and monographs on word-formation and vocabulary growth, in
general, both in the Russian language and in foreign languages, in the English language in particular, used to mention
morphological, syntactic and lexico-semantic types of word-formation. At present the classifications of the types of
word-formation do not, as a rule, include lexico-semantic word-building. Of interest is the classification of wordformation means based on the number of motivating bases which many scholars follow. A distinction is made between
two large classes of word-building means: To Class I belong the means of building words having one motivating base.
To give an English example, the noun catcher is composed of the base catch- and the suffix -er, through the
combination of which it is morphologically and semantically motivated.
Class II includes the means of building words containing more than one motivating base. Needless to say, they are
all based on compounding (cf. the English compounds country-club, door-handle, bottle-opener, etc., all having two

bases through which they are motivated). Most linguists in. special chapters and manuals devoted to English wordformation consider as the chief processes of English word-formation affixation, conversion and compounding. Apart
from these a number of minor ways of forming words such as back-formation, sound interchange, distinctive stress,
sound imitation, blending, clipping and acronymy are traditionally referred to Word-Formation.
Another classification of the types of word-formation worked out by H. Marchand is also of interest. Proceeding
from the distinction between full linguistic signs and pseudo signs a he considers two major groups: 1) words formed
as grammatical syntagmas, i.e. combinations of full linguistic signs which are characterized by morphological
motivation such as do-er, un-do, rain-bow; and 2) words which are not grammatical syntagmas, i.e. which are not
made up of full linguistic signs. To the first group belong Compounding, Suffixation, Prefixation, Derivation by a
Zero Morphemes and Back-Derivation, to the second-Expressive Symbolism, Blending, Clipping, Rime and Ablaut
Gemination. 4.Word-Manufacturing. 5. It is characteristic of both groups that a new coining is based on a synchronic
relationship between morphemes.
Word-Formation. Definition. Basic Peculiarities. We proceed from the understanding of Word-Formation
and the classification of word-formation types as found in A. I. Smirnitsky's book on English Lexicology. WordFormation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material
available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns. For instance, the noun driver is
formed after the pattern v+-er, i.e. a verbal stem + the noun-forming suffix -er. The meaning of the derived noun
driver is related to the meaning of the stem drive- 'to direct the course of a vehicle' and the suffix -er meaning 'an
active agent': a driver is 'one who drives' (a carriage, motorcar, railway engine, etc.). Likewise compounds resulting
from two or more stems joined together to form a new word are also built on quite definite structural and semantic
patterns and formulas, for instance adjectives of the snow-white type are built according to the formula n+a, etc. It can
easily be observed that the meaning of the whole compound is also related to the meanings of the component parts.
The structural patterns with the semantic relations they signal give rise to regular new creations of derivatives, e.g.
sleeper, giver, smiler or soot-black, tax-free, etc. In conformity with structural types of words described above the
following two types of word-formation may be distinguished: word-derivation and word-composition (or
compounding). Words created by word-derivation have in terms of word-formation analysis only one derivational base
and one derivational affix, e.g. cleanness (from clean), to overestimate (from to estimate), chairmanship (from
chairman), openhandedness (from openhanded), etc. Some derived words have no derivational affixes, because
derivation is achieved through conversion, e.g. to paper (from paper), a fall (from to fall), etc. Words created by
word-composition have at least two bases, e.g. lamp-shade, ice-cold, looking-glass, day-dream, hotbed,
speedometer, etc.
Within the types, further distinction may be made between the ways of forming words. The basic ways of forming
words in word-derivation, for instance, are affixation and conversion. It should be noted that the understanding of
word-formation as expounded here excludes semantic word-building as well as shortening, sound- and stressinterchange which traditionally are referred, as has been mentioned above, to minor ways of word-formation. By
semantic word-building some linguists understand any change in word-meaning, e.g. stock-'the lower part of the trunk
of a tree'; 'something lifeless or stupid'; 'the part of an instrument that serves as a base', etc.; bench- 'a long seat of
wood or stone'; 'a carpenter's table', etc. The majority of linguists, however, understand this process only as a change
in the meaning 3 of a word that may result in the appearance of homonyms, as is the case with flower-'a blossom' and
flour-'the fine meal', 'powder made from wheat and used for making bread'; magazine-'a publication' and
magazine-'the chamber for cartridges in a gun or rifle', etc. The application of the term word-formation to the process
of semantic change and to the appearance of homonyms due to the development of polysemy seems to be debatable
for the following reasons. As semantic change does not, as a rule, lead to the introduction of a new word into the
vocabulary, it can scarcely be regarded as a word-building means. Neither can we consider the process a wordbuilding means even when an actual enlargement of the vocabulary does come about through the appearance of a pair
of homonyms. Actually, the appearance of homonyms is not a means of creating new words, but it is the final result of
a long and labourious process of sense-development. Furthermore, there are no patterns after which homonyms can be
made in the language. Finally, diverging sense-development results in a semantic isolation of two or more meanings of
a word, whereas the process of word-formation proper is characterized by a certain semantic connection between the
new word and the source lexical unit. For these reasons diverging sense-development leading to the appearance of two

or more homonyms should be regarded as a specific channel through which the vocabulary of a language is
replenished with new words and should not be treated on a par with the processes of word-formation, such as
affixation, conversion and composition. The shortening of words also stands apart from the above two-fold division
of word-formation. It cannot be regarded as part of either word-derivation or word-composition for the simple reason
that neither the derivational base nor the derivational affix can be singled out from the shortened word (e. g. lab,
exam, Euratom, V-day, etc.). Nor are there any derivational patterns new shortened words could be formed on by the
speaker. Consequently, the shortening-of words should not be regarded as a way of word-formation on a par with
derivation and compounding. For the same reasons, such ways of coining words as acronymy, blending, lexicalization
and some others should not be treated as means of word-formation. Strictly speaking they are all, together with wordshortening, specific means of replenishing the vocabulary different in principle from affixation, conversion and
compounding.
What is said above is especially true of sound- and stress-interchange (also referred to as distinctive stress). Both
sound- and stress-interchange may be regarded as ways of forming words only diachronically, because in Modern
English not a single word can be coined by changing the root-' vowel of a word or by shifting the place of the stress.
Sound-interchange as well as stress-interchange intact has turned into a means of distinguishing primarily between
words of different parts of speech and as such is rather wide-spread in Modern English, e.g. losing-song, to live-life,
strong-strength, eic. It also distinguishes between different word-forms, e.g. man-men, wife-wives, to know-knew,
to leave-left, etc. Sound-interchange falls into two groups: vowel-interchange and consonant-interchange. By means
of vowel-interchange we distinguish different parts of speech, e.g. full-to fill, food-to feed, blood-to bleed, etc. In
some cases 'owel-interchange is combined with affixation, e.g. long-length, strong-strength, broad-breadth, etc.
Intransitive verbs and the corresponding transitive ones with a causative meaning also display vowel-interchange, e. g.
to rise-to raise, to sit-to set, to lie-to lay, to fall- to fell. The type of consonant-interchange typical of Modern
English is the interchange of a voiceless fricative consonant in a noun and the corresponding voiced consonant in the
corresponding verb, e.g. use-to use, mouth-to mouth, house-to house, advice-to advise, etc. There are some
particular cases of consonant-interchange: to speak-speech, to break-breach; defence-to defend; offence-to offend;
evidence-evident, importance-important, etc. Consonant-interchange may be combined with vowel-interchange,
e.g. bath-to bathe, breath-to breathe, life-to live, etc. Many English verbs of Latin-French origin are distinguished
from the corresponding nouns by the position of stress. Here are some well-known examples of such pairs of words:
'export n-to ex'port v; 'import n-to im'port v; 'conduct n-to con'duct v; 'present n-to pre'sent v; 'contrast n-to
con'trast v; 'increase n-io in'crease v, etc. Stress-interchange is not restricted to pairs of words consisting of a noun
and a verb. It may also occur between other parts of speech, for instance, between adjective and verb, e.g. 'frequent ato fre'quent v; 'absent a-to ab'sent v, etc.
Word Formation as the Subject of Study. Word-formation is that branch of Lexicology which studies the
derivative structure of existing words and the patterns on which a language, in this case the English language, builds
new words. It is self-evident that word-formation proper can deal only with words which are analysable both
structurally and semantically, i.e. with all types of Complexes. The study of the simple word as such has no place in it.
Simple words however are very closely connected with word-formation because they serve as the foundation, the
basic source of the parent units motivating all types of derived and compound words. Therefore, words like writer,
displease, atom-free, etc. make the subject matter of study in word-formation, but words like to write, to please,
atom, free are not irrelevant to it. Like any other linguistic phenomenon word-formation may be studied from two
angles-synchronically and diachronically. It is necessary to distinguish between these two approaches, for
synchronically the linguist investigates the existing system of the types of word-formation while diachronically he is
concerned with the history of word-building. To illustrate the difference of approach we shall consider affixation.
Diachronically it is the chronological order of formation of one word from some other word that is relevant. On the
synchronic plane a derived word is regarded as having a more complex structure than its correlated word regardless of
the fact whether it was derived from a simpler base or a more complex base. There are cases in the history of the
English language when a word structurally more complex served as the original element from which a simpler word
was derived. Those are cases of the process called back-formation (or back-derivation) 1, cf., beggar-to beg; editorto edit; chauffeur-to chauff and some others. The fact that historically the verbs to beg, to edit, etc. were derived
from the corresponding agent-nouns is of no synchronous relevance. While analysing and describing word-formation

synchronically it is not enough to extract the relevant structural elements from a word, describe its structure in terms
of derivational bases, derivational affixes and the type of derivative patterns, it is absolutely necessary to determine
the position of these patterns and their constituents within the structural-semantic system of the language as a whole.
Productivity of a derivative type therefore cannot be overlooked in this description.
Productivity of Word Formation Means. Some of the ways of forming words in present-day English can be
resorted to for the creation of new words whenever the occasion demands-these are called productive ways of forming
words, other ways of forming words cannot now produce new words, and these are commonly termed non-productive
or unproductive. For instance, affixation has been a productive way of forming words ever since the Old English
period; on the other hand, sound-interchange must have been at one time a word-building means but in Modern
English, as has been mentioned above, its function is actually only to distinguish between different classes and forms
of words. It follows that productivity of word-building ways, individual derivational patterns and derivational affixes
is understood as their ability of making new words which all who speak English find no difficulty in understanding, in
particular their ability to create what are called occasional words or nonce-words. 2. The term suggests that a speaker
coins such words when he needs them; if on another occasion the same word is needed again, he coins it afresh.
Nonce-words are built from familiar language material after familiar patterns. 3. Needless to say dictionaries do not as
a rule record occasional words. The following words may serve as illustration: (his) collarless (appearance), a lungful
(of smoke), a Dickensish (office), to unlearn (the rules), etc.
The delimitation between productive and non-productive ways and means of word-formation as stated above is
not, however, accepted by all linguists without reserve. Some linguists consider it necessary to define the term
productivity of a word-building means more accurately. They hold the view that productive ways and means of wordformation are only those that can be used for the formation of an unlimited number of new words in the modern
language, i.e. such means that "know no bounds" and easily form occasional words. This divergence of opinion is
responsible for the difference in the lists of derivational affixes considered productive in. various books on English
Lexicology. Recent investigations seem to prove however that productivity of derivational means is relative in many
respects. Moreover there are no absolutely productive means; derivational patterns and derivational affixes possess
different degrees of productivity. Therefore it is important that conditions favouring productivity and the degree of
productivity of a particular pattern or affix should be established. All derivational patterns experience both structural
and semantic constraints. The fewer are the constraints the higher is the degree of productivity, the greater is the
number of new words built on it. The two general constraints imposed on all derivational patterns are-the part of
speech in which the pattern functions and the meaning attached to it which conveys the regular semantic correlation
between the two classes of words. It follows that each part of speech is characterized by a set of productive
derivational patterns peculiar to it. Three degrees of productivity are distinguished for derivational patterns and
individual derivational affixes: 1) high 1y - productive, 2) productive or semi-productive and 3) non-productive.
Productivity of derivational patterns and affixes should not be identified with frequency of occurrence in speech,
although there may be some interrelation between them. Frequency of occurrence is characterized by the fact that a
great number of words containing a given derivational affix are often used in speech, in particular in various texts.
Productivity is characterized by the ability of a given suffix to make new words. In linguistic literature there is another
interpretation of derivational productivity based on a quantitative approach.1 A derivational pattern or a derivational
affix are qualified as productive provided there are in the word-stock dozens and hundreds of derived words built on
the pattern or with the help of the suffix in question. Thus interpreted, derivational productivity is distinguished from
word-formation activity by which is meant the ability of an affix to produce new words, in particular occasional words
or nonce-words. To give a few illustrations. The agent suffix -er is to be qualified both as a productive and as an active
suffix: on the one hand, the English word-stock possesses hundreds of nouns containing this suffix (e.g. driver,
reaper, teacher, speaker, etc.), on the other hand, the suffix -er is freely used to coin an unlimited number of noncewords denoting active agents (e.g., interrupter, respecter, laugher, breakfaster, etc.). The adjective suffix -ful is
described as a productive but not as an active one, for there are hundreds of adjectives with this suffix (e.g. beautiful,
hopeful, useful, etc.), but no new words seem to be built with its help. For obvious reasons, the noun-suffix -th in
terms of this approach is to be regarded both as a non-productive and a non-active one. (A Course in Modern
English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)

Affixation
Prefixal and Suffixal Derivatives. Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational
affixes to different types of bases. Derived words formed by affixation may be the result of one or several applications
of word-formation rule and thus the stems of words making up a word-cluster enter into derivational relations of
different degrees. The zero degree of derivation is ascribed to simple words, i.e. words whose stem is homonymous
with a word-form and often with a root-morpheme, e.g. atom, haste, devote, anxious, horror, etc. Derived words
whose bases are built on simple stems and thus are formed by the application of one derivational affix are described as
having the first degree of derivation, e.g. atomic, hasty, devotion, etc. Derived words formed by two consecutive
stages of coining possess the second degree of derivation, etc., e.g. atomical, hastily, devotional, etc. In conformity
with the division of derivational affixes into suffixes and prefixes affixation is subdivided into suffixation and
prefixation. Distinction is naturally made between prefixal and suffixal derivatives according to the last stage of
derivation, which determines the nature of the ICs of the pattern that signals the relationship of the derived word with
its motivating source unit, cf. unjust (ufi'+just), justify, (just++-ify), arrangement (arrange + -ment), non-smoker
(non- + smoker). Words like reappearance, unreasonable, denationalize, are often qualified as prefixal-suffixal
derivatives. The reader should clearly realize that this qualification is relevant only in terms of the constituent
morphemes such words are made up of, i.e. from the angle of morphemic analysis. From the point of view of
derivational analysis such words are mostly either suffixal or prefixal derivatives, e.g. sub-atomic == sub- + (atom +
+ -ic), unreasonable = un- - (reason + -able), denationalize = de- + - (national + -ize), discouragement == (dis- +
courage) + -ment. A careful study of a great many suffixal and prefixal derivatives has revealed an essential difference
between them. In Modern English suffixation is mostly characteristic of noun and adjective formation, while
prefixation is mostly typical of verb formation. The distinction also rests on the role different types of meaning play in
the semantic structure of the suffix and the prefix. The part-of-speech meaning has a much greater significance in
suffixes as compared to prefixes, which possess it in a lesser degree. Due to it a prefix may be confined to one part of
speech as, e.g., enslave, encage, unbutton or may function in more than one part of speech as, e.g., over- in overkind
a, to overfeed v, overestimation n; unlike prefixes, suffixes as a rule function in any one part of speech often forming
a derived stem of a different part of speech as compared with that of the base, e.g. careless a - cf. care n; suitable a cf. suit v, etc. Furthermore, it is necessary to point out that a suffix closely knit together with a base forms a fusion
retaining less of its independence than a prefix which is as a general rule more independent semantically, cf.
reading-'the act of one who reads'; 'ability to read'; and to re-read- 'to read again.' (A Course in Modern English
Lexicology R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel et.al. M., 1966).
Prefixation. Some Debatable Problems. Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes. The
interpretation of the terms prefix and prefixation now firmly rooted in linguistic literature has undergone a certain
evolution. For instance, some time ago there were linguists who treated prefixation as part of word-composition (or
compounding). The greater semantic independence of prefixes as compared with suffixes led the linguists to identify
prefixes with the first component part of a compound word. At present the majority of scholars treat prefixation as an
integral part of word-derivation regarding prefixes as derivational affixes which differ essentially both from rootmorphemes and non-derivational prepositive morphemes. Opinion sometimes differs concerning the interpretation of
the functional status of certain individual groups of morphemes which commonly occur as first component parts of
words. H. Marchand, for instance, analyses words like to overdo, to underestimate as compound verbs, the first
components of which are locative particles, not prefixes. In a similar way he interprets words like income, onlooker,
outhouse qualifying them as compounds with locative particles as first elements. There are about 51 prefixes in the
system of Modern English word-formation. According to the available word-counts of prefixal derivatives the
greatest number are verbs-42,4%, adjectives comprise 33,5% and noun;: make up 22.4%. To give some examples,
prefixal verbs: to enrich, to co-exist, to disagree, to undergo, etc.; prefixal adjectives: anti-war, biannual, uneasy,
super-human, etc.; prefixal nouns: ex-champion, co-author, disharmony, subcommittee, etc. It is of interest to mention
that the number of prefixal derivatives within a certain part of speech is in inverse proportion to the actual number of
prefixes: 22 form verbs, 41 prefixes make adjectives and 42- nouns. Proceeding from the three types of morphemes
that the structural classification involves 2 two types of prefixes are to be distinguished: 1) those not correlated with
any independent word (either notional or functional), e.g. un-, dis-, re-, pre-, post-, etc.; and 2) those correlated with
functional words (prepositions or preposition-like adverbs), e.g. out-, over-, up-, under-, etc. Prefixes of the second

type are qualified as semi-bound morphemes, which implies that they occur in speech in various utterances both as
independent words and as derivational affixes, e.g. 'over one's head', 'over the river' (cf. to overlap, to overpass); 'to
run out', 'to take smb out' (cf. to outgrow, to outline); 'to look up', 'hands up' (cf. upstairs, to upset); 'under the same
roof, 'to go under' (cf. to underestimate, undercurrent), etc.
It should be mentioned that English prefixes of the second type essentially differ from the functional words they
are correlated with: a) like any other derivational affixes they have a more generalized meaning in comparison with
the more concrete meanings of the correlated words; they are characterized by a unity of different denotational
components of meaning-a generalized component common to a set of prefixes and individual semantic component
distinguishing the given prefix within the set. b) they are deprived of all grammatical features peculiar to the
independent words they are correlated with; c) they tend to develop a meaning not found in the correlated words; d)
they form regular sets of words of the same semantic type. Of late some new investigations into the problem of
prefixation in English have yielded interesting results. It appears that the traditional opinion, current among linguists,
that prefixes modify only the lexical meaning of words without changing the part of speech is not quite correct with
regard to the English language. In English there are about 25 prefixes, which can transfer words to a different part of
speech in comparison with their original stems. Such prefixes should perhaps be called convertive prefixes, e.g. to
begulf (cf. gulf n), to debus (cf. bus n); to embronze (cf. bronze n), etc. If further investigation of English prefixation
gives more proofs of the convertive ability of prefixes, it will .then be possible to draw the conclusion that in this
respect there is no functional difference between suffixes and prefixes, for suffixes in English are also both convertive
(cf. hand-handless) and non-convertive (cf. father-fatherhood, horseman-horsemanship, etc.).
Some recent investigations in the field of English affixation have revealed a close interdependence between the
meanings of a polysemantic affix and the lexico-semantic group to which belongs the base it is affixed to, which
results in the difference between structural and structural-semantic derivational patterns the prefix forms. A good
illustration in point is the prefix en-. When within the the prefix is combined with noun bases denoting articles of
clothing, things of luxury, etc. it forms derived verbs expressing an action of putting or placing on, e.g. enrobe (cf.
robe), enjewel (cf. jewel), enlace (cf. lace), etc. When added to noun bases referring to various land forms, means of
transportation, containers and notions of geometry it builds 'derived verbs denoting an action of putting or placing in
or into, e.g. embed (cf. bed), entrap (cf. trap), embark (cf. bark), entrain (cf. train), encircle (cf. circle), etc. In
combination with noun bases denoting an agent or an abstract notion the prefix en- produces causative verbs, e.g.
enslave (cf. slave), endanger (cf. danger), encourage (cf. courage), etc.
Classification of Prefixes. Unlike suffixation, which is usually more closely bound up with the paradigm of a
certain part of speech, prefixation is considered to be more neutral in this respect. It is significant that in linguistic
literature derivational suffixes are always divided into noun-forming, adjective-forming, etc. Prefixes, however, are
treated differently. They are described either in alphabetical order or subdivided into several classes in accordance
with their origin, meaning or function and never according to the part of speech. Prefixes may be classified on
different principles. Diachronically distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreign origin. 1.Synchronically
prefixes may be classified: 1) according to the class of words they preferably form. Recent investigations, as has been
mentioned above, allow one to classify prefixes according to this principle. It must be noted that most of the 51
prefixes of Modern English function in more than one part of speech forming different structural and structuralsemantic patterns. A small group of 5 prefixes may be referred to exclusively verb-forming (en-, be-, un-, etc.). The
majority of prefixes (in their various denotational meanings) tend to function either in nominal parts of speech (41
patterns in adjectives, 42 in nouns) or in verbs (22 patterns); 2) as to the type of lexical-grammatical character of the
base they are added to into: a) deverbal, e. g. rewrite, outstay, overdo, etc.; b) denominal, e.g. unbutton, detrain, expresident, etc. and c) deadjectival, e.g. uneasy, biannual, etc. It is of interest to note that the most productive prefixal
pat tern for adjectives is the one made up of the prefix un- and the base built either on adjectival stems or present and
past participle, e.g. unknown, unsmiling, unseen, etc.;
3) semantically prefixes fall into mono- and polysemantic; 4) as to the generic denotational meaning there are
different groups that are distinguished in linguistic literature: a) negative prefixes, such as: un-, non-, in-, dis-, a-, e.g.
ungrateful (cf. grateful), unemployment (cf. employment), non-politician (cf. politician), non-scientific (cf.
scientific), incorrect (cf. correct), disloyal (cf. loyal), disadvantage (cf. advantage), amoral (cf. moral), asymmetry
(cf. symmetry), etc. It may be mentioned in passing that the prefix in- occurs in different phonetic shapes depending

on the initial sound of the base it is affixed to; in other words, the prefixal morpheme in question has several
allomorphs, namely il- (before [1]), im- (before [p,m],)ir- (before [r]), in- in all other cases, e.g. illegal, improbable,
immaterial, irreligious, inactive, etc.; b) reversative or privative prefixes, such as uria-, de-, disa-, e.g. untie (cf.
tie), unleash (cf. leash), decentralize (cf. centralize), disconnect (cf. connect), etc.; c) perjorative prefixes, such as
mis-, mal-, pseudo-, e.g. miscalculate (cf. calculate), misinform (cf. inform), maltreat (cf. treat), pseudoclassicism (cf. classicism), pseudo-scientific (cf. scientific), etc.; d) prefixes of time and order, such as fore-, pre-,
post-, ex-, e.g. foretell (cf. tell), foreknowledge (cf. knowledge), pre-war (cf. war), post-war (cf. war), postclassical (cf. classical), ex-president (cf. president); e) prefix of repetition re-, e.g. rebuild (cf. build), re-write (cf.
write), etc.; f) locative prefixes, such as super-, sub-, inter-, trans-, e.g. superstructure (cf. structure), subway (cf.
way), inter-continental (cf. continental), transatlantic (cf. atlantic) , etc. and some other groups; 5) when viewed
from the angle of their stylistic reference English prefixes fall into those characterized by neutral stylistic reference
and those possessing quite a definite stylistic value. As no exhaustive lexico-stylistic classification of English prefixes
has yet been suggested, a few examples can only be adduced here. There is no doubt, for instance, that prefixes like
un-, una-, out-, over-, re-, under- and some others can be qualified as neutral prefixes, e.g., unnatural, unknown,
unlace, outnumber, oversee, resell, underestimate, etc. On the other hand, one can hardly fail to perceive the
literary-bookish character of such prefixes as pseudo-, super-,, ultra-, uni-, bi- and some others, e.g. pseudoclassical, superstructure, ultraviolet, unilateral, bifocal, etc. Sometimes, one comes across pairs of prefixes, one of
which is neutral, the other is stylistically coloured. One example will suffice here: the prefix over- occurs in all
'functional styles, the prefix super- is peculiar to the style of scientific prose. 6) prefixes may be also classified as to
the degree of productivity into highly-productive, productive and non-productive.
Peculiarities of Some Suffixes. Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually
modify the lexical meaning of the base and transfer words to a different part of speech. There are suffixes however,
which do not shift words from one part of speech into another; a suffix of this kind usually transfers a word into a
different semantic group, e.g. a concrete noun becomes an abstract one, as is the case with child-childhood, friendfriendship, etc. Chains of suffixes occurring in derived words having two and more suffixal morphemes are
sometimes referred to in lexicography as compound suffixes: -ably -able + -ly (e.g. profitably, unreasonably); -ically -ic + -al + -ly (e.g. musically, critically); -ation = -ate + -ion (e.g. fascination, isolation) and some others.
Compound suffixes do not always present a mere succession of two or more suffixes arising out of several consecutive
stages of derivation. Some of them acquire a new quality operating as a whole unit. Let us examine from this point of
view the suffix -ation in words like fascination, translation, adaptation and the like. Adaptation looks at first sight
like a parallel to fascination, translation. The latter however are first-degree derivatives built with the suffix -ion on
the bases fascinate-, translate-. But there is no base adaptate, only the shorter base adapt-. Likewise damnation,
condemnation, formation, information and many others are not matched by shorter bases ending in -ate, but only by
still shorter ones damn-, condemn-, form-, inform-. Thus, the suffix -ation is a specific suffix of a composite nature.
It consists of two suffixes -ate and -ion, but in many cases functions as a single unit in first-degree derivatives. It is
referred to in linguistic literature as a coalescent suffix or a group suffix. Adaptation is then a derivative of the first
degree of derivation built with the coalescent suffix on the base adapt-. Of interest is also the group-suffix -manship
consisting of the suffixes -man 2 and -ship. It denotes a superior quality, ability of doing something to perfection, e.g.
authormanship, quotemanship, lipmanship, etc. (cf. statesmanship, or chairmanship built by adding the suffix
-ship to the compound base statesman- and chairman- respectively). It also seems appropriate to make several
remarks about the morphological changes that sometimes accompany the process of combining derivational
morphemes with bases. Although this problem has been so far insufficiently investigated, some observations have
been made and some data collected. For instance, the noun-forming suffix -ess for names of female beings brings
about a certain change in the phonetic shape of the correlative male noun provided the latter ends in -er, -or, e.g.
actress (cf. actor), sculptress (cf. sculptor), tigress (cf. tiger), etc. It may be easily observed that in such cases the
sound [a] is contracted in the feminine nouns. Further, there are suffixes due to which the primary stress is shifted to
the syllable immediately preceding them, e.g. courageous (cf. courage), stability (cf. stable), investigation (cf.
investigate), peculiarity (cf. peculiar), etc. When added to a base having the suffix -able/-ible as its component, the
suffix -ity brings about a change in its phonetic shape, namely the vowel [i] is inserted between [b] and [I], e.g.
possible-possibility, changeable-changeability, etc. Some suffixes attract the primary stress on to themselves, there

is a secondary stress on the first syllable in words with such suffixes, e.g. employ'ee (cf. em'ploy), govern'mental (cf.
govern), picturesque (cf. picture).
Main Principles of Classification. There are different classifications of suffixes in linguistic literature, as
suffixes may be divided into several groups according to different principles: 1) The first principle of classification
that, one might say, suggests itself is the part of speech formed. Within the scope of the part-of-speech classification
suffixes naturally fall into several groups such as: a) noun-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in nouns, e.g. -er,
-dom, -ness, -ation, etc. [teacher, Londoner, freedom, brightness, Justification, etc.); b) adjective-suffixes, i.e.
those forming or occurring in adjectives, e.g. -able, -less, -ful, -ic, -ous, etc. (agreeable, careless, doubtful, poetic,
courageous, etc.); c) verb-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in verbs, e.g. -en, -fy, -ize (darken, satisfy,
harmonize, etc.); d) adverb-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in adverbs, e.g.-ly, -ward (quickly, eastward,
etc.). 2) Suffixes may also be classified into various groups according to the lexico-grammatical character of the base
the affix is usually added to. Proceeding from this principle one may divide suffixes into: a) deverbal suffixes (those
added to the verbal base), e;g. -er, -ing, -ment, -able, etc. (speaker, reading, agreement, suitable, etc.); b)
denominal suffixes (those added to the noun base), e.g. -less, -ish,
-ful, -ist, -some, etc. (handless, childish, mouthful, violinist, troublesome, etc.);
c) de-adjectival suffixes (those affixed to the adjective base), e.g. -en, -ly, -ish, -ness, etc. (blacken, slowly,
reddish, brightness, etc.). 3) A classification of suffixes may also be based on the criterion of sense expressed by a set
of suffixes: Proceeding from this principle suffixes are classified into various groups within the bounds of a certain
part of speech. For instance, noun-suffixes fall into those denoting: a) the agent of an action, e.g. -er, -ant (baker,
dancer, defendant, etc.); b) appurtenance, e.g. -an, -ian, -ese, etc. (Arabian, Elizabethan, Russian, Chinese,
Japanese, etc.); c) collectivity, e.g. -age, -dom, -ery (-ry), etc. (freightage, officialdom, peasantry, etc.) d)
diminutiveness, e.g. -ie, -let, -ling, etc. (birdie, girlie, cloudlet, squirreling, wolfling, etc.). 4) Stilt another
classification of suffixes may be worked out if one examines them from the angle of stylistic reference. Just like
prefixes, suffixes are also characterized by "quiTe-a~ definite stylistic reference falling into two basic classes: a) those
characterized by neutral stylistic reference such as -able, -er, -ing, etc.; b) those having a certain stylistic value such as
-oid, -i/form, -aceous, -tron, etc. Suffixes with neutral stylistic reference may occur in words of different lexicostylistic layers e.g. agreeable, cf. steerable (steerable spaceship); dancer, cf. transmitter, squealer; 1 meeting, cf.
monitoring (the monitoring of digestive processes in the body), etc. As for suffixes of the second class they are
restricted in use to quite definite lexico-stylistic layers of words, in particular to terms, e.g. rhomboid, asteroid,
cruciform, cyclotron, synchrophasotron, etc. 5) Suffixes are also classified as to the degree of their productivity.
Polysemy and Homonymy of Affixes. As is known, language is never stable: sounds, constructions,
grammatical elements, word-forms and word-meanings are all exposed to alteration. Derivational affixes are no
exception in this respect, they also undergo semantic change. Consequently many commonly used derivational affixes
are polysemantic in Modern English. The following two may well serve as illustrations. The noun-suffix -er is used to
coin words denoting 1) persons following some special trade or profession, e.g. baker, driver, hunter, etc.; 2) persons
doing a certain action at the moment in question, e.g. packer, chooser, giver, etc.; 3) a device, tool, implement, e.g.
blotter, atomizer, boiler, eraser, transmitter, trailer, etc. The adjective-suffix y also has several meanings, such as
1) composed of, full of, e.g. bony, stony; 2) characterized by, e.g. rainy, cloudy; 3) having the character of,
resembling what the base denotes, e.g. inky, bushy. The various changes that the English language has undergone in
the course of time have led to chance coincidence in form of two or more derivational affixes. As a consequence, and
this is characteristic of Modern English, many homonymic derivational affixes can be found among those forming
both different parts of speech and different semantic groupings within the same part of speech. For instance, the
adverb-suffix -ly added to adjectival bases is homonymous to the adjective-suffix -ly affixed to noun-bases, cf.
quickly, slowly and lovely, friendly; the verb-suffix -en attached to noun- and adjectival bases is homonymous to the
adjective-suffix -en tacked on to noun-bases, cf. to strengthen, to soften and wooden, golden; the verb-prefix -uni
added to noun- and verb-bases is homonymous to the adjective-prefix -tin 2 affixed to adjectival bases, cf. to unbind,
to unshoe and unfair, untrue, etc. On the other hand, there are t\vo homonymous adjective-suffixes" -ish, and -ish 2
occurring in words like bluish, greenish, and girlish, boyish. In some books on English Lexicology the suffix -ish in
these two groups of words is regarded as one suffix having two different meanings. If we probe deeper into the matter,
however, we shall inevitably arrive at the conclusion that we are dealing with two different homonymous suffixes: one

in bluish, the other in girlish. The reasons are as follows: the suffix -ishi in bluish, reddish, etc. only modifies the
lexical meaning of the adjective-base it is affixed to without changing the part of speech. The suffix -ish 2 in bookish,
girlish, womanish, etc. is added to a noun-base to form an adjective. Besides, the suffixes ish 1 and -ish 2 differ
considerably in the denotational meaning so that no semantic connection may be traced between them: the suffix ish
1 means' 'somewhat like' corresponding to the Russian suffix -- in such adjectives as , ,
etc.;. the suffix -ish2 means 'of the nature of, resembling', often derogatory in force, e. g. childish - ,
(cf. childlike - , , ; hoggish .- , , etc.)
Synonymy. In the course of its long history the language has adopted a great many words from foreign languages
all over the world. One of the consequences of extensive borrowing was the appearance of numerous derivational
affixes in the English language. Under certain circumstances some of them came to overlap semantically to a certain
extent both with one another and with the native affixes. For instance, the suffix -er of native origin denoting the agent
is synonymous to the suffix -ist of Greek origin which came into the English language through Latin in the 16th
century. Both suffixes occur in nouns denoting the agent, e.g. teacher, driller; journalist, botanist, economist, etc.
Being synonymous these suffixes naturally differ from each other in some respects. Unlike the suffix -er, the suffix
-ist is: 1) mostly combined with noun-bases, e.g. violinist, receptionist, etc.;
2) as a rule, added to bases of non-Germanic origin and very seldom to bases of Germanic origin, e.g. walkist,
rightist; 3) used to form nouns denoting those who adhere to a doctrine or system, a political party, an ideology or the
like, e.g. socialist, capitalist, chartist, Darwinist, etc. Words in -ist denoting 'the upholder of a principle' are usually
matched by an abstract noun in -ism denoting 'the respective theory' (e.g. Socialism, etc.). Sometimes synonymous
suffixes differ in emotive charge. For instance, the suffix -eer also denoting the agent is characterized, in particular, by
its derogative force, e.g. sonneteer-, profiteer- , etc.
There is also a considerable number of synonymous prefixes in the English language. Recent research has revealed
certain rules concerning correlation between words with synonymous prefixes of native and foreign origin. It appears,
for instance, that in prefixal-suffixal derivatives the general tendency is to use a prefix of Romanic origin if the suffix
is also of Romanic origin and a native prefix in the case of a native suffix, cf. unrecognized-irrecognizable;
unlimited-illimitable; unformed-informal; undecided-indecisive, etc. Though adequately reflecting the general
tendency observed in similar cases this rule has many exceptions. The basic exception is the suffix -able which may
often occur together with the native prefix un", e.g. unbearable, unfavourable, unreasonable, etc.
Productivity. Distinction is usually made between dead and living affixes. Dead affixes are described as those,
which are no longer felt in Modern English as component parts of words; they have so fused with the base of the word
as to lose their independence completely. It is only by special etymological analysis that they may be singled out, e.g.
-d in dead, seed, -le, -1, -el in bundle, sail, hovel; -ock in hillock; -lock in wedlock; -t in flight, gift, height. It is
quite clear that dead suffixes are irrelevant to present-day English word-formation, they belong in its diachronic study.
Living affixes may be easily singled out from a word, e.g. the noun-forming suffixes -ness, -dom, -hood, -age, -ance,
as in darkness, freedom, childhood, marriage, assistance, etc. or the adjective-forming suffixes -en, -ous, -ive, -ful,
-y as in wooden, poisonous, active, hopeful, stony, etc.
However, not all living derivational affixes of Modern English possess the ability to coin new words. Some of
them may be employed to coin new words on the-spur of the moment, others cannot, so that they are different from
the point of view of their productivity. Accordingly they fall into two basic classes-productive and non-productive
word-building affixes. It has been pointed out that linguists disagree as to what is meant by the productivity of
derivational affixes. Following the first approach all living affixes should be considered productive in varying
degrees from highly-productive (e.g. -er, -ish, -less, re-, etc.) to non-productive (e.g. -ard, -cy, -ive, etc.).
Consequently it becomes important to describe the constraints imposed on and the factors favouring the productivity
of affixational patterns and individual affixes. The degree of productivity of affixational patterns very much depends
on the structural, lexico-grammatical and semantic nature of bases and the meaning of the affix. For instance, the
analysis of the bases from which the suffix -ize can derive verbs reveals that it is most productive with noun-stems,
adjective-stems also favour its productivity, whereas verb-stems and adverb-stems do not, e.g. criticize (cf. critic),
organize (cf. organ), itemize (cf. item), mobilize (cf. mobile), localize (cf. local), etc. Comparison of the semantic
structure of a verb in -ize with that of the base it is built on shows that the number of meanings of the stem usually
exceeds that of the verb and that its basic meaning favours the productivity of the suffix -ize to a greater degree than

its marginal meanings, cf. to characterize-character, to moralize-moral, to dramatize-drama, etc. The treatment
of certain affixes as non-productive naturally also depends on the concept of productivity. The current definition of
non-productive derivational affixes as those, which cannot be used in Modern English for the coining of new words is
rather vague and may be interpreted in different ways. Following the definition the term non-productive refers only to
the affixes unlikely to be used for the formation of new words, e.g. -ous, -th, fore- and some others (cf. famous,
depth, to foresee). If one accepts the other concept of productivity mentioned above, then non-productive affixes
must be defined as those that cannot be used for the formation of occasional words and, consequently, such affixes as
-dom, -ship, -ful, -en, -ify, -ate and many others are to be regarded as non-productive. The degree of productivity of a
suffix or, to be more exact, of a derivational affix in general may be established on a statistical basis as the ratio of the
number of newly-formed words with the given suffix to the number of words with the same suffix already operating
in the language. To give an illustration, we shall take the suffix -ize. The dictionaries of new words compiled by P.
Berg (1953) and M. Reifer (1958) as well as the Addenda section of Webster's New International Dictionary (1958)
contain 40 new verbs built up with the help of the suffix -ize. On the other hand, The Thorndike Century Junior
Dictionary (1941) has 127 verbs derived by means of the same suffix. Consequently, the productivity measure of the
suffix -ize is 40: 127==0.315. A similar examination of the verb-suffixes -ate, -en, -ify yields the following results
characterizing the productivity measure of each of the verbs: the suffix -ate-0.034, the suffix -en-0.018 and the suffix
-ify-0.017. Thus, these figures lead ene to the conclusion that the suffix -ize is the most productive of the four under
investigation and that the suffix -ate is more productive than -en and -ify.
The theory of relative productivity of derivational affixes is also corroborated by some other observations made on
English word-formation. For instance, different productive affixes are found in different periods of the history of the
language. It is extremely significant, for example, that out of the seven verb-forming suffixes of the Old English
period only one has survived up to the present time with a very low degree of productivity, namely the suffix -en (cf.
to soften, to darken, to whiten).
A derivational affix may become productive in just one meaning because that meaning is specially needed by the
community at a particular phase in its history. This may be well illustrated by the prefix de-in the sense of 'undo what
has been done, reverse an action or process', e.g., deacidify (paint spray), decasualize (dock labour), decentralize
(government or management), deration (eggs and butter), de-reserve (medical students), desegregate (coloured
children), and so on.
Furthermore, there are cases when a derivational affix being nonproductive in the non-specialized section of the
vocabulary is used to coin scientific or technical terms. This is the case, for instance, with the suffix ance, which has
been used to form some terms in Electrical Engineering, e.g. capacitance, impedance, reactance. The same is true of
the suffix -ity which has been used to form terms in physics and chemistry such as alkalinity, luminosity, emissivity
and some others.
Origin of Derivational Affixes. While examining the stock of deriviational affixes in Modern English from
the point of view of their origin distinction should first of all be made between native and foreign affixes, e.g. the
suffixes -ness, -ish, -dom and the prefixes be-, mis-, un- are of native origin, whereas such suffixes as -ation, -ment,
-able and prefixes like dis-, ex-, re- are of foreign origin. Many of the suffixes and prefixes of native origin were
originally independent words. In the course of time they have gradually lost their independence and turned into
derivational affixes. For instance, such noun-suffixes as -dom, -hood, -ship may be traced back to words: -dom
represents the Old English noun dom which meant 'judgement'; 'sentence'. The suffix -hood goes back to the OE,
noun had, which meant 'state', 'condition'; the adjective suffix -ly (e.g. manly, friendly) is also traced back to the OE.
noun lie -'body', 'shape'. Some suffixes are known to have originated as a result of secretion. An instance of the case is
the suffix -ling occurring in words like duckling, yearling, hireling, etc. The suffix is simply the extended form of
the Old English suffix -ing and has sprung from words in which -ing was tacked on to a stem ending in [1] as lytling.
Many suffixes, however, have always been known as derivational affixes within the history of the English language,
for instance -ish, -less-, -ness, etc. The same is true of prefixes: some have developed out of independent words, e.g.
out-, under-, over-, others have always functioned as derivational affixes, e.g. mis-, un-. In the course of its historical
development the English language has adopted a great many suffixes and prefixes from foreign languages. This
process does not consist in borrowing derivational affixes as such. It is words that the language borrows from a
foreign language and the borrowed words bring with them their derivatives formed after word-building patterns of this

language. When such pairs of words as derive and derivation, esteem and estimation, laud and laudation found
their way into the English vocabulary, it was natural that the suffix -ation should be recognized by English speakers as
an allowable means of forming nouns of action put of verbs. In this way a great many suffixes and prefixes of foreign
origin have become an integral part of the system of word-formation in English. Among borrowed derivational affixes
we find both suffixes, e.g. -able, -ibie, -al, -age, -ance, -ist, -ism, -ess, etc., and prefixes, e.g. dis-, en[em]-, inter-,
re-, non- and many others. It is to be marked that quite a number of borrowed derivational affixes are of international
currency. For instance, the suffix -ist of Greek origin is used in many European languages to form a noun denoting
'one who adheres to a given doctrine or system, a political party, an ideology' or 'one, who makes a practice of a given
action' (cf. socialist, capitalist, Marxist; artist, scenarist, realist and their Russian equivalents). Of international
currency is also the suffix -ism of Greek origin used to form abstract nouns denoting 'philosophical doctrines, political
and scientific theories,' etc. (e.g. materialism, realism, Darwinism). Such prefixes as anti-, pre-, extra-, ultra- are
also used to coin new words in many languages, especially in political and scientific terminology (e.g. anti-fascist,
pro-German, extra-territorial, transatlantic, ultra-violet). The adoption of countless foreign words exercised a
great influence upon the system of English word-formation, one of the result being the appearance of many hybrid
words in the English vocabulary. The term hybrid words is, needless to say, of diachronic relevance only. Here
distinction should be made between two basic groups:
1) Cases when a foreign stem is combined with a native affix, as-in colourless, uncertain. After complete adoption
the foreign stem is subject to the same treatment as native stems and new words are derived from it at a very early
stage. For instance, such suffixes as -ful, -less, -ness were used with French words as early as 1300; 2) Cases when
native stems are combined with foreign affixes, such as drinkable, joyous, shepherdess. Here the assimilation of a
structural pattern is involved, therefore some time must pass before a foreign affix comes to be recognized by speakers
as a derivational morpheme that can be tacked on to native words. Therefore such formations are found much later
than those of the first type and are less numerous. The early assimilation of -able is an exception. Some foreign
affixes, as -ance, -al, -ity, have never become productive with native stems. Reinterpretation of borrowed words gave
rise to affixes which may not have been regarded as such in the source language. For instance, -scape occurring in
such words as seascape, cloudscape, mountainscape, moonscape, etc. resulted from landscape of Dutch origin. The
suffix -ade developed from lemonade of French origin, giving rise to fruitade, orangeade, gingerade,
pineappleade, etc.; the noun electron of Greek origin contributed the suffix -tron very widely used in coining
scientific and technical terms, e.g. cyclotron, magnetron, synchrophasotron, thyratron, etc.

Conversion.
Conversion, one of the principal ways of forming words in Modern English is highly productive in
replenishing the English word-stock with new words. The term conversion, which some linguists find inadequate,
refers to the numerous cases of phonetic identity of word-forms, primarily the so-called initial forms, of two words
belonging to different parts of speech. This may be illustrated by the following cases: work-to work; love-to love;
paper-to paper; brief-to brief, etc. As a rule we deal with simple words, although there are a few exceptions, e.g.
wireless-to wireless.
It is fairly obvious that in the case of a noun and a verb not only are the so-called initial forms (i.e. the infinitive
and the common case singular) phonetically identical, but all the other noun forms have their homonyms within the
verb paradigm, cf. (the) dog's [dogz] (head) - (many) dogs [dogz] (he) dogs [dogz], etc. It will be recalled that,
although inflectional categories have been greatly reduced in English in the last eight or nine centuries, there is a
certain difference on the morphological level between various parts of speech, primarily between nouns and verbs. For
instance, there is a clear-cut difference in Modern English between the noun doctor and the verb to doctor - each
exists in the language as a unity of its word-forms and variants, not as one form doctor. It is true that some of the
forms are identical in sound, i.e. homonymous, but there is a great distinction between them, as they are both
grammatically and semantically different. If we regard such word-pairs as doctor-to doctor; water-to water; briefto brief from the angle of their morphemic structure, we see that they are all root-words. On the derivational level,
however, one of them should be referred to derived words, as it belongs to a different part of speech and is understood
through semantic and structural relations with the other, i.e. is motivated by it. Consequently, the question arises: what
serves as a word-building means in these cases? It would appear that the noun is formed from the verb (or vice versa)
without any morphological change, but if we probe deeper into the matter, we inevitably come to the conclusion that

the two words differ in the paradigm. Thus it is the paradigm that is used as a word-building means. Hence, we may
define conversion as the formation of a new word through changes in its paradigm. It is necessary to call attention to
the fact that the paradigm plays a significant role in the process of word-formation in general and not only in the case
of conversion. Thus, the noun cooker (in gas-cooker) is formed from the word to cook not only by the addition of the
suffix -er, but also by the change in its paradigm. However, in this case, the role played by the paradigm as a wordbuilding means is less obvious, as the word-building suffix -er comes to the fore. Therefore, conversion is
characterized not simply by the use of the paradigm as a word-building means, but by the formation of a new word
so1e1y by means of changing its paradigm. Hence, the change of paradigm is the only word-building means of
conversion. As a paradigm is a morphological category conversion can be described as a morphological way of
forming words. The following indisputable cases of conversion have been discussed in linguistic literature: 1)
formation of verbs from nouns and more rarely from other parts of speech, and 2) formation of nouns from verbs and
rarely from other parts of speech.
Opinion differs on the possibility of creating adjectives from nouns through conversion. In the so-called "stone
wall" complexes the first members are regarded by some linguists as adjectives formed from the corresponding
noun-stems by conversion, or as nouns in an attributive function by others, or as substantival stems by still others so
that the whole combination is treated as a compound word. In our treatment of conversion on the pages that follow
we shall be mainly concerned with the indisputable cases, i.e. deverbal substantives and denominal verbs.
Conversion has been the subject of a great many linguistic discussions since 1891 when H. Sweet first used the
term in his New English Grammar. Various opinions have been expressed on the nature and character of conversion
in the English language and different conceptions of conversion have been put forward. The treatment of
conversion as a morphological way of forming words accepted in the present book was suggested by the late Prof.
A. I. Smirnitsky in his works on the English language. Other linguists sharing, on the whole, the conception of
conversion as a morphological way of forming words disagree, however, as to what serves here as a word-building
means. Some of them define conversion as a non-affixal way of forming words pointing out that the characteristic
feature is that a certain stem is used for the formation of a different word of a different part of speech without a
derivational affix being added. Others hold the view that conversion is the formation of new words with the help of
a zero-morpheme.
The treatment of conversion as a non-affixal word-formation process calls forth some criticism, it can hardly be
accepted as adequate, for it fails to bring out the specific means making it possible to form, for instance, a verb
from a noun without adding a derivational affix to the base. Besides, the term a non-affixal word-formation process
does not help to distinguish between cases of conversion and those of sound interchange, e.g. to sing-song; to feedfood; full-to fill, etc. which lie outside the scope of word-formation in Modern English. The conception of
conversion as derivation with a zero-morpheme, however, merits attention. The propounders of this interpretation
of conversion rightly refer to some points of analogy between affixation and conversion. Among them is similarity
of semantic relations between a derived word and its underlying base, on the one hand, and between words within a
conversion pair, e.g. 1. action-doer of the action: to walk-a walker (affixation) to tramp-a tramp (conversion); 2.
action-result of the action: to agree-agreement (affixation), to find-a find (conversion), etc. They also argue that as
the derivational complexity of a derived word involves a more complex semantic structure as compared with that of
the base, it is but logical to assume that the semantic complexity of a converted word should manifest itself in its
derivational structure, even though in the form of a zero derivational affix. There are also some other arguments in
favour of this interpretation of conversion, which for lack of space cannot be considered here.
If one accepts this conception of conversion, then one will have to distinguish between two types of derivation in
Modern English: one effected by employing suffixes and prefixes, the other by using a zero derivational affix. There
is also a point of view .on conversion as a morphological-syntactic word-building means,1 for it involves, as the
linguists sharing this conception maintain, both a change of the paradigm and a change of the syntactic function of the
word, e.g. 1 need some good paper for my rooms and He is papering his room. It may be argued, however, that
as the creation of a word through conversion necessarily involves the formation of a new word-stem, a purely
morphological unit, the syntactic factor is irrelevant to the processes of word-formation proper, including conversion.
Besides, there is also a purely syntactic approach commonly known as a functional approach to conversion. Certain
linguists and lexicographers especially those in Great Britain and the USA are inclined to regard conversion in

Modern English as a kind of functional change. They define conversion as a shift from one part of speech to another
contending that in Modern English a word may function as two different parts of speech at the same time. If we
accept this point of view, we should logically arrive at the conclusion that in Modern English we no longer distinguish
between parts of speech, i.e. between noun and verb, noun and adjective, etc., for one and the same word cannot
simultaneously belong to different parts of speech. It is common knowledge, however, that the English word-stock is
subdivided into big word classes each having its own semantic and formal features. The distinct difference between
nouns and verbs, for instance, as in the case of doctor-to doctor discussed above, consists in the number and
character of the categories reflected in their paradigms. Thus, the functional approach to conversion cannot be
justified and should be rejected as inadequate.
Synchronic Approach. Conversion pairs are distinguished by the structural identity of the root and phonetic
identity of the stem of each of the two words. Synchronically we deal with pairs of words related through conversion
that coexist in contemporary English. The two words, e.g. to break and a break, being phonetically identical, the
question arises whether they have the same or identical stems, as some linguists are inclined to believe. It will be
recalled that the stem carries quite a definite part-of-speech meaning; for instance, within the word-cluster to dressdress-dresser-dressing-dressy, the stem dresser-carries not only the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme dress-,
but also the meaning of substantivity, the stem dressy- the meaning of quality, etc. These two ingredients-the lexical
meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem-form part of the meaning of the whole
word. It is the stem that requires a definite paradigm; for instance, the word dresser is a noun primarily -because it has
a noun-stem and not only because of the noun paradigm; likewise, the word materialize is a verb, because first and
foremost it has a verbal stem possessing the lexico-grammatical meaning of process or action and requiring a verb
paradigm. What is true of words whose root and stem do not coincide is also true of words with roots and stems that
coincide: for instance, the word atom is a noun because of the substantival character of the stem requiring the noun
paradigm. The word sell is a verb because of the verbal character of its stem requiring the verb paradigm, etc. It
logically follows that the stems of two words making up a conversion pair cannot be regarded as being the same or
identical: the stem hand- of the noun hand, for instance, carries a substantival meaning together with the system of its
meanings, such as: 1) the end of the arm beyond the wrist; 2) pointer on a watch or clock; 3) worker in a factory; 4)
source of information, etc.; the stem hand- of the verb hand has a different part-of-speech meaning, namely that of
the verb, and a different system of meanings: 1) give or help with the hand, 2) pass, etc. Thus, the stems of word-pairs
related through conversion have different part-of-speech and denotational meanings. Being phonetically identical they
can be regarded as homonymous stems. A careful examination of the relationship between the lexical meaning of the
root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem within a conversion pair reveals that in one of the two
words the former does not correspond to the latter. For instance, the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme of the noun
hand corresponds to the part-of-speech meaning of its stem: they are both of a substantival character; the lexical
meaning of the root-morpheme of the verb hand, however, does not correspond to the part-of-speech meaning of the
stem: the root-morpheme denotes an object, whereas the part-of-speech meaning of the stem is that of a process. The
same is true of the noun fall whose stem is of a substantival character (which is proved by the noun paradigm fallfalls-fall's - falls', whereas the root-morpheme denotes a certain process. It will be recalled that the same kind' of
non-correspondence is typical of the derived word in general. To give but two examples, the part-of-speech meaning
of the stem blackness - is that of substantivity, whereas the root-morpheme black-denotes a quality; the part-of-speech
meaning of the stem eatable- (that of qualitativeness) does not correspond to the' lexical meaning of the rootmorpheme denoting a process. It should also be pointed out here that in simple words the lexical meaning of the root
corresponds to the part-of-speech meaning of the stem, cf. the two types of meaning of simple words like black a, eat
v, chair n, etc. Thus, by analogy with the derivational character of the stem of a derived word it is natural to regard the
stem of one of the two words making up a conversion pair as being of a derivational character as well. The essential
difference between affixation and conversion is that affixation is characterized by both semantic and structural
derivation (e.g. friend-friendless, dark- darkness, etc.), whereas conversion displays only semantic derivation, i.e.
hand-to hand, fall-to fall, taxi-to taxi, etc.; the difference between the two classes of words in affixation is marked
both by a special derivational affix, and a paradigm, whereas in conversion it is marked only by paradigmatic forms.
Typical Semantic Relations. As one of the two words within a conversion pair is semantically derived from
the other it is of great theoretical and practical importance to determine the semantic relations between words related

through conversion. Summing up the findings of the linguists who have done research in this field we can enumerate
the following typical' semantic relations.
Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs). This is the largest group of words related through conversion. The
semantic relations between the nouns and verbs vary greatly. If the noun refers to some object of reality (both animate
and inanimate) the converted verb may denote: 1) action characteristic of the object, e.g. ape n-ape v-'imitate in a
foolish way'; butcher n-butcher v-'kill animals for food, cut up a killed animal'; 2) instrumental use of the object, e.g.
screw n-screw v-'fasten with a screw'; whip n-whip v-'strike with a whip'; 3) acquisition or addition of the object, e.g.
fish n-fish v-'catch or try to catch fish'; coat n-'covering-of paint'-coat v-'put a coat of paint on'; 4) deprivation of the
object, e.g. dust n-dust v-'remove dust from something'; skin n-skin v- 'strip off the skin from'; etc.
II. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal substantives). The verb generally referring to an action, the converted
noun may denote: 1) instance of the action, e.g. jump v-jump n- 'sudden spring from the ground'; move o-move n-'a
change of position'; 2) agent of the action, e.g. help v-help n-'a person who helps'; it is of interest to mention that
the deverbal personal nouns denoting the doer are mostly derogatory, e.g. bore u-bore n-'a person that bores'; cheat
v- cheat n-'a person who cheats'; 3) place of the action, e.g. drive u-drive n-'a path or road along which one drives';
walk v -walk n - 'a place for walking'; 4) object or result of the action, e.g. peel v-peel n-'the outer skin of fruit or
potatoes taken off; find v-find n-'something found, esp. something valuable or pleasant'; etc. For convenience the
typical semantic relations as briefly described above may be graphically represented in the form of a diagram. In
conclusion it is necessary to point out that in the case of polysemantic words one and the same member of a
conversion pair, a verb or a -noun, belongs to several of the above-mentioned groups making different derivational
bases. For instance, the verb dust belongs to Group 4 of Denominal verbs (deprivation of the object) when it means
'remove dust from something', and to Group 3 (acquisition or addition of the object) when it means 'cover with
powder'; the noun slide is referred to Group 3 of Deverbal substantives (place of the action) when denoting 'a stretch
of smooth ice or hard snow, on which people slide' and to Group 2 (agent of the action) when it refers to a part of an
instrument or machine that slides, etc.
Denominal Verbs action characteristic of the object a nurse - to nurse instrumental use of the object | a; saw-to
saw acquisition or addition of the object a nut-to nut deprivation of the object bone - to bone.
Deverbal Substantives instance of the action to step-a step agent of the action to tramp-a tramp place of the
action to purchase- a purchase object or result of the action.
Basic Criteria of Semantic Derivation. It follows from the foregoing discussion that within conversion pairs one
of the two words has a more complex semantic structure, hence the problem of the criteria of semantic derivation:
which of the two words within a conversion pair is the derived member? The first criterion makes use of the noncorrespondence between the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem in one
of the two words making up a conversion pair. In cases like pen n-pen v, father n-father v, etc. the noun is the name
for a being or a concrete thing. Therefore, the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme corresponds to the part-of-speech
meaning of the stem. This type of nouns is regarded as having a simple semantic structure.
The verbs pen, father denote a process, therefore the part-of-speech meaning of their stems does not correspond to the
lexical meaning of the roots, which is of a substantival character. This distinction accounts for the complex character
of the semantic structure of verbs of this type. It is natural to regard the semantically simple as the source of the
semantically complex, hence we are justified in assuming that the verbs pen, father are derived from the
corresponding nouns. This criterion is not universal being rather restricted in its application. It is reliable only when
there is no doubt that the root-morpheme is of a substantival character or that it denotes a process, i.e. in cases like to
father, to pen, a fall, a drive, etc. But there are a great many conversion pairs in which it is extremely difficult to
exactly determine the semantic character of the root-morpheme, e.g. answer v- answer n; match o-match n, etc. The
non-correspondence criterion is inapplicable to such cases. The second criterion involves a comparison of a
conversion pair with analogous word-pairs making use of the synonymic sets, of which the words in question are
members. For instance, in comparing conversion pairs like chat o-chat n; show u-show n; work v-work n, etc. with
analogous synonymic word-pairs like converse-conversation; exhibit-exhibition; occupy-occupation; employemployment, etc. we are led to conclude that the nouns chat, show, work, etc. are the derived members. We are
justified in arriving at this conclusion because the semantic relations in the case of chat u-chat n; show v-show n;
work v- work n are similar to those between converse-conversation; exhibit-exhibition; employ-employment. Like

the non-correspondence criterion the synonymity criterion is considerably restricted in its application. This is a
relatively reliable criterion only for abstract words whose synonyms possess a complex morphological structure
making it possible to draw a definite conclusion about the direction of semantic derivation. Besides, this criterion may
be applied only to deverbal substantives and not to denominal verbs. Of more universal character is the criterion based
on derivational relations within the word-cluster of which the converted words in question are members. It will be
recalled that the stems of words making up a word-cluster enter into derivational relations of different degrees.1 If the
centre of the cluster is a verb, all derived words of the first degree of derivation have suffixes generally added to a
verb-base. The centre of a cluster being a noun, all the first-degree derivatives have suffixes generally added to a
noun-base. Proceeding from this regularity it is logical to conclude that if the first-degree derivatives have suffixes
added to a noun-base, the centre of the cluster is a noun, and if they have suffixes added to a verb-base, it is a verb. It
is this regularity that the criterion of semantic derivation under discussion is based on. In the word-cluster hand nhand v-handful-handy-handed the derived words have suffixes added to the noun-base, which makes it possible to
conclude that the structural and semantic centre of the whole cluster is the noun hand. Consequently, we can assume
that the verb hand is semantically derived from the noun hand. Likewise, considering the derivatives within the
word-cluster float n-float v- floatable-floater-floatation-floating we see that the centre is the verb to float and
conclude that the noun float is the derived member in the conversion pair float n-float u. The derivational criterion is
less restricted in its application than the other two described above. However, as this criterion necessarily involves
consideration of a whole set of derivatives it can hardly be applied to word-clusters which have few derived words. Of
very wide application is the criterion of semantic derivation based on semantic relations within conversion pairs. It is
natural to conclude that the existence within a conversion pair of a type of relations typical of, e.g., denominal verbs
proves that the verb is the derived member. Likewise, a type of relations typical of deverbal substantives marks the
noun as the derived member. For instance, the semantic relations between crowd n-crowd are perceived as those of an
object and an action characteristic of the object, which leads one to the conclusion that the verb crowd is the derived
member; likewise, in the pair take v-take n the noun is the derived member, because the relations between the two
words are those of an action and a result or an object of the action-type + relations of deverbal substantives, etc. This
semantic criterion of inner derivation is one of the most important ones for determining the derived members within a
conversion pair, for its application has almost no limitations. To sum up, out of the four criteria considered above the
most important are the derivational and the semantic criteria, for there are almost no limitations to their application.
When applying the other two criteria, their limitations should be kept in mind. As a rule, the word under analysis
should meet the requirements of the two basic criteria. In doubtful cases one of the remaining criteria should be
resorted to. It may be of interest to point out that in case a word meets the requirements of the non-correspondence
criterion no additional checking 'is necessary. Of late a new criterion of semantic derivation for conversion pairs has
been suggested. It is based on the frequency of occurrence in various utterances of either of the two member-words
related through conversion. According to this frequency criterion a lower frequency value testifies to the derived
character of the word in question. The information about the frequency value of words although on a limited scale can
be found in the available dictionaries of word-frequency with semantic counts. To give an illustration, according to M.
West's A General Service List of English Words, the frequency value of four verb-noun conversion pairs in correlative
meanings taken at random is estimated as follows: to answer (V= 63%)-answer (N=35%), to help (V==61%)-help
(N=\%), to sample (V= 10%)- sample (N=90%), to joke (V=8/o)-joke (N==82%). By the frequency criterion of
semantic derivation in the first two pairs the nouns (answer and help) are derived words (deverbal substantives), 'in
the other two pairs the verbs (to sample and to joke) are converted from nouns (denominal verbs). Of interest is also
the transformational criterion of semantic derivation for conversion pairs suggested in linguistic literature not so long
ago.1 The procedure of the transformational criterion is rather complicated, therefore only part of it as applied to
deverbal substantives is described here. The transformational procedure helping to determine the direction of semantic
derivation in conversion pairs is the transformation of nominalisation (the nominalising transformation).2 It is applied
to a change of a predicative syntagm into a nominal syntagm. By analogy with the transformation of predicative
syntagmas like "The committee elected John" into the nominal syntagm "John's election by the committee" or "the
committee's election of John" in which the derivational relationship of elect and election is that of a derived word
(election) to its base (elect) the possibility of transformations like Roy loves nature -> Roy's love of nature - John
visited his friend->- John's visit to his friend She promised help ->- her promise of help proves the derived character

of the nouns love, visit, promise. Failure to apply the nominalising transformation indicates that the nouns cannot be
regarded as derived from the corresponding verb base, e.g. She bosses the establishment -+> her boss of the
establishment I skinned the rabbit -+> my skin of the rabbit. He taxied home -+> his taxi home.
Diachronic Approach of Conversion. Origin.
Modern English vocabulary is exceedingly rich in
conversion pairs. As a way of forming words conversion is extremely productive and new conversion pairs make their
appearance in fiction, newspaper articles and in the process of oral communication in all spheres of human activity
gradually forcing their way into the existing vocabulary and into the dictionaries as well. New conversion pairs are
created on the analogy of those already in the word-stock on the semantic patterns described above as types of
semantic relations. Conversion is highly productive in the formation of verbs, especially from compound nouns. 20th
century new words include a great many verbs formed by conversion, e.g. to motor-'travel by car'; to phone-'use the
telephone'; .to wire-'send a telegram'; to microfilm-'produce a microfilm of; to tear-gas-'to use tear-gas'; to firebomb-'drop fire-bombs'; to spearhead-'act as a spearhead for'; to blueprint-'work out, outline', etc. A diachronic
survey of the present-day stock of conversion pairs reveals, however, that not all of them have been created on the
semantic patterns just referred to. Some of them arose as a result of the disappearance of inflections in the course of
the historical development of the English language due to which two words of different parts of speech, e.g. a verb and
a noun, coincided in pronunciation. This is the case with such word-pairs, for instance, as love n (OE. lufu)-love o
(OE. lufian); work n (OE. weorc)-work v (OE. wyrcan); answer n (OE. andswaru)-answer v (OE. andswarian) and
many others. For this reason certain linguists consider it necessary to distinguish between homonymous word-pairs
which appeared as a result of the loss of inflections and those formed by conversion. The term conversion is applied
then only to cases like doctor n- doctor u; brief a-brief v that came into being after the disappearance of inflections,
word-pairs like work n-work o being regarded exclusively as cases of homonymy. Other linguists share Prof.
Smirnitsky's views concerning discrimination between conversion as a derivational means and as a type of wordbuilding relations between words in Modern English. Synchronically in Modern English there is no difference at all
between cases like taxi n- taxi u and cases like love n-love v from the point of view of their morphological structure
and the word-building system of the language. In either case the only difference between the two words is that of the
paradigm: the historical background is here irrelevant. It should be emphatically stressed at this point that the presentday derivative correlations within conversion pairs do not necessarily coincide with the etymological relationship. For
instance, in the word-pair awe n-awe v the noun is the source, of derivation both diachronically and synchronically,
but it is quite different with the pair mould v-mould n: historically the verb is the derived member, whereas it is the
other way round from the angle of Modern English (cf. the derivatives mouldable, moulding, moulder which have
suffixes added to verb-bases). A diachronic semantic analysis of a conversion pair reveals that in the course of time the
semantic structure of the base may acquire a new meaning or several meanings under the influence of the meanings of
the converted word. This semantic process has been termed reconversion in linguistic literature.2 There is an essential
difference between conversion and reconversion: being a way of forming words conversion leads to a numerical
enlargement of the English vocabulary, whereas reconversion only brings about a new meaning correlated with one of
the meanings of the converted word. Research has shown that reconversion only operates with denominal verbs and
deverbal nouns. As an illustration the conversion pair smoke n-smoke v may be cited. According to the Oxford
English Dictionary some of the meanings of the two words are: SMOKE n 1. the visible volatile product given off by
burning or smouldering substances (1000)1 c) the act of smoke coming out into a room instead of passing up the
chimney (1715) SMOKE 1. intr. to produce or give forth smoke (1000) c) of a room, chimney, lamp, etc.: to be
smoky, to emit smoke as the result of imperfect draught or improper burning (1663). Comparison makes it possible to
trace the semantic development of each word. The verb smoke formed in 1000 from the noun smoke in the
corresponding meaning had acquired by 1663 another meaning by a metaphorical transfer which, in turn, gave rise to
a correlative meaning of the noun smoke in 1715 through reconversion.
Productivity. Traditional and Occasional Conversion.
Conversion is not an absolutely productive way of forming words because it is restricted both semantically and
morphologically. With reference to semantic restrictions it is. assumed that all verbs can be divided into two groups: a)
verbs denoting processes that can be represented as a succession of isolated actions from which nouns are easily
formed, e.g. fall v-fall n; run v-run n; jump o-jump n, etc.; b) verbs like to sit, to lie, to stand denoting processes
that cannot be represented as a succession of isolated actions, thus defying conversion. However, a careful

examination of modern English usage reveals that it is extremely difficult to distinguish between these two groups.
This can be exemplified in such pairs as to invite-an invite, to take-a take, to sing-a sing, to bleed-a bleed, to win-a
win, etc. The possibility for the verbs to be formed from nouns through conversion seems to be illimitable. The
morphological restrictions suggested by certain linguists are found in the fact that the complexity of word-structure
does not favour conversion. It is significant that in MnE there are no verbs converted from nouns with the suffixes
-ing and -ation. This restriction is counterbalanced, however, by innumerable occasional conversion pairs of rather
complex structure, e.g. to package, to holiday, to wireless, to petition, to-reverence, etc. Thus, it seems possible to
regard conversion as a highly productive way of forming words in Modern English. The English word-stock contains
a great many words formed by means of conversion in different periods of its history. There are cases of traditional
and occasional conversion. Traditional conversion refers to the accepted use of words, which are recorded in
dictionaries, e.g. to age, to cook, to love, to look, to capture, etc. The individual or occasional use of conversion is
also very frequent; verbs and adjectives are converted from nouns or vice versa for the sake of bringing out the
meaning more vividly in a given context only. These cases of individual coinage serve the given occasion only and do
not enter the word-stock of the English language. In modern English usage we find a great number of cases of
occasional conversion, e.g. to girl the boat; when his guests had been washed, mended, brushed and brandied.
Conversion and Sound-(Stress) Interchange. Sound-interchange in English is often combined with a difference
in the paradigm. This rises the question of the relationship between sound-interchange and conversion. To find a
solution of the problem in terms of A. I. Smirnitsky's conception of conversion the following three types of relations
should be distinguished: 1) breath - to breathe As far as cases of this type are concerned, sound-interchange
distinguishes only between words, it does not differentiate word-forms of one and the same word. Consequently it has
no relation to the paradigms of the words. Hence, cases of this type cannot be regarded as conversion. 2) song-to sing
In the above given example the vowel in song interchanges with three different vowels, the latter interchanging with
one another in the forms of the verb to sing: -sing Song sang sung Like the previous type, the words song-to sing
are not related by conversion: song differs from to sing (sang, sung) not only in the paradigm. Its root-vowel does not
occur in the word-forms of the verb and vice versa. 3) house-to house In such cases the type of sound-interchange
distinguishing the two words (verb and noun) is the same as that which distinguishes the word-forms of the noun, cf.
house [haus-houses [hauziz] and to house [hauz]- houses [hauziz]. Consequently, the only difference between the two
words lies in their paradigms, in other words, word-pairs like house-to house are cases of conversion. It is fairly
obvious that in such cases as present-to present, accent-to accent, etc. which differ in the position of stress, the latter
does not distinguish the word-forms within the paradigm of the two words. Thus, as far as cases of this type are
concerned, the difference in stress is similar, to the function of sound-interchange in cases like breath 'to breathe.
Consequently, cases of this type do not belong to conversion. There is, however, another interpretation of the
relationship between conversion and sound (stress)-interchange in linguistic literature. As sound- and (stressinterchange often accompanies cases of affixation, e.g. courage-courageous, stable-stability, it seems logical to
assume that conversion as one of the types of derivation may also be accompanied by sound- (stress-interchange.
Hence, cases like breath-to breathe; to sing-song; present-to present; increase-to increase, etc. are to be regarded
as those of conversion. (A Course in Modern English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva,
A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)

Compounding or Word-Composition
Compounding or word - composition is one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English.
Composition like all other ways of deriving words has its own peculiarities as to the means used, the nature of bases
and their distribution, as to the range of application, the scope of semantic classes and the factors conducive to
productivity. Compounds, as has been mentioned elsewhere, are made up of two ICs which are both derivational
bases. Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units. They are formally and semantically dependent on the
constituent bases and the semantic relations between them, which mirror the relations between the motivating units.
The ICs of compound words represent bases of all three structural types. The bases built on stems may be of different
degrees of complexity as, e.g., week-end, office-management, postage-stamp, aircraft-carrier, fancy-dress-maker,
etc. However, this complexity of structure of bases is not typical of the bulk of Modern English compounds. In this
connection care should be taken not to confuse compound words with polymorphic words of secondary derivation, i.e.

derivatives built according to an affixal pattern but on a compound stem for its base such as, e.g., school-mastership,
ex-housewife, to weekend, to spotlight.
Structure. Compound words like all other inseparable vocabulary units take shape in a definite system of
grammatical forms, syntactic and semantic features. Compounds, on the one hand, are generally clearly distinguished
from and often opposed to free word-groups, on the other hand they lie astride the border-line between words and
word-groups and display close ties and correlation with the system of free word-groups. The structural inseparability
of compound words finds expression in the unity of their specific distributional pattern and specific stress and spelling
pattern. Structurally compound words are characterized by the specific order and arrangement in which bases follow
one another. The order in which the two bases are placed within a compound is rigidly fixed in Modern English and it
is the second IC that makes the head-member of the word, i.e. its structural and semantic centre. The head-member is
of basic importance as it preconditions both the lexico-grammatical and semantic features of the first component. It is
of interest to note that the difference between stems (that serve as bases in compound words) and word-forms they
coincide with 1 is most obvious in some compounds, especially in compound adjectives. Adjectives like long, wide,
rich are characterized by grammatical forms of degrees of comparison longer, wider, richer. The corresponding stems
functioning as bases in compound words lack grammatical independence and forms proper to the words and retain
only the part-of-speech meaning; thus compound adjectives with adjectival stems for their second components, e.g.
age-long, oil-rich, inch-wide, do not form degrees of comparison as the compound adjective oil-rich does not form
them the way the word rich does, but conforms to the general rule of polysyllabic adjectives and has analytical forms
of degrees of comparison. The same difference between words and stems is not so noticeable in compound nouns with
the noun-stem for the second component. Phonetically compounds are also marked by a specific structure of their
own. No phonemic changes of bases occur in composition but the compound word acquires anew stress pattern,
different from the stress in the motivating words, for example words key and hole or hot and house each possess their
own stress but when the stems of these words are brought together to make up a new compound word, 'keyhole-'a
hole in a lock into which a key fits', or 'hot-house-'a heated building for growing delicate plants', the latter is given a
different stress pattern-a unity stress on the first component in our case. Compound words have three stress patterns: a)
a high or unity stress on the first component as in 'honeymoon, 'doorway, etc. b) a double stress, with a primary
stress on the first component and a weaker, secondary stress on the second component, e.g. 'blood- vessel,
'mad-'doctor-'a psychiatrist', 'washing-machine, etc. These two stress patterns are the commonest among compound
words and in many cases they acquire a contrasting force distinguishing compound words from word-groups,
especially when the arrangement and order of ICs parallel the word-order and the distributional pattern of a phrase,
thus a 'greenhouse-'a glass house for cultivating delicate plants' is contrasted to a 'green 'house-'a house that is
painted green'; 'dancing-girl-'a dancer' to a 'dancing 'girl-'a girl who is dancing'; a 'mad-,doctor-'a psychiatrist' to
'mad 'doctor-'a doctor who is mad'. The significance of these stress patterns is nowhere so evident as in nominal
compounds built on the n-\-n derivational pattern in which the arrangement and order of the stems fail to distinguish a
compound word from a phrase. c) It is not infrequent, however, for both ICs to have level stress as in e.g.,
'arm-'chair, 'icy-'cold, 'grass-'green, etc. The significance of the stress pattern by itself should not be overestimated
though, as it cannot be an overall criterion and cannot always serve as a sufficient clue to draw a line of distinction
between compound words and phrases. This mostly refers to level stress pattern. In most cases the level stress pattern
is accompanied by other structural and graphic indications of inseparability. Graphically most compounds have two
types of spelling-they are spelt either solidly or with a hyphen. Both types of spelling when accompanied by structural
and phonetic peculiarities serve as a sufficient indication of inseparability of compound words in contradistinction to
phrases. It is true that hyphenated spelling by itself may be sometimes misleading, as it may be used in word-groups to
emphasize their phraseological character as in e.g. daughter-in-law, man-of-war, brother-In-arms or in longer
combinations of words to indicate the semantic unity of a string of words used attributively as, e.g., I-know-whatyou're-going-to-say expression, we-are-in-the-know jargon, the young-must-be-right attitude. The two types of
spelling typical of compounds, however, are not rigidly observed and there are numerous fluctuations between solid or
hyphenated spelling on the one hand and spelling with a break between the components on the other, especially in
nominal compounds of the n+n type. The spelling of these compounds varies from author to author and from
dictionary to dictionary. For example, the words war-path, war-time, money-lender are spelt both with a hyphen and
solidly; blood-poisoning, money-order, wave-length, war-ship- with a hyphen and with a break; underfoot,

insofar, underhand-solidly and with a break.1 It is noteworthy that new compounds of this type tend to solid or
hyphenated-spelling. This inconsistency of spelling in compounds, often accompanied by a level stress pattern
(equally typical of word-groups) makes the problem of distinguishing between compound words (of the n+n type in
particular) and word-groups especially difficult. In this connection it should be stressed that Modern English nouns (in
the Common Case, Sg.) as has been universally recognized possess an attributive function in which they are regularly
used to form numerous nominal phrases as, e.g. peace years, stone steps, government office, etc. Such variable
nominal phrases are semantically fully derivable from the meanings of the two nouns and are based on the
homogeneous attributive semantic relations unlike compound words. This system of nominal phrases exists side by
side with the specific and numerous class of nominal compounds which as a rule carry an additional semantic
component not found in phrases. It is also important to stress that these two classes of vocabulary units - compound
words and free phrases - are not only opposed but also stand in close correlative relations to each other.
Meaning. Semantically compound words are generally motivated units. The meaning of the compound is
first of all derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components. The semantic peculiarity of the derivational
bases and the semantic difference between the base and the stem on which the latter is built is most obvious in
compound words. Compound words with a common second or first component can serve as illustrations. The stem of
the word board is polysemantic and its multiple meanings serve as different derivational bases, each with its own
selective range for the semantic features of the other component, each forming a separate set of compound words,
based on specific derivative relations. Thus the base board meaning 'a flat piece of wood square or oblong' makes a
set of compounds chess-board, notice-board, key-board, diving-board, foot-board, sign-board; compounds pasteboard, carboard are built on the base meaning ''thick, stiff paper'; the base board-meaning 'an authorized body of
men', forms compounds school-board, board-room. The same can be observed in words built on the polysemantic
stem of the word foot. For example,-the base foot- in foot-print, foot-pump, foothold, foot-bath, foot-wear has the
meaning of 'the terminal part of the leg', in foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone the base foot- has the meaning of 'the
lower part', and in foot-high, foot-wide, footrule-'measure of length'. It is obvious from the above-given examples
that the meanings of the bases of compound words are interdependent and that the choice of each is delimited as in
variable word-groups by the nature of the other IC of the word. It thus may well be said that the combination of bases
serves .as a kind of minimal inner context distinguishing the particular individual lexical meaning of each component.
In this connection we should also remember the significance of the differential meaning found in both components,
which becomes especially obvious in a set of compounds containing identical bases. The lexical meanings of the bases
alone,
Structural Meaning of the pattern. The lexical meaning of the base alone, important as they are, do not make the
meaning of the compound word. The meaning of the compound is derived not only from the combined lexical
meanings of its components, but also from the meaning signalled by the patterns of the order and arrangement of its
ICs. A mere change in the order of bases with the same lexical meanings brings about a drastic change in the lexical
meaning of the compound or destroys it altogether. As an illustration let us compare life-boat-'a boat of special
construction for saving lives from wrecks or along the coast' with boat-life-'life on board the ship'; a fruitmarket-'market where fruit is sold' with market-fruit-'fruit designed for selling'; board-school with school-board,
etc. Thus the structural or distributional pattern in compound words carries a certain meaning of its own which is
largely independent of the actual lexical meaning of their ICs. It follows that t h e lexical meaning of a compound is
derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components and the structural meaning of its distributional pattern.
The structural meaning of the derivational pattern of compounds may be abstracted and described through the
interrelation of its ICs. In analysing compound adjectives, e.g. duty-bound, wind-driven, mud-stained, we observe
that their underlying pattern n+Ven conveys the generalized meaning of instrumental or agentive relations which can
be interpreted as 'done by' or 'with the help of something'; the lexical meanings of the bases supply the individual
action performed and the actual doer of the action or objects with the help of which the action is done- duty-bound
may be interpreted as 'bound by duty', wind-driven as 'driven by wind', mud-stained as 'stained with mud'. The
derivational patterns in compounds maybe monosemantic as in the above-given examples, and polysemantic.2 If we
take the pattern n+a- A which underlies such compound adjectives as snow-white, world-.wide, air-sick, we shall see
that the pattern has two different meanings which may be interpreted: a) through semantic relations of comparison
between the components as in world-wide-'wide as the world', snow-white-'as white as snow', etc. and b) through

various relations of adverbial type (circumstantial) as in road-weary-'weary of the road', colour-blind-'blind to

colours', etc. The structural pattern n+n ->- N that underlies compound- nouns is also polysemantic and conveys
different semantic relations such as relations of purpose, e.g. bookshelf, bed-room, relations of resemblance, e.g.
needle-fish, bowler-hat, instrumental or agentive relations, e.g. steamboat, windmill, sunrise, dogbite. The
polysemy of the structure often leads to a certain freedom of interpretation of the semantic relations between the
components and consequently to the polysemy of the compound. For example, it is equally correct to interpret the
compound noun toy-man as 'a toy having the shape of a man' or 'a man who makes toys, a toy-maker', the compound
clock-tower may likewise be understood as a 'tower with a clock fitted in' or 'a tower that serves as or is at the same
time a clock'.
The Meaning of Compounds. Motivation. It follows that the meaning of a compound up of the combined lexical
meaning of the bases and the structural meaning of the pattern. The semantic centre of the compound i s the lexical
meaning of the second component modified and restricted by the meaning of the first. The semantic centres of
compounds and the semantic relations embedded in the structural patterns refer compound words to certain lexicosemantic groups and semantic sets within them as, for example: 1) compound words denoting action described as to
its agent, e.g. sunrise, earthquake, handshake, 2) compounds denoting action described as to its time or place, e.g.
day-flight, street-fight, 3) compounds denoting individual objects designed for some goal, e.g. bird-cage, tablecloth, diving-suit, 4) compounds denoting objects that are parts of the whole, e.g. shirt-collar, eye-ball, 5)
compounds denoting active doers, e.g. book-reader, shoe-maker, globe-trotter. The lexical meanings of both
components are closely fused together to create a new semantic unit with a new meaning , which is not merely
additive but dominates the individual meanings of the bases and is characterized by some additional semantic
component not found in any of the bases. For example, a hand-bag is essentially 'a bag, designed to be carried in the
hand', but it is also 'a woman's bag to keep money, papers, face-powder and the like'; a time-bomb is 'a bomb
designed to explode at some time', but also 'after being dropped or placed in position'. The bulk of compound words
are monosemantic and motivated but motivation in compounds like in all derivatives varies in degree. There are
compounds that are completely motivated like sky-blue, foot-pump, tea-taster. Motivation in compound words may
be partia1, but again the degree will vary. Compound words a hand-bag, a flower-bed, handcuffs, a castle-builder
are all only partially motivated, but still the degree of transparency of their meanings is different: in a hand-bag it is
the highest as it is essentially 'a bag', whereas handcuffs retain only a resemblance to cuffs and in fact are 'metal rings
placed round the wrists of a prisoner'; a flower-bed is neither a piece of furniture' nor 'a base on which smth rests' but a
'garden plot where flowers grow'; a castle-builder is not a 'builder' as the second component suggests but 'a daydreamer, one who builds castles in the air'. There are compounds that lack motivation altogether, i.e. the native speaker
doesn't see any obvious connection between the word-meaning, the lexical meanings of the bases and the meaning of
the pattern, consequently, he cannot deduce the lexical meaning of the word, for example, words like eyewash-'something said or done to deceive a person', fiddlesticks-'nonsense, rubbish', an eye-servant-'a servant who
attends to his duty only when watched', a night-cap-'a drink taken before going to bed at night' all lack motivation.
Lack of motivation in compound words may be often due to the transferred meanings of bases or of the whole word as
in a slow-coach-'a person who acts slowly' (colloq.), a sweet-tooth-'one who likes sweet food and drink' (colloq.).
Such words often acquire a new connotational meaning (usually non-neutral) not proper to either of their components.
Lack of motivation may be often due to unexpected semantic relations embedded in the compound. Sometimes the
motivated and the non-motivated meanings of the same word are so far apart that they are felt as two homonymous
words, e.g. a night-cap: 1) 'a cap worn in bed at night' and 2) 'a drink taken before going to bed at night' (colloq.);
eye-wash: 1) 'a liquid for washing the eyes' and 2) 'something said or done to deceive somebody' (colloq.); an eyeopener: 1) 'enlightening or surprising circumstance' (colloq.) and 2) 'a drink of liquor taken early in the day' (U.S.)
Classification. Compound words may be described from different points of view and consequently may be
classified according to different principles. They may be viewed from the point of view: 1) of general relationship and
degree of semantic independence of components; 2) of the parts of speech compound words represent; 3) of the means
of composition used to link the two ICs together; 4) of the type of ICs that are brought together to form a compound;
5) of the correlative relations with the system of free word-groups. Each type of compound words based on the abovementioned principles should also be described from the point of view of the degree of its potential power, i.e. its
productivity, its relevancy to the system of Modern English compounds. This description must aim at finding and

setting a system of ordered structural and semantic rules for productive types of compound words on analogy with
which an infinite number of new compounds constantly appear in the language.
Relations between the ICs of Compounds. From the point of view of degree of semantic independence there are
two types of relationship between the ICs of compound words that are generally recognized in linguistic literature: the
relations of coordination and subordination, and accordingly compound words fall into two classes: coordinative
compounds (often termed copulative or additive) and subordinative (often termed determinative). In coordinative
compounds the two ICs are semantically equally important as in fighter-bomber, oak-tree, girl-friend, AngloAmerican. The constituent bases belong to the same class and most often to the same semantic group. Coordinative
compounds make up a comparatively small group of words. Coordinative compounds fall into three groups: a)
Reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base as in goody-goody, fifty-fifty, hushhush, pooh-pooh. They are all only partially motivated. b) Compounds formed by joining the phonically variated
rhythmic twin forms which either alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary the vowels as in chit-chat, zigzag, sing-song, or rhyme by varying the initial consonants as in clap-trap, a walkie-talkie, helter-skelter. This
subgroup stands very much apart. It is very often referred to pseudo-compounds and considered by some linguists
irrelevant to productive word-formation owing to the doubtful morphemic status of their components. The constituent
members of compound words of this subgroup are in most cases unique, carry very vague or no lexical meaning of
their own, and not found as stems of independently functioning words. They are motivated mainly through the
rhythmic doubling of fanciful sound-clusters. Coordinative compounds of both subgroups (a, b) are mostly restricted
to the colloquial layer, are marked by a heavy emotive charge and possess a very small degree of productivity. c) The
bases of additive compounds such as a queen-bee, an actor-manager, unlike the compound words of the first two
subgroups, are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of speech. These bases often
semantically stand in the genus-species relations. They denote a person or an object that is two things at the same
time. A secretary-stenographer is thus a person who is both a stenographer and a secretary, a bed-sitting-room (a
bed-sitter) is both a bed-room and a sitting-room at the same time. Among additive compounds there is a specific
subgroup of compound adjectives one of ICs of which is a bound root-morpheme. This group is limited to the names
of nationalities such as Sino-Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asian, etc. Additive compounds of this group are mostly
fully motivated but have a very limited degree of productivity. However it must be stressed that though the distinction
between coordinative and subordinative compounds is generally made, it is open to doubt and there is no hard and fast
borderline between them. On the contrary, the borderline is rather vague. It often happens that one and the same
compound may with equal right be interpreted either way-as a coordinative or a subordinative compound, e.g. a
woman-doctor may be understood as 'a woman who is at the same time a doctor' or there can be traced a difference of
importance between the components and it may be primarily felt to be 'a doctor who happens to be a woman', cf. also
a mother-goose, a clock-tower. In subordinative compounds the components are neither structurally nor semantically
equal in importance but are based on the domination of the head-member, which is, as a rule, the second IC. The
second IC thus is the semantically-and grammatically dominant part of the word, which preconditions the part-ofspeech meaning of the whole compound as in stone-deaf, age-long which are obviously adjectives, a wrist-watch,
road-building, a baby-sitter which are nouns. Subordinative compounds make the bulk of Modern English
compound words, as to productivity most of the productive types are subordinative compounds.
Different Parts of Speech. Functionally compounds are viewed as words of different parts of speech. It is the
head-member of the compound, i.e. its second IC that is indicative of the grammatical and lexical category the
compound word belongs to. Compound words are found in all parts of speech, but the bulk of compounds are nouns
and adjectives. Each part of speech is characterized by its set of derivational patterns and their semantic variants.
Compound adverbs, pronouns and connectives are represented by an insignificant number of words, e.g. somewhere,
somebody, inside, upright, otherwise, moreover, elsewhere, by means of, etc. No new compounds are coined on
this pattern. Compound pronouns and adverbs built on the repeating first and second IC like body, ever, thing make
closed sets of words some any every no + body thing one where On the whole composition is not productive either for
adverbs, pronouns or for connectives. Verbs are of special interest. There is a small group of compound verbs made up
of the combination of, verbal and adverbial stems that language retains from earlier stages, e.g. to bypass, to inlay, to
offset. This type, according to some authors, is no longer productive and is rarely found in new compounds. There are
many polymorphic verbs that are represented by morphemic sequences of two root-morphemes, like to weekend, to

gooseflesh, to spring-clean, but derivationally they are all words of secondary derivation in which the existing
compound nouns only serve as bases for derivation. They are often termed pseudo-compound verbs. Such
polymorphic verbs are presented by two groups: 1) verbs formed by means of conversion from the stems of compound
nouns as in to spotlight from a spotlight, to sidetrack from a side-track, to handcuff from handcuffs, to blacklist
from a blacklist, to pinpoint from a pin-point; 2) verbs formed by back-derivation from the stems of compound
nouns, e.g. to baby sit from a baby-sitter, to playact from play-acting, to housekeep from house-keeping, to
spring-clean from spring-cleaning.
Means of Composition. From the point of view of the means by which the components are joined together
compound words may be classified into: 1) Words formed by merely placing one constituent after another in a definite
order which thus is indicative of both the semantic value and the morphological unity of the compound, e.g. raindriven, house-dog, pot-pie (cf. dog-house, pie-pot). This means of linking the components is typical of the majority
of Modern English compounds in all parts of speech. As to the order of components, subordinative compounds are
often classified as: a) asyntactic compounds in which the order of bases runs counter to the order in which the
motivating words can be brought together under the rules of syntax of the language. For example, in variable phrases,
adjectives cannot be modified by preceding adjectives and noun modifiers are not placed before participles or
adjectives, yet this kind of asyntactic arrangement is typical of compounds, e.g. red-hot, bluish-black, pale-blue,
rain-driven, oil-rich. The asyntactic order is typical of the majority of Modern English compound words; b) syntactic
compounds whose components are placed in the order that resembles the order of words in free phrases arranged
according to the rules of syntax of Modern English. The order of the components in compounds like blue-bell, maddoctor, blacklist (a+n) reminds one of the order and arrangement of the corresponding words in phrases a blue bell, a
mad doctor, a black list (A+N), the order of compounds of the type door-handle, day-time, spring-lock (n-\-n)
resembles the order of words in nominal phrases with attributive function of the first noun (N+N), e.g. spring time,
stone steps, peace movement. 2) Compound words whose ICs are joined together with a special linking-element - the
linking vowels [ou] and occasionally [i] and the linking consonant [s/z]-which is indicative of composition as in, e.g.,
speedometer, tragicomic, statesman. Compounds of this type can be both nouns and adjectives, subordinative and
additive but are rather few in number since they are considerably restricted by the nature of their components. The
additive compound adjectives linked with the help of the vowel [ou] are limited to the names of nationalities and
represent a specific group with a bound root for the first component, e.g. Sino-Japanese, Afro-Asian, Anglo-Saxon.
In subordinative adjectives and nouns the productive linking element is also [ou] and compound words of the type are
most productive for scientific terms. The main peculiarity of compounds of the type is that their constituents are nonassimilated bound roots borrowed mainly from classical languages, e.g. electro-dynamic, filmography,
technophobia, videophone, sociolinguistics, videodisc. A small group of compound nouns may also be joined with
the help of linking consonant [s/z], as in sportsman, landsman, saleswoman, brides-maid. This small group of
words is restricted by the second component which is, as a rule, one of the three bases man-, woman-, people-. The
commonest of them is man-.
Types of Bases. Compounds may be also classified according to the nature of the bases and the interconnection
with other ways of word-formation into the so-called compounds proper and derivational compounds. Compounds
proper are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or on the word-forms of independently functioning
words with or without the help of special linking element such as doorstep, age-long, baby-sitter, looking-glass,
street-fighting, handiwork, sportsman. Compounds proper constitute the bulk of English compounds in all parts of
speech, they include both subordinative and coordinative classes, productive and non-productive patterns.
Derivational compounds, e.g. long-legged, three-cornered, a break-down, a pickpocket differ from compounds
proper in the nature of bases and their second IC. The two ICs of the compound long-legged-'having long legs'-are the
suffix -ed meaning 'having' and the base built on a free word-group long legs whose member words lose their
grammatical independence, and are reduced to a single component of the word, a derivational base. Any other
segmentation of such words, say into long- and legged- is impossible because firstly, adjectives like legged do not
exist in Modern English and secondly, because it would contradict the lexical meaning of these words. The
derivational adjectival suffix-ed converts this newly formed base into a word. It can be graphically represented as long
legs -+- [(long-leg) + -ed] -> long-legged. The suffix -ed becomes the grammatically and semantically dominant
component of the word, its head-member. It imparts its part-of-speech meaning and its lexical meaning thus making

an adjective that may be semantically interpreted as 'with (or having) what is denoted by the motivating word-group'.
Comparison of the pattern of compounds proper like baby-sitter, pen-holder [n+(v + -er)] with the pattern of
derivational compounds like long-legged t(a+n) + -ed] reveals the difference: derivational compounds are formed by a
derivational means, a suffix in case of words of the long-legged type,, which is applied to a base that each time is
formed anew on a free word-group and is not recurrent in any other type of words. It follows that strictly speaking
words of this type should be treated as pseudo-compounds or as a special group of derivatives. They are habitually
referred to derivational compounds because of the peculiarity of their derivational bases which are felt as built by
composition, i.e. by bringing together the stems of the member-words of a phrase which lose their independence in the
process. The word itself e.g. long-legged, is built by the application of the suffix, i.e. by derivation and thus may be
described as a suffixal derivative. Derivational compounds or pseudo-compounds are all subordinative and fall into
two groups according to the type of variable phrases that serve as their bases and the derivational means used: a)
derivational compound adjectives formed with the help of the highly-productive adjectival suffix -ed applied to bases
built on attributive phrases of the A+N, Num. + N, N+N type, e.g. long legs, three corners, doll face. Accordingly the
derivational adjectives under discussion are built after the patterns [(a+n) + -ed], e.g. long-legged, flat-chested,
broad-minded; [(num. + ") + -ed], e.g. two-sided, three-cornered; [(n+n) + -ed], e.g. doll-faced, heart-shaped. b)
derivational compound nouns formed mainly by conversion applied to bases built on three types of variable -phrasesverb-adverb phrase, verbal-nominal and attributive phrases. The commonest type of phrases that serves as derivational
bases for this group of derivational compounds is the V + Adv type of word-groups as in, e.g., a breakdown, a breakthrough, a cast-away, a lay-out. Semantically derivational compound nouns form lexical groups typical of
conversion, such as an act or instance of the action, e.g. a holdup-'a delay in traffic' from to hold up- 'delay, stop by
use of force'; a resu1t of the action, e.g. a breakdown-'a failure in machinery that causes work to stop' from to break
down-'become disabled'; an active agent or recipient of the action, e.g. cast-offs - 'clothes that the owner will not wear
again' from to cast off-'throw away as unwanted'; a show-off-'a person who shows off from to show off-'make a
display of one's abilities in order to impress people'. Derivational compounds of this group are spelt generally solidly
or with a hyphen and often retain a level stress. Semantically they are motivated by transparent derivative relations
with the motivating base built on the so-called phrasal verb and are typical of the colloquial layer of vocabulary. This
type of derivational compound nouns is highly productive due to the productivity of conversion. The semantic
subgroup of derivational compound nouns denoting agents calls for special mention. There is a group of such
substantives built on an attributive and verbal-nominal type of phrases. These nouns are semantically only partially
motivated and are marked by a heavy emotive charge or lack of motivation and often belong to terms as, e.g., a killjoy, a wet-blanket-'one who kills enjoyment'; a turnkey-'keeper of the keys in prison'; a sweet-tooth-'a person who
likes sweet food'; a red-breast-'a bird called the robbin'. The analysis of these nouns easily proves that they can only
be understood as the result of conversion for their second ICs cannot be understood as their structural or semantic
centres, these compounds belong to a grammatical and lexical groups different from those their components do. These
compounds are all animate nouns whereas their second ICs belong to inanimate objects. The meaning of the active
agent is not found in either of the components but is imparted as a result of conversion applied to the word-group
which is thus turned into a derivational base. These compound nouns are often referred to in linguistic literature as
"bahuvrihi" compounds or exocentric compounds, i.e. words whose semantic head is outside the combination. It
seems more correct to refer them to the same group of derivational or pseudo-compounds as the above cited groups.
This small group of derivational nouns is of a restricted productivity, its heavy constraint lies in its idiomaticity and
hence its stylistic and emotive colouring.
Correlation between Compounds and Free Phrases. The linguistic analysis of extensive language data proves
that there exists a regular correlation between the system of free phrases and all types of subordinative (and additive)
compounds. Correlation embraces both the structure and the meaning of compound words, it underlies the entire
system of productive present-day English composition conditioning the derivational patterns and lexical types of
compounds. The structural correlation manifests itself in the morphological character of components, range of bases
and their order and arrangement. It is important to stress that correlative relations embrace only minimal, nonexpanded nuclear types of phrases. The bases brought together in compound words are built only on the stems of those
parts of speech that may form corresponding word-groups. The head of the word-group becomes the head-member of
the compound, i.e. its second component. The typical structural relations expressed in word-groups syntactically are

conveyed in compounds only by 'the nature and order of its bases. Compounds of each part of speech correlate only
with certain types of minimal variable phrases. Semantically correlation manifests itself in the fact that the semantic
relations between the components of a compound mirror the semantic relations between the member-words in
correlated word-groups. For example, compound adjectives of the n+Ven type, e.g. duty-bound, snow-covered, are
circumscribed by the instrumental relations typical of the correlated word-groups of Vpn+by/with + N type regardless
of the actual lexical meanings of the bases. Compound nouns of the n-^n type, e.g. story-teller, music-lover, watchmaker, all mirror the agentive relations proper to phrases of the N who V-\-N, cf. a story-teller and one who tells
stories, etc. Correlation should not be understood as converting an actually functioning phrase into a compound word
or the existence of an individual word-group in actual use as a binding condition for the possibility of a compound. On
the contrary there is usually only a potential possibility of conveying the same semantic content by both a word-group
and a compound, actually this semantic content is conveyed preferably either by a phrase or by a compound word.
Correlation, it follows, is a regular interaction and interdependence of compound words and certain types of free
phrases, which conditions both the potential possibility of appearance of compound words and their structure and
semantic type. Thus, the fact that there is a potential possibility of individual phrases with the underlying pattern, for
example, as A + as N in as white as snow, as red as blood presupposes a potential possibility of compound words of
the n+a type snow-white, blood-red, etc. with their structure and meaning relation of -the components
preconditioned. It happens, that in this particular case, compound adjectives are more typical and preferred as a
language means of conveying the quality based on comparison. Compound words, due to the fact that they do not
require any explicit way to convey the semantic relationship between their components except their order, are of much
wider semantic range, leave more freedom for semantic interpretation and convey meaning in a more compressed and
concise way. This makes the meaning of compounds more flexible and situationally" derived. It follows ^ that
motivation and regularity of semantic and structural correlation with free-word-groups are the basic factors favouring
a high degree of productivity of composition and may be used to set rules guiding spontaneous, analogic formation of
new compound words. It is natural that those types of compound words which do not establish such regular
correlations and that are marked by a lack or very low degree of motivation must be regarded as unproductive as, for
example, compound nouns of the a+n type, e. g. bluebell, blackbird, mad-doctor.
Corrlation Types of Compounds. The description of compounds words through the correlation of variable word
groups makes it possible to classify them info four major classes: adjectival-nominal, verbal-nominal, nominal and
verb-adverb compounds. Adjectival-nominal comprise four subgroups of compound adjectives, three of them are
proper compounds and one derivational. All four subgroups are productive and semantically as a rule motivated. The
main constraint on the productivity in all the four subgroups is the lexical-semantic types of the head-members and the
lexical valency of the head of the correlated word-groups. Adjectival-nominal compound adjectives have the
following patterns: 1) the polysemantic n+a pattern that gives rise to two types: a) compound adjectives based on
semantic relations of resemblance with adjectival bases denoting most frequently colours, size, shape, etc. for the
second IC. The type is correlative with phrases of comparative type as A + as + N, e.g. snow-white, skin-deep, agelong, etc. b) compound adjectives based on a variety of adverbial relations. The type is correlative with one of the
most productive adjectival phrases of the A + prp 4- N type and consequently semantically varied, cf. colour-blind,
road-weary, care-free, etc. 2) the monosemantic pattern n+Ven based mainly on the instrumental, locative and
temporal relations between the ICs which are conditioned by the lexical meaning and valency of the verb, e.g. stateowned, home-made. The type is highly productive. Correlative relations are established with word-groups of the
Ven+ with/by + N type. 3) the monosemantic num. + n pattern which gives rise to a small and peculiar group of
adjectives, which are used only attributively, e.g. (a) two-day (beard), (a) seven-day (week), etc. The type correlates
with attributive phrases with a numeral for their first member. 4) a highly productive monosemantic pattern of
derivational compound adjectives based on semantic relations of possession conveyed by the suffix -ed. The basic
variant is: e.g. low-ceilinged, long-legged. The pattern has two more variants: e.g. one-sided, bell-shaped, dollfaced. The type correlates accordingly with phrases with (having) + A+N, with (having) + Num + N, with +N + N or
with + N + of + N. The three other types are classed as compound nouns. Verbal-nominal and nominal represent
compound nouns proper and verb-adverb derivational compound nouns. All the three types are productive.
Verbal-nominal compounds may be described through one derivational structure ft+p, i.e. a combination of a
noun-base (in most cases simple) with a deverbal suffixal noun-base. The structure includes four patterns differing in

the character of the deverbal noun-stem and accordingly in the semantic subgroups of compound nouns. All the
patterns correlate in the final analysis with V+N and V+prp+N type which depends on the lexical nature of the verb:
e.g. bottle-opener, stage-manager, peace-tighter. The pattern is monosemantic and is based on agentive relations that
can be interpreted 'one/that/who does smth'. 2) e.g. stage-managing, rocket-flying. The pattern is monosemantic and
may be interpreted as 'the act of doing smth'. The pattern has some constraints on its productivity which largely
depends on the lexical and etymological character of the verb.' 3) e.g. office-management, price-reduction. The
pattern is a variant of the above-mentioned pattern (No 2). It has a heavy constraint which is embedded in the lexical
and etymological character of the verb that does not permit collocability with the suffix -ing for deverbal nouns. 4)
e.g. wage-cut, dog-bite, hand-shake, the pattern is based on semantic relations of result, instance, agent, etc. III.
Nominal compounds are all nouns with the most polysemantic and highly-productive derivational pattern n-r-n; both
bases are generally simple stems, e.g. windmill, horse-race, pencil-case. The pattern conveys a variety of semantic
relations, the most frequent are the relations of purpose, partitive, local and temporal relations. The pattern correlates
with nominal word-groups of the N+prp+N type. IV. Verb-adverb compounds are all derivational nouns, highly
productive and built with the help of conversion according to the pattern [(v + adv} + conversion}. The pattern
correlates with free phrases y + Adv and with all phrasal verbs of different degree of/stability. The pattern is
polysemantic and reflects the manifold semantic relations typical of conversion pairs. A Course in Modern English
Lexicology R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel et.al.( M., 1966).
Sources of Compounds. The actual process of building compound
words may take different forms: I) Compound words as a rule are built spontaneously according to productive
distributional formulas of the given period. Formulas productive at one time may lose their productivity at another
period. Thus at one time the process of building verbs by compounding adverbial and verbal stems was productive,
and numerous compound verbs like, e.g. outgrow, offset, inlay (adv + v), were formed. The structure ceased to be
productive and today practically no verbs are built in this way. 2) Compounds may be the result of a gradual process
of semantic isolation and structural fusion of free word-groups. Such compounds as forget-me-not-'a small plant with
blue flowers'; bull's-eye-'the centre of a target; a kind of hard, globular candy'; mainland-'a continent' all go back to
free phrases which became semantically and structurally isolated in the course of time. The words that once made up
these phrases have lost, within these particular formations, their integrity, the whole phrase has become isolated in
form, specialized in meaning and thus turned into an inseparable unit-a word having acquired semantic and
morphological unity. Most of the syntactic compound nouns of the (a+n) structure, e.g. bluebell, blackboard, maddoctor, are the result of such semantic and structural isolation of free word-groups; to give but one more example,
highway was once actually a high way for it was raised above the surrounding countryside for better drainage and ease
of travel. Now we use highway without any idea of the original sense of the first element. (A Course in Modern
English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)

Abbreviation, Clipping, Blending.

The somewhat odd-looking words like: flu, pram, lab, M.P, are called "shortenings, contractions, abbreviations" or
"curtailed words" and are produced by the way of word building called "shortening (contraction)". This comparatively
new way of word building has achieved a high degree of productivity nowadays, especially in Amer ican English.
Shortenings (or contracted/curtailed words) are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word from
a syllable (rarer, two) of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in "phone" made from "telephone"),,
its ending (as. in "hols" from "holidays", "vac" from "vacation", "flu" from "influenza") or both the beginning and ending (as in "fridge" from "refrigerator"). The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters
of a word group usually called abbreviation: U.N.O. from the United Nations Organization, B.B.C. from the British
Broadcasting Corporation. M.P. from Member of Parliament. This type is also called "initial shortenings". They are
found not only among colloquialisms and slang. Both types of shortenings are characteristic of informal speech in
general and of uncultivated speech particularly. Shortenings are words produced either by means of clipping full
words or by shortening word combinations, but having the meaning of the full words or combinations. A distinction is
to be observed between graphical and lexical shortenings; graphical abbreviations are signs or symbols that stand for

the full words or combination of words only in written speech. The commonest form is an initial letter or letters that
stand for a word or combination of words. But with a view to prevent ambiguity one or two other letters may be
added. For instance: p. (page), s. (see), b.b. (ball-bearing). Mr (mister), Mrs (missis), MS (manuscript), fig. (figure). In
oral speech graphical abbreviations have the pronunciation of full words. To indicate a plural or a superlative letters
are often doubled, as: pp. - pages. It is common practice in English to use graphical abbreviations of Latin words, and
word combinations, as: e.g. exampli gratia), etc. (etcetera), viz. (videlicet), i. e. (id est), ff. (folios). In oral speech they
are replaced by their English equivalents, 'for example, 'and so on, 'namely', 'that is', 'the following pages'
respectively. Graphical abbreviations are not words but signs or symbols that stand for the corresponding words.
Lexicology deals with lexical shortenings. Two main types of lexical shortenings may be distinguished: abbreviations
or clipped words or clippings and initial words or letter words. Abbreviation or clipping is the result of reduction of a
word to one of its parts: the meaning of the abbreviated word is that of the full word. There are different types of
clipping: 1) back-clipping - the final part of the word is clipped, as: doc - from doctor, lab - from laboratory,
'mag - from magazine, math - from mathematics, prefab - I from prefabricated; 2) fore-clipping - the first part
of the I word is clipped as: plane - from aeroplane, phone - from telephone, drome - from aerodrome. Foreclippings are less numerous in Modern English; 3) the fore and the back parts of the word are clipped and the middle
of the word is retained, - as: tec - from detective, flu - from influenza. Words of this type are few in Modern
English. Back-clippings are most numerous in Modern English and are characterized by the growing frequency. The
original may be a simple word (grad - from graduate), a derivative (prep - from (preparation), a compound,
(foots - from footlights, tails - from tailcoat), a combination of words ( pub - (from public house, medico -from
medical student). As a result of clipping usually nouns are produced, as pram - from perambulator, varsity - for
university. In some rare cases adjectives are abbreviated (as, imposs - from impossible, pi- from pious), but
these are infrequent. Abbreviations or clippings are words of one syllable or of two syllables, the final sound being a
consonant or a vowel (represented by the letter o), as, trig (for trigonometry), Jap (for Japanese),demob (for
demobilized), lino (for linoleum), mo (for moment). Abbreviations are made regardless of whether the
remaining syllable bore the stress in the full word or not (cp. doc from doctor, ad from advertisement). The
pronunciation of abbreviations usually coincides with the corresponding syllable in the full word, if the syllable is
stressed: as, doc ['dok] from doctor['dokt]; if it is an unstressed syllable in the full word the pronunciation differs,
as the abbreviation has a full pronunciation: as, ad [d], but advertisement [d'v:tismt]. There may be some
differences in spelling connected with the pronunciation or with the rules of English orthoepy, as mike - from
microphone, bike - from bicycle, phiz- from physiognomy, lube from lubrication. The plural form of the
full word or combinations of words is retained in the abbreviated word, as, pants - from pantaloons, digs - from
diggings. Abbreviations do not differ from full words in functioning, they take the plural ending and that of the
possessive case and make any part of a sentence. New words may be derived from the stems of abbreviated words by
conversion (as to demob, to taxi, to perm) or by affixation, chiefly by adding the suffix y, ie, deriving diminutives
and pet names (as, hanky - from handkerchief, nighty (nightie) - from nightgown. Unkie - from uncle, baccy
- from tobacco, aussie - from Australians, granny (ie) - from grandmother). In this way adjectives also may be
derived (as: comfy - from comfortable, mizzy - from miserable). Adjectives may be derived also by adding the
suffix -ee, as: Portugee - for Portuguese, Chinee - for Chinese. Abbreviations do not always coincide in meaning
with the original word, for instance: doc and doctor have the meaning 'one who practices medicine', but doctor, is
also the highest degree given by a university to a scholar or scientist1 and a person who has received such a degree,
whereas doc is not used in these meanings. Among abbreviations there are homonyms, so that one and the same
sound and graphical complex may represent different words, as vac (vacation), vac (vacuum cleaner); prep
(preparation), prep (preparatory school). Abbreviations usually have synonyms in literary English, the latter being
the corresponding full words. But they are not interchangeable, as they are words of different styles of speech.
Abbreviations are highly colloquial; in most cases they belong to slang. The moment the longer word disappears from
the language, the abbreviation loses its colloquial or slangy character and becomes a literary word, for instance, the
word taxi is the abbreviation of the taxicab, which, in its turn, goes back to taximeter cab; both words went out of
use, and the word taxi lost its stylistic coloring.
b) Initial Abbreviations. Initial abbreviations are words - nouns - produced by shortening nominal combinations;
each component of the nominal combination is shortened up to the initial letter and the initial letters of all the words

of the combination make a word, as: MP Member of Parliament. Initial words are distinguished by their spelling
in capital letters (often separated by full stops) and by their pronunciation each letter gets its full alphabetic
pronunciation and a full stress, thus making a new word as R. A. F. ['a:r'ei'ef] Royal Air Force; TUC. ['ti:ju 'si:]
Trades Union Congress. Some of initial words may be pronounced in accordance with the rules of orthoepy, a N. A.
T. 0. [neitou], U. N. . ['ju:nou], with the stress on the first syllable. The meaning of the initial word is that of the
nominal combination. In speech initial words function like nouns; they take the plural suffix, as MPs, and the suffix of
the possessive case, as MP's, POW's. In Modern English the commonest practice is to use a full combination either in
the heading or in the text and then quote this combination by giving the first initial f each word. For instance, "Jack
Bruce is giving UCS concert" (the heading). "Jack Bruce, one of Britain's leading rock-jazz musicians, will give a
benefit concert in London next week to raise money for the Upper Clyde shop stewards campaign". New words may
be derived from initial words by means: of adding affixes, as YCL-er, ex-PM, ex-POW; MP'es or adding the semisuffix -man, as GI-man. As soon as the corresponding combination goes out of use the initial word takes its place-and
becomes fully established in the language and its spelling is in small letters, as radar radio detecting and ranging,
laser light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation; maser microwave amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation. There are also semi-shortenings, as, A-bomb (atom bomb), H-bomber (hydrogen bomber),
U-boat (Untersee boat) German submarine. The first component of the nominal combination is shortened up to
the initial letter, the other component (or components) being full words.

Some of the Minor Types of Modern Word-building.

Sound-Imitation (Onomatopoeia).
Words coined by this interesting type of word building are made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may
be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimate objects. Some names of animals and
especially of birds and insects are also produced by sound-imitations: crow, cuckoo, humming-bird, whip-poorwill. There is a hypothesis that sound imitation, as a way of word-formation, should be viewed as something
much wider than just the production of words by the imitation of purely acoustic phenomena. Some scholars
suggest that words may imitate through their sound form certain non-acoustic features and qualities of inanimate
objects, actions and processes or that the meaning of the word can be regarded as the immediate rela tion of the
sound group to the object. If a young chicken or kitten is described as "fluffy" there seems to be something in the
sound of the adjective that conveys the softness and the downy quality of its plumage or its fur. Such verbs as: to
glance, to glide, to slide, to slip - are supposed to convey by their very sound the nature of the smooth, easy
movement over a slippery surface. The sound form of the words: shimmer, glimmer, glitter - seems to reproduce
the wavering, tremulous nature of the faint light. The sound of the verbs: to rush, to dash, to flash - may be said to
reflect the brevity, swiftness and energetic nature of their corresponding actions. The word "thrill" has something
in the quality of its sound that very aptly conveys the tremulous, tingling sensation it expresses. Some scholars
have given serious consideration to this theory. However, it has not yet been properly developed.
Reduplication. In "reduplication" new words are made by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes
as in "bye-bye" (coil. for good-bye) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in: ping-pong, chit-chat
(this second type is called "gradational reduplication"). This type of word building is greatly facilitated in Modern
English by the vast number of monosyllables. Stylistically speaking, most words made by reduplication represent
informal groups: colloquialisms and slang. E.g. walkie-talkie ("a portable radio"), riff-raff ("the worthless or disrepu table element of society"). In a modern novel an angry father accuses his teenager son of "doing nothing but dillydallying over the town" - (dilly-dallying - wasting time, doing nothing, loitering).
Back-Formation (Reversion). The earliest examples of this type of word-building are the verb "to beg" that was
made from the French borrowing " "beggar", "to burgle" from "burglar", "to cobble" from "cobbler", to butle from
butler. In all these cases the verb was made from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with the
English suffix "-ar/-er". The pattern of the type "to work - worker" was firmly established in the subconscious of
English-speaking people at the time when these formations appeared, and it was taken for granted that any noun
denoting profession or occupation is certain to have a corresponding verb of the same root. So, in the case of the verbs
to beg, to burgle, to cobble the process was reversed: instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation (as in

"painter" from "to paint"), a verb was produced from a noun by subtraction. That is why this type of word building
received the name of "back-formation" Or "reversion". Later examples of back-formation are: to butle from butler, to baby-sit from baby-sitter, to force-land from forced landing, to blood-transfuse from bloodtransfusion, to fingerprint from finger printings, to straphang from straphanger.
Exercises

Exercise. I. Consider your answers to the

following.
1. What is understood by the main ways of enriching English vocabulary? 2.What are the principal productive
ways of English word building? 3. What do we mean by derivation? 4. What is the difference between frequency and
productivity of affixes? 5. Give examples of your own to show that affixes have meanings. 6. What languages served
as the main sources of borrowed affixes? Illustrate your answer by examples. 7. What features of Modern English
have produced the high productivity of conversion? Prove that the pair of words love, n. and love, v. do not present
a case of conversion. 8. What is understood by composition? What do we call words made by this type of word
building? 9. Into what groups and subgroups can compounds be subdivided structurally? Illustrate your answer with
examples. 10. Which types of composition are productive in Modern English? How can this be demonstrated? 11.
What is the interrelationship between the meaning of a compound word and the meanings of its constituents? Point out
the principal cases and give examples. 12. What are the criteria for distinguishing between a compound and a wordcombination? 13. What are the two processes of making shortenings'? Explain the productivity of this way of wordbuilding and stylistic characteristics of shortened words. Give examples. 14. What minor processes of word building
do you know? Describe them and illustrate your answer with examples.
Exercise. II. Explain the etymology and productivity of the affixes given below. Say what pairs of speech are
formed with their help: -ness, -ous, -ly, -y, -dom, -ish, -tion, -ed, -en, -ess, -or, -er, -hood, -less, -ate, -ing, -al, -ful, un-.
1 (in)-dis-, over-, ab-.
Exercise. III. Deduce the meanings of the following derivatives from the meanings of their constituents. Explain
your deduction. What are the meanings of the affixes in the words under examination? Reddish, adj.; overwrite, v,;
irregular, adj.; illegal, adj,; retype., v,; old-womanish, adj. ; disrespectable, adj,; inexpensive, adj.; unladylike, adj.;
disorganize, v,; renew, v.; eatable, adj.; overdress, v.; disinfection, n.; snobbish, adj.; handful, n.; tallish, adj.; sandy,
adj.; breakable, adj.; underfed, adj.
Exercise. IV. In the following examples the italicized words are formed from the same root by means of different
affixes. Translate these derivatives into your native language and explain the difference in meaning. a) Sallie is the
most amusing person in the world - and Julia Pendleton the least so. b) Ann was wary, but amused. 2. a) He had a
charming smile, almost womanish in sweetness. b) I have kept up with you through Miss Pittypat but she gave me no
intimation that you had developed womanly sweetness. 3. I have bean having a delightful and entertaining
conversation with my old chum. Lord Wisbeach, -Say, are you doing anything? - Nothing in particular. - Come and
have a yarn. There's a place. I know just round be here. -Delighted. 4. a) Sallia thinks everything is funny - even
flunking -and Julia is bored at everything. She never makes the slightest effort to be pleasant, b) Why are you going
to America? -To make my fortune, I hope. -How pleased your father will be if you do. 5. a) Long before he reached
the brownstone house... the first fine careless rapture of his mad outbreak had passed from Jerry Mitchel, leaving
nervous apprehension in its place, b) If your nephew has really succeeded in his experiments you should be awfully
careful. 6. a) The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you've never learned. It's
very confusing at times. b) That platform was a confused mass of travelers, porters, baggage, trucks, boys with
magazines, friends, relatives. 7. a) At last I decided that even this rather mannish efficient woman could do with a little
help. b) He was only a boy not a man yet, but he spoke in a manly way. 8. a) The boy's respectful Banner changed
noticeably. b) It may be a respectable occupation but it sounds rather criminal to me. 9. a) "Who is leading in the
pennant race?" said the strange butler in a feverish whisper, b) It was an idea peculiar suited her temperament, an idea
that she might have suggested herself if she had thought of it... this idea of his fevered imagination.
Exercise. V. Explain the difference between the meanings of the following words produced from the same root by
means of different affixes. Translate the words into your native language: watery-waterish, embarrassed-embarrassing,
manly-mannish, colorful-colored, distressed-distressing, respected-respectful-respectable, exhaustive-exhausting-

exhausted, bored-boring, touchy-touched-touching.

Exercise. VI. Find cases of conversion in the following sentences.
l. The clerk was eyeing him expectantly. 2.Under the cover of that protective din he was able to toy with a steaming
dish, which his waiter had brought. 3, An aggressive man battled his way to Stout's side. 4. Oust a few yards from the
front door of the bar there was an elderly woman comfortably seated on a chair, holding a hose linked to a tap and
watering the pavement. 5.What are you doing here? - I'm tidying your room. 6. My seat was in the middle of a row. I
couldn't leave without inconveniencing a great many people, so I remained. 7. How on earth do you remember to milk
the cows and give pigs their dinner? 8. In a few minutes Papa stalked off, correctly booted and well muffled. 9. "Then
it's practically impossible to steal any diamonds?" asked Mrs. Blair with as keen an air of disappointment as though
she had bean journeying there for the express purpose. 10, Ten minutes later I was speeding along in the direction of
Cape Town. 11. Restaurants in all large cities have their ups and downs. 12. The upshot seemed to be that I was left to
face life with the sun of 87 pounds. 13. "A man could be very happy in a house like this if he didn't have to poison his
days with work," said Jimmy. 14. I often heard that fellows after some great shock or loss have a habit, after they've
been on the floor for a while wondering what hit them, of picking themselves up and piecing themselves together.
Exercise. VII. Explain the semantic correlations within the following pairs of words: Shelter - to shelter, park to park, groom - to groom, elbow - to elbow, breakfast - to breakfast, pin - to pin, trap - to trap, fish - to fish, head - to
head, nurse - to nurse.
Exercise. VIII. Which of the two words in the following pairs is made by conversion? Deduce the meanings and
use them in constructing sentences of your own: star, n. - to star, v. age, n. - to age, v. picture, n.- to picture, v. - touch,
n.- to touch, v. color, n.- to color, v. make, n.- to make. v. blush, n.- to blush, v. finger, n.- to finger, v. key, n. - to key,
v. empty, adj. - to empty, v, fool, n.- to fool, v., poor, adj. - to poor. v. breakfast, n.-to breakfast, v. pale, adj. - to pale, v.
house, n.- to house, v. dry, adj. - to dry, v. monkey, n.- to monkey, v, nurse, n. - to nurse, v. fork, n. - to fork, v. dress,
n.- to dress, v. slice, n.- to slice, v. floor, n. -to floor, v.
Exercise. IX. Arrange the compounds given below into two groups; A. Idiomatic. B. Non-idiomatic. Say whether
the semantic change within idiomatic compounds is partial or total. Consult the dictionary if necessary; light-hearted,
adj.; butterfly, n.; homebody, n,; cabmen, n.; medium-sized, adj.; blackberry, n.; bluebell, n.; good-for-nothing, adj.;
wolf-dog, n. highway, n.; dragon-fly, n.; looking-glass, n.; greengrocer, n.; bluestocking, n.; gooseberry, n.; necklace,
n.; earthquake, n.; lazy-bones, n..
Exercise. X. Say whether the following lexical units are word-groups or compounds. Apply the criteria outlined
in the foregoing text to motivate your answer: railway platform; snowman; light dress; traffic light; railway station;
landing field; film star; white men; hungry dog; medical man; landing plane; top hat, distant star; small house; green
light; evening dress; top student; bluecoat; roughhouse; booby trap; black skirt; hot dog; blue dress; U-shaped trap:
black shirt.
Exercise XI. Translate the following sentences; define the type of the shortenings in bold type. 1. The windows
have green Venetian blinds and rep curtains. 2. On the polished lino the old noised-up cleaner sounded like a squadron
of aeroplanes. 3. I suppose I shall find the address in the phone book. 4. There were two prams in the hall and the
smell, milky and faecal, of small children. 5. Wishing you congrats and all the best from my wife and I, Yours
faithfully, Mr and Mrs Harper. 6, Tony spoke to the vet's wife and Mr Partridge from the shop, then he was joined by
the vicar. 7. "I'll leave you those mags," she said. "You ought to read them sometime." 8. Well, you know we were
going to Spain these hols. 9.1 do nearly all shopping and most of the cooking since my old ma's had her op. 10. When
I came back from France they all wanted me to go to college. I couldn't. After what I'd been through I felt I couldn't go
back to school. I learnt nothing at my prep school anyway.11. It was his sister's voice from the stairs. "Oh, Matthew,
you promised""I know, sis. But I cant." 12. Put the mac over your head, do. 13. You don't mean to say that bloody
British gent is coming to inspect you? 14. He wrote their language in his occasional sales memos to Mr Callendar. 15.
She had given Reggie a good education, sent him to riding lessons, and pushed him through his professional exams in
the property business. 16. Jeff Jefferies stopped his van outside one of the few detached houses in Archibald Road. 17.
Going out, having lost the firm's expensive dem model and with it his commission, Arnold met Miss Riley's friend
coming in with a bundle of foolscap sheets. 18. "Is Donald coming in this evening to see Felicity?" asked Nan. Donald
was their son, who was now in the Sixth Form at St Bride's. "He's taking junior prep," said . 19. "These infra-red

cookers, Hetty where did you get 'em? They haven't been put on the market yet" "I must have seen it in a
magazine or on the telly." 20. "Look, I'll rev the engine again, and you watch the back wheels."
PHRASEOLOGY
Word-groups viewed as functionally and semantically inseparable units are traditionally regarded as the subject matter
of phraseology. The word "phraseology" has very different meanings in this country and abroad. The term has come to
be used for the whole ensemble of expressions where the meaning of one element is dependent on the other,
irrespective of the structure and properties of the unit (V.V.Vinogradov); with other authors it denotes only such set
expressions which, as distinguished from idioms, do not possess expressiveness or emotional coloring
(A.I.Smirnitsky), and also vice versa: only those that are imaginative, expressive and emotional (I.V.Arnold).
N.N.Amosova overcomes the subjectiveness of the two last mentioned approaches when she insists on the term being
applicable only to what she calls fixed context units, i.e. units in which it is impos sible to substitute any of the
components without changing the meaning not only of the whole unit but also of the elements that remain intact.
O.S.Ahmanova has repeatedly insisted on the semantic integrity of such phrases prevailing over the structural
separateness of their elements. A.V.Koonin lays stress on the structural separateness of the elements in a
phraseological unit, on the change of meaning in the whole as compared with its elements taken separately and on a
certain minimum stability. All these authors use the same word "phraseology" to denote the branch of linguistics
studying the word-groups they have in mind. Continued intelligent devotion to the problems of phraseology of such
scholars as N.N.Amosova, A.V.Koonin and many others has turned phraseology into a full-fledged linguistic
discipline. In English and American linguistics the situation is very different. No special branch of study exists and the
term "phraseology" is a stylistic one, meaning mode of expression, peculiarities of diction; i.e. choice and
arrangement of words and phrases characteristic of some author or some literary work. English and American linguists
as a rule confine themselves to collecting various words, word-groups and sentences presenting some interest as to
their origin, style, usage, etc. These units are habitually described as idioms, but no attempt has been made to
investigate these idioms as a separate class of linguistic units. Phraseological units are usually defined as nonmotivated word-groups that cannot be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units. This
definition proceeds from the assumption that the essential features of phraseological units are stability of the lexical
components and lack of motivation. This approach to English phraseology is closely bound up with the research work
carried out in the field of phraseology by Academician V.V.Vlnigradov. It is consequently assumed that unlike
components of free word groups, which may vary according to the needs of communication, member-words of
phraseological units are always reproduced as single unchangeable collocation. Thus, for example, the constituent 'red'
in the free word group 'red flower' may, if necessary, be substituted for by any other adjective denoting color (blue,
white, etc.), without essentially changing the denotational meaning of the word group under discussion (a flower of a
certain color). In the phraseological unit 'red tape' (bureaucratic methods) no such substitution is possible, as a change
of the adjective would involve a complete change in the meaning of the whole group. A 'blue (black, white) tape
would mean 'a tape of a certain color. It follows that the phraseological unit 'red tape' is semantically non-motivated,
i.e. its meaning cannot be deduced from the meaning of its components and that it exists as a ready-made linguistic
unit which does not allow of any variability of its lexical components. Taking into account mainly the degree of
idiomaticity phraseological units may be classified into three big groups: phraseological fusions, phraseo1ogica1
unities and puraseological collocations (V.V.Vinogradov). Phraseological fusions are completely nonmotivated word-groups, such as red tape - 'bureaucratic methods'; heavy father - 'sarious or solemn part in a theatrical
play'; kick the bucket - 'die', and the like. The meaning of the components has no connections whatsoever, at least
synchronically, with the meaning of the whole group. Idiomaticity is, as a rule, combined with complete stability of
the lexical components and the grammatical structure of the fusion. Phraseological unities are partially nonmotivated as their meaning can usually be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological
unit. For example, to show ones teeth, to wash one's dirty linen in public if interpreted as semantically motivated
through the combined lexical meaning of the component words would naturally lead one to understand these in their
literal meaning. The metaphoric meaning of the whole unit, however, readily suggests 'take a threatening tone or
'show an intention to injure' for show one's teeth and 'discuss or make public one's quarrels' for wash one's dirty
linen in public. Phraseological unities are as a rule marked by a comparatively high degree of stability of the lexical

components. Phraseological collocations are motivated, but they are made up of words possessing specific lexical
valence, which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such word-groups. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For instance, bear a grudge may be changed into bear malice, but not
into bear a fancy or liking. We can say take a liking (fancy) but not take a hatred (disgust). These habitual
collocations tend to become kind of cliches where the meaning of member-words is to some extent dominated by the
meaning of the whole group. Due to this phraseological collocations are felt as possessing a certain degree of semantic
inseparability.
In his book on modern English lexicology A.I.Smirnitsky suggests a classification of phraseological units based
on an underlying semantic principle combined with structural peculiarities. Being word-equivalents
phraseological units may be more or less complex (cf. nipple words and compound words). There are phraseological
units with one semantic centre, i.e. with the domination of one component over another. This semantically dominating
element also determines the equivalence of the phraseological unit to a certain class of words. This type of
phraseological units is termed collocation (verb-adverb collocation, e.g. to look after: attributive collocation, e.g. outof-the-way; preposition-noun collocation, e.g. in ancordance with). There are phraseological unlts with two centres.
They differ from collocations by the absence of the central word, which focuses the main semantic and grammatical
properties of the whole. They are termed set expressions (verb-noun set expressions, e.g. to fall in love; adjective-noun
set expressions, e.g. black ball; phraseological repetitions, e.g. spick and span.). There exist set expressions with more
than two centres, such as every other day, every now and then, etc. Idioms proper form a special class in
phraseology and should be distinguished from the phraseological units listed above). The distinction lies in the fact
that idioms proper are such combinations of words which occur in metaphorical use and possess a special stylistic
coloring or expressiveness. Structurallu idioms proper can be classified together with other phraseological units. There
are also idioms, which are sentence-equivalents, e.g. much water haa flown under the bridges. B.A.Larin,
N.N.Amoaova and V.Koonin exclude phraseological-collocations from phraseology. A.V.Koonin suggests his own
classification and approach to the problem of phraseology. The main features of this new approach which is now more
or less universally accepted by linguists are as follows: 1. Phraseology is regarded as a self-contained branch of
linguistics and not as a part of lexicology. 2. Phraseology deals with a phraseological subsystem of language and not
with isolated phraseological units. 3. Phraseology is concerned with all types of set expressions. 4. Set expressions are
divided into three classes: phraseological units (e.g. red tape, mare's nest, etc.), phraseomatic units (e.g. win a victory,
launch a campaign, etc.) and borderline cases belonging to the mixed class. The main distinction between the first and
the second classes is semantic) phraseological units have fully or partially transferred meanings while components of
phraseomatic units are used in their literal meanings. 5. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are not regarded as
word-equivalents but some of them are treated as word correlates. 6. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are set
expressions and their phraseological stability distinguishes them from free phrases and compound words. 7.
Phraseological and phraseomatic units are made up of words of different degree of wordness depending on the type
of set expressions they are used in. (Cf. e.g. small hours and red tape). Their structural separateness, an important
factor of their stability, distinguishes them from compound words (of. e.g. blackbird and black market). Other aspects
of their stability are: stability of use, lexical stability and semantic stability: 8. Stability of use means that set
expressions are reproduced ready-made and not created in speech. They are not elements of individual style of speech
but language units. 9. Lexical stability means that the components of set expressions are either irreplaceable (e.g. red
tape, mare's neat) or partially replaceable within the bounds of phraseological or phraseomatic variance: lexical
(e.g. a skeleton in the cupboard - a skeleton in the closet), grammatical (e.g. to be in deep water - to be in deep
waters), positional (e.g. head over ears - over head and ears), quantitative (e.g. to lead smb. a dance - to lead smb. a
pretty dance). mixed variants (e,g, raise (stir up) a hornets' nest about one 's ears arouse (stir up) the past of hornets).
10. Semantic stability is based on the lexical stability of set expressions. Even when occasional changes are
introduced the meaning of set expressions is preserved. It may only be specified, made more precise, weakened or
strengthened. In other words in spite of all occasional changes phraseological and phraseomatic units, as distinguished
from free phrases, remain semantically invariant or are destroyed. For example, the substitution of the verbal compo nent in the free phrase to raise a question by the verb to settle (to settle a question) changes the meaning of the
phrase, no such change occurs in to raise (stir up) a hornets' nest about one's ears.

PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS (SET EXPRESSIONS)

It has been repeatedly pointed out that word-groups viewed as functionally and .semantically inseparable units are
traditionally regarded as the subject matter of phraseology. It should be noted, however, that no proper scientific
investigation of English phraseology has been attempted until quite recently. English and American linguists as a rule
confine themselves to collecting various words, word-groups and sentences presenting some interest either from the
point of view of origin, style, usage, or some other feature peculiar to them. These units are habitually described as
idioms but no attempt has been made to investigate these idioms as a separate class of linguistic units or a specific
class of word-groups. American and English dictionaries of unconventional English, slang and idioms and other
highly valuable reference-books contain a wealth of proverbs, sayings, various lexical units of all kinds, but as a rule
do not seek to lay down a reliable criterion to distinguish between variable word-groups and phraseological units.
Paradoxical as it may seem the first dictionary in which theoretical principles for the selection of English
phraseological units were elaborated was published. ( It should be recalled that the first attempt to place the study of
various word-groups on a scientific basis was made by the outstanding Russian linguist A. A. Schachmatov in his
world-famous book Syntax. Schachmatov's work was continued by Academician V. V. Vinogradov whose approach to
phraseology is discussed below. Investigation of English phraseology, was initiated in our country by prof. A. V.
Kunin - Phraseol, Dictionary; See also A. V. Kunin. English Idioms. 3d ed. M., 1967.) The term itself phraseological
units to denote a specific group of phrases was. introduced by linguists and is generally accepted in our country.
Free Word-Groups Versus Set-Phrases. Phraseological Units, Idioms, Word-Equivalents Attempts have
been made to approach^ the problem of phraseology in different ways. Up till now, however, there is a certain
divergence of opinion as to the essential feature of phraseological units as distinguished from other word-groups and
the nature of phrases that can the properly termed phraseological units. The complexity of the problem may be largely
accounted for by the fact that the border-line between free or variable word-groups and phraseological units is not
clearly defined. The so-called free word-groups are only relatively free as collocability of their member-words is
fundamentally delimited by their lexical and grammatical valency, which makes at least some of them very, close to
set-phrases. Phraseological units are comparatively stable and semantically inseparable. Between the extremes of
complete motivation and variability of member-words on the one hand and lack of motivation combined with
complete stability of their lexical components and grammatical structure on the other hand there are innumerable
border-line cases. However, the existing terms, e.g. set-phrases, idioms, word-equivalents, reflect to a certain extent
the main debatable issues of phraseology which centre on the divergent views concerning the nature and essential
features of phraseological units as distinguished from the so-called free word-groups. The term set-phrase implies that
the basic criterion of differentiation is stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure of word-groups.
The term idioms generally implies that the essential feature of the linguistic units under consideration is idiomaticity
or lack of motivation. This term habitually used by English and American linguists is very often treated as
synonymous with the term phraseological unit universally accepted in our country. The term word-equivalent stresses
not only the semantic but also the functional inseparability of certain word-groups and their aptness to function .in
speech as single words. Thus differences in terminology reflect certain differences in the main criteria used to
distinguish between free word-groups and a specific type of linguistic units generally known as phraseology. These
criteria and the ensuing classification are briefly discussed below.
Criteria of Stability and Lack of Motivation (idiomaticity).
Phraseological units are habitually defined as non-motivated word-groups that cannot be freely made up in speech
but are reproduced as ready-made units. This definition proceeds from the assumption that the essential features of
phraseological units are stability of the lexical components and lack of motivation.1 It is consequently assumed that
unlike components of free word-groups which may vary according to the needs of communication, member-words
of phraseological units are always reproduced as single unchangeable collocations. Thus, for example, the
constituent red in the free word-group red flower may, if necessary, be substituted for by any other adjective
denoting colour (blue, white, etc.), without essentially changing the denotational meaning of the word-group under
discussion (a flower of a certain colour). In the phraseological unit red tape (bureaucratic methods) no such
substitution is possible, as a change of the adjective would involve a complete change in the meaning of the whole
group. A blue (black, white, etc.) tape would mean 'a tape of a certain colour'. It follows that the phraseological

unit red tape is semantically non-motivated, i.e. its meaning cannot be deduced from the meaning of its components
and that it exists as a ready-made linguistic unit which does not allow of any variability of its lexical components.
It is also argued that non-variability of the phraseological unit is not confined to its lexical components.
Grammatical structure of phraseological units is to a certain extent also stable. Thus, though the structural formula
of the word-groups red flower and red tape is identical, the noun flower may be used in the plural (red flowers),
whereas no such change is possible in the phraseological unit red tape; red tapes would then denote 'tapes of red
colour' but not 'bureaucratic methods'. This is also true of other types of phraseological units, e.g. what will Mrs.
Grundy say?, where the verbal component is invariably reproduced in the same grammatical form.
Classification. Taking into account mainly the degree of idiomaticity phraseological units may be classified into
three big groups: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological collocations.
Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated word-groups, such as red tape-'bureaucratic methods';
heavy father- 'serious or solemn part in a theatrical play'; kick the bucket-'die'; and the like. The meaning of the
components has no connections whatsoever, at least synchronically, with the meaning of the whole group.
Idiomaticity is, as a rule, combined with complete stability of the lexical components and the grammatical structure of
the fusion. Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be perceived through the
metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. For example, to show one's teeth, to wash one's dirty linen in
public if interpreted as semantically motivated through the combined lexical meaning of the component words would
naturally lead one to understand these in their literal meaning. The metaphoric meaning of the whole unit, however,
readily suggests 'take a threatening tone' or 'show an intention to injure' for show one's teeth, and 'discuss or make
public one's quarrels' for wash one's dirty linen in public. Phraseological unities are as a rule marked by a
comparatively high degree of stability of the lexical components. Phraseological collocations are motivated but'
they are made up of words possessing specific lexical valency which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such
word-groups. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For instance, bear a
grudge may be changed into bear malice, but not into bear a fancy or liking. We can say take a liking (fancy) but
not take hatred (disgust). These habitual collocations tend to become kind of clichs, where the meaning of memberwords is to some extent dominated by the meaning of the whole group. Due to this phraseological collocations are felt
as possessing a certain degree of semantic inseparability.
Some Debatable Points. The current definition of phraseological
units as highly idiomatic wordgroups which cannot be freely made up in speech, but are reproduced as ready-made units has been subject to severe
criticism by linguists of different schools of thought. The main objections and debatable points may be briefly outlined
as follows: 1. The definition is felt to be inadequate as the concept ready-made units seems to be rather vague. In fact
this term can be applied to a variety of heterogeneous linguistic phenomena ranging from word-groups to sentences
(e.g. proverbs, sayings) and also quotations from poems, novels or scientific treatises all of which can be described as
ready-made units. 2. Frequent discussions have also led to questioning this approach to phraseology from a purely
semantic point of view as the criterion of idiomaticity is found to be an inadequate guide in singling out
phraseological units from other word-groups. Borderline cases between idiomatic and non-idiomatic word-groups are
so numerous and confusing that the final 'decision seems to depend largely on one's "feeling of the language". This
can be proved by the fact that the same word-groups are treated by some linguists as idiomatic phrases and by others
as free word-groups. For example, such word-groups as take the chair-'preside at a meeting', take one's chance-'trust
to luck or fortune', take trouble (to do smth) - 'to make efforts' and others are marked in some of the English
dictionaries as idioms or phrases, whereas in others they are found as free word-groups illustrating one of the
meanings of the verb to take or the nouns combined with this verb. The impracticability of the criterion of
idiomaticity is also observed in the traditional classification of phraseological collocations. The extreme cases, i.e.
phraseological fusions and collocations are easily differentiated but the borderline units, as for example phraseological
fusions and phraseological unities or phraseological collocations and free word-groups, are very often doubtful and
rather vaguely outlined. We may argue, e.g., that such word-groups as high treason or show the white feather are
fusions because one finds it impossible to infer the meaning of the whole from the meaning of the individual
components. Others may feel these word-groups as metaphorically motivated and refer them to phraseological unities.
The term idiomaticity is also regarded by some linguists as requiring clarification. As a matter of fact this term is
habitually used to denote lack of motivation from the point of view of one's mother tongue. A word-group which

defies word by word translation is consequently described as idiomatic. It follows that if idiomaticity is viewed as the
main distinguishing feature of phraseological units, the same word-groups in the English language may be classified
as idiomatic phraseological units by Russian speakers and as non-idiomatic word-groups by those whose mother
tongue contains analogous collocations. Thus, e.g., from the point of view of Russian speakers such word-groups as
take tea, take care, etc. are often referred to phraseology as the Russian translation equivalents of these word-groups
do not contain the habitual translation equivalents of the verb take. French speakers, however, are not likely to find
anything idiomatic about these word-groups as there are similar lexical units in the French language (cf. prendre du
th, prendre soin). This approach to idiomaticity may be termed interlingual as it involves a comparison, explicit or
implicit of two different languages. The term idiomaticity is also understood as lack of motivation from the point of
view of native speakers. As here we are concerned with the English language, this implies that only those word-groups
are to be referred to phraseology, which are felt as non-motivated, at least synchronically, by English speakers, e.g.
red tape, kick the bucket and the like. This approach to idiomaticity may be termed intralingual. In other words the
judgement as to idiomaticity is passed within the framework of the language concerned, not from the outside. It is
readily observed that classification of factual linguistic material into free word-groups and phraseological units largely
depends upon the particular meaning we attach to the term idiomaticity. It will be recalled, for example, that habitual
collocations are word-groups whose component member or members possess specific and limited lexical valency, as a
rule essentially different from the lexical valency of related words in the Russian language. A number of habitual
collocations, e.g. heavy rain, bad mistake, take care and others, may be felt by Russian speakers as pecu1iar1y
English and therefore idiomatic, whereas they are not perceived as such by English speakers in whose mother tongue
the lexical valency of member words heavy, bad, take presupposes their collocability with rain, mistake, care. 3.
The criterion of stability is also criticized as not very reliable in distinguishing phraseological units from other wordgroups habitually referred to as phraseology. We observe regular substitution of at least one of the lexical components.
In to cast smth in smb's teeth, e.g. the verb cast may be replaced by fling; to take a decision is found alongside with
to make a decision; not to care a twopenny is just one of the possible variants of the phrase, whereas in others the
noun twopenny may be replaced by a number of other nouns, e.g. farthing, button, pin, sixpence, fig, etc. It is also
argued that stability of lexical components does not presuppose lack of motivation. The word-group shrug one's
shoulders, e.g., does not allow of the substitution of either shrug or shoulders; the meaning of the word-group,
however, is easily deducible from the meanings of the member-words, hence the word-group is completely motivated,
though stable. Idiomatic word-groups may be variable as far as their lexical components are concerned, or stable. It
was observed that, e.g., to cast smth in smb's teeth is a highly idiomatic but variable word-group as the constituent
member cast may be replaced by fling or throw; the word-group red tape is both highly idiomatic and stabJe. It
follows that stability and idiomaticity may be regarded as two different aspects of word-groups. Stability is an
essential feature of set-phrases both motivated and non-motivated. Idiomaticity is a distinguishing feature of
phraseological units or idioms which comprise both stable set-phrases and variable word-groups. The two features are
not mutually exclusive and may be overlapping, but are not interdependent. Stability of word-groups may be viewed
in terms of predictability of occurrence of member-words. Thus, e.g., the verb shrug predicts the occurrence of the
noun shoulders and the verb clench the occurrence of either fists or teeth. The degree of predictability or probability
of occurrence of member-words is different in different word-groups. We may assume, e.g., that the verb shrug
predicts with a hundred per cent probability the occurrence of the noun shoulders, as no other noun can follow this
particular verb. The probability of occurrence of the noun look after the verb cast is not so high because cast may be
followed not only by look but also by glance, light, lots and some other nouns. Stability of the word-group in clench
one's fists is higher than in cast a look, but lower than in shrug one's shoulders as the verb clench predicts the
occurrence of either fists or teeth. It is argued that the stability of all word-groups may be statistically calculated and
the word-groups where stability exceeds a certain limit (say 50%) may be classified as set-phrases. Predictability of
occurrence may be calculated in relation to one pr more than one constituent of the word-group. Thus, e.g., the degree
of probability of occurrence of the noun bull after the verb take is very low and may practically be estimated at zero.
The two member-words take the bull, however, predict the occurrence of by the horns with a very high degree of
probability. Stability viewed in terms of probability of occurrence seems a more reliable criterion in differentiating
between set-phrases and variable or free word-groups, but cannot be relied upon to single out phraseological units.

Besides, it is argued that it is practically impossible to calculate the stability of all the word-groups as that would
necessitate investigation into the lexical valency of the whole vocabulary of the English language.
Criterion of Function.
Another angle from which the problem of phraseology is viewed is the so-called
functional approach. This approach assumes that phraseological units may be defined as specific word-groups
functioning as word-equivalents. The fundamental features of phraseological units thus understood are their semantic
and grammatical inseparability which are regarded as distinguishing features of isolated words. It will be recalled that
when we compare a free word-group, e.g. heavy weight, and a phraseological unit, e.g. heavy father, we observe that
in the case of the free word group each of the member-words has its own denotational meaning. So the lexical
meaning of the word-group can be adequately described as the combined lexical meaning of its constituents.2 In the
case of the phraseological unit, however, the denotational meaning belongs to the word-group as a single semantically
inseparable unit. The individual member-words do not seem to possess any lexical meaning outside the meaning of the
group. The meanings of 'the member-words heavy and father taken in isolation are in no way connected with the
meaning of the phrase heavy father-'serious or solemn part in a theatrical play'. The same is true of the stylistic
reference and emotive charge of phraseological units. In free word-groups each of the components preserves as a rule
its own stylistic reference. This can be readily observed in the stylistic effect produced by free word-groups made up
of words of widely different stylistic value, e.g. to commence to scrub, valiant chap and the like. A certain
humorous effect is attained because one of the member-words (commence, valiant) is felt as belonging to the bookish
stylistic layer, whereas the other (scrub, chap) is felt as stylistically neutral or colloquial. When we say, however,, that
kick the bucket is highly colloquial or heavy father is a professional term, we do not refer to the stylistic value of the
component words of these phraseological units kick, bucket, heavy or father, but the stylistic value of the wordgroup as a single whole. Taken in isolation the words are stylistically neutral. It follows that phraseological units are
characterized by a single stylistic reference irrespective of the number and nature of their component words. Semantic
inseparability of phraseological units is viewed as one of the aspects of idiomaticity, which enables us to regard them
as semantically equivalent to single words. The term grammatical inseparability implies that the grammatical
meaning or, to be more exact, the part-of-speech meaning of phraseological units is felt as belonging to the wordgroup as a whole irrespective of the part-of-speech meaning of the component words. Comparing the free word-group,
e.g. a long day, and the phraseological unit, e.g. in the long run, we observe that in the free word-group the noun day
and the adjective long preserve the part-of-speech meaning proper to these words taken in isolation. The whole group
is viewed as composed of two independent units (adjective and noun). In the phraseological unit in the long run the
part-of-speech meaning belongs to the group as a single whole. In the long run is grammatically equivalent to single
adverbs, e.g. finally, ultimately, firstly, etc. In the case of the phraseological unit under discussion there is no
connection between the part-of-speech meaning of the member-words (in-preposition, long-adjective, run-noun) and
the part-of-speech meaning of the whole word-group. Grammatical inseparability of phraseological units viewed as
one of the aspects of idiomaticity enables us to regard them as grammatically equivalent to single words. It is argued
that the final test of the semantic and grammatical inseparability of phrases is their functional unity, i.e. their aptness
to function in speech as single syntactic units. It will be observed that in the free word-groups, e.g: heavy weight,
long time, the adjectives heavy and long function as attributes to other members of the sentence (weight, time),
whereas the phraseological units heavy father and in the long run are functionally inseparable and are always
viewed as making up one and only one member of the sentence (the subject or the object, etc.), i.e. they are
functionally equivalent to single words. Proceeding from the assumption that phraseological units are non-motivated
word-groups functioning as word-equivalents by virtue of their semantic and grammatical inseparability, we may
classify them into noun equivalents (e.g. heavy father), verb equivalents (e.g. take place, break the news), adverb
equivalents (e.g. in the long run), etc.
As far as their structure is concerned these groups are not homogeneous and may be subdivided into the same
groups as variable phrases. Among verb equivalents, for example, we may find verb-noun units (take place) and verbadverb units (give up), adverb equivalents comprise preposition-noun groups (e.g. by heart, at length), adverbconjunction-adverb groups (e.g. far and wide), etc.
Phraseological Units and Idioms Proper. As can be inferred from the above discussion the functional approach
does not discard idiomaticity as the main feature distinguishing phraseological units from free word-groups, but seeks
to establish formal criteria of idiomaticity by analysing the syntactic function of phraseological units in speech. An

attempt is also made to distinguish phraseological units as word-equivalents from idioms proper, i.e. idiomatic units
such as that's where the shoe pinches, the cat is out of the bag, what will Mrs Grundy say?, etc. Unlike
phraseological units, proverbs, sayings and quotations do not always function as word-equivalents. They exist as
ready-made expressions with a specialized meaning of their own which cannot be inferred from the meaning of their
components taken singly. Due to this the linguists who rely mainly on the criterion of idiomaticity classify proverbs
and sayings as phraseological units. The proponents of the functional criterion argue that proverbs and sayings lie
outside the province of phraseology. It is pointed out, firstly, that the lack of motivation in such linguistic units is of an
essentially different nature. Idioms are mostly based on metaphors, which makes the transferred meaning of the whole
expression more or less transparent. If we analyse such idioms, as, e.g., to carry coals to Newcastle, to fall between
two stools, or fine feathers make fine birds, we observe that though their meaning cannot be inferred from the literal
meaning of the member-words making up these expressions, they are still metaphorically motivated as the literal
meaning of the whole expression readily suggests its meaning as an idiom, i.e. 'to do something that is absurdly
superfluous', 'fail through taking an intermediate 'course' and 'to be well dressed to give one an impressive appearance'
respectively.1 The meaning of the phraseological units, e.g. red tape, heavy father, in the long run, etc., cannot be
deduced either from the meaning of the component words or from the metaphorical meaning of the word-group as a
whole. Secondly, the bulk of idioms never function in speech as word-equivalents, which is a proof of their semantic
and grammatical separability. It is also suggested that idioms in general have very much in common with quotations
from literary sources, some of which also exist as idiomatic ready-made units with a specialized meaning of their own.
Such quotations which have acquired specialized meaning and idiomatic value, as, e.g., to be or not to be
(Shakespeare), to cleanse the Augean stables (mythology), a voice crying out in the wilderness (the Bible), etc.
differ little from proverbs and sayings which may also be regarded as quotations from English folklore and are part of
this particular branch of literary studies.
Some Debatable Points. The definition of phraseological units as
idiomatic word-groups
functioning as word-equivalents has also been subject to criticism. The main disputable points are as follows: 1. The
criterion of function is regarded as not quite reliable when used with a view to singling out phraseological units from
among other more or less idiomatic word-groups. The same word-groups may function in some utterances as an
inseparable group and in others as a separable group with each component performing its own syntactic function. This
seems largely to be accounted for by the structure of the sentence in which the word-group is used. Thus, for example,
in the sentence She took care of everything-take care is perceived as a single unit functioning as the predicate,
whereas in the sentence great care was taken to keep the children happy-take care is undoubtedly separable into
two components: the verb take functions as the predicate and the noun care as the object. The functional unity of the
word-group seems to be broken. 2. It is also argued that the criterion of function serves to single out a comparatively
small group of phraseological units comparable with phraseological fusions in the traditional semantic classification
but does not provide for an objective criterion for the bulk of word-groups occupying an intermediate position
between free word-groups and highly idiomatic.
Criterion of Context. Phraseological units in Modern English are also approached from the contextual point of
view (prof. Amosova).. Proceeding from the assumption that individual meanings of polysemantic words can be
observed in certain contexts and may be viewed as dependent on those contexts, it is argued that phraseological units
are to be defined through specific types of context. Free word-groups make up variable contexts whereas the essential
feature of phraseological units is a non-variable or fixed context. Non-variability is understood as the stability of the
word-group. In variable contexts which include polysemantic words substitution of one of the components is possible
within the limits of the lexical valency of the word under consideration. It is observed, e.g., that in such word-groups
as a small town the word town may be substituted for by a number of other nouns, e.g. room, audience, etc., the
adjective small by a number of other adjectives, e.g. large, big, etc. The substitution of nouns does not change the
meaning of small which denotes in all word-groups 'not large'. The substitution of adjectives does not likewise affect
the meaning of town. Thus variability of the lexical components is the distinguishing feature of the so-called free
word-groups. In other word-groups such as small business, a small farmer the variable members serve as a clue to
the meaning of the adjective small. It may be observed that when combined with the words town, room, etc. a small
denotes 'not large', whereas it is only in combination with the nouns business, farmer, etc. that small denotes 'of
limited size' or 'having limited capital'. Word-groups of this type are sometimes described as traditional collocations.

Unlike word-groups with variable members phraseological units allow of no substitution. For example, in the
phraseological unit small hours- 'the early hours of the morning from about 1 a.m. to 4 a.m.'- there is no variable
member as small denotes 'early' only in collocation with hours. In the phraseological unit small beer, small has the
meaning weak only in this fixed non-variable context. As can be seen from the above, a non-variable context is
indicative of a specialized meaning of one of the member-words. The specialized meaning of one of the lexical
components is understood as the meaning of the word only in the given phrase (e. g. small hours), i.e. this particular
meaning cannot be found in the word taken in isolation or in any of the variable word-groups in which the word is
used. It follows that specialized meaning and stability of lexical components are regarded as interdependent features
of phraseological units whose semantic structure is unique, i.e. no other word-groups can be created on this semantic
pattern. The two criteria of phraseological units - specialized meaning of the components and non-variability of
context - display unilateral dependence. Specialized meaning presupposes complete stability of the lexical
components, as specialized meaning of the member-words or idiomatic meaning of the whole word-group is never
observed outside fixed contexts. Phraseological units may be subdivided into phrasemes and idioms according to
whether or not one of the components of the whole word-group possesses specialized meaning. Phrasemes are, as a
rule, two-member word-groups in which one of the members has specialized meaning dependent on the second
component as, e.g., in small hours; the second component (hours) serves as the only clue to this particular meaning
of the first component as it is found only in -the given context (small hours). The word that serves as the clue to the
specialized meaning of one of the components is habitually used in its central meaning (cf., for example, small hours,
and three hours, pleasant hours, etc.). Idioms are distinguished from phrasemes by the idiomaticity of the whole
word-group (e.g. red tape-'bureaucratic methods') and the impossibility of attaching meaning to the members of the
group taken in isolation. Idioms are semantically and grammatically inseparable units. They may comprise unusual
combinations of words which when understood in their literal meaning are normally uncollocable as, e.g. mare's nest
(a mare-'a female horse', a mare's nest-'a hoax, a discovery which proves false or worthless'). Unusual-ness of
collocability, or logical incompatibility of member-words is indicative of the idiomaticity of the phrase. Idioms made
up of words normally brought together are homonymous with corresponding variable word-groups, e.g. to let the cat
out of the bag - 'to divulge a secret', and the clue to the idiomatic meaning is to be found in a wider context outside
the phrase itself.
Some Debatable Points. The main objections to the contextual approach are as follows: 1. Non-variability of
context does not necessarily imply specialized meaning of the component or the components of the word-group. In
some cases complete stability of the lexical components is found in word-groups including words of a narrow or
specific range of lexical valency as, e.g., shrug one's shoulders. 2. Some word-groups possessing a certain degree of
idiomaticity are referred to traditional collocations. The criterion of traditional collocations, however, is different from
that of phraseological units. In the contextual approach traditional collocations are understood as word-groups with
partially variable members; the degree of idiomaticity is disregarded. Consequently such word-groups as, e.g., clench
fists (teeth) and cast (throw, fling) something in somebody's teeth may both be referred to traditional collocations
on the ground of substitutability of one of the member-words in spite of a tangible difference in the degree of
idiomatic meaning.
Phraseology as a Subsystem of Language. Comparing the three approaches discussed above (semantic,
functional, and contextual) we have ample ground to conclude that they have very much in common as the main
criteria of phraseological units appear to be essentially the same, i.e. stability and idiomaticity or lack of motivation. It
should be noted however that these criteria as elaborated in the three approaches are sufficient mainly to single out
extreme cases: highly idiomatic non-variable and free (or variable) word-groups. Thus red tape, mare's nest, etc.
according to the semantic approach belong to phraseology and are described as fusions as they are completely nonmotivated. According to the functional approach they are also regarded as phraseological units because of their
grammatical (syntactic) inseparability and because they function in speech as word-equivalents. According to the
contextual approach red tape, mare's nest, etc. make up a group of phraseological units referred to as idioms because
of the impossibility of any change in the 'fixed context' and their semantic inseparability.
The status of the bulk of word-groups however cannot be decided with certainty with the help of these criteria
because as a rule we have to deal not with complete idiomaticity and stability but with a certain degree of these
distinguishing features of phraseological units. No objective criteria of the degree of idiomaticity and stability have as

yet been suggested. Thus, e.g., to win a victory according to the semantic approach is a phraseological combination
because it is almost completely motivated and allows of certain variability to win, to gain a victory. According to the
functional approach it is not a phraseological unit as the degree of semantic and grammatical inseparability is
insufficient for the word-group to function as a word-equivalent. Small hours according to the contextual approach is
a phraseme because one of the components is used in its literal meaning. If however we classify it proceeding from the
functional approach it is a phraseological unit because it is syntactically inseparable and therefore functions as a wordequivalent. As can be seen from the above the status of the word-groups which are partially motivated is decided
differently depending on which of the criteria of phraseological units is applied. There is still another approach to the
problem of phraseology in which an attempt is made to overcome the shortcomings of the phraseological theories
discussed above. The main features of this new approach are as follows: 1. Phraseology is regarded as a self-contained
branch of linguistics and not as a part of lexicology. 2. Phraseology deals with a phraseological subsystem of language
and not with isolated phraseological units. 3. Phraseology is concerned with all types of set expressions. 4. Set
expressions are divided into three classes: phraseological units (e.g. red tape, mare's nest, etc.), phraseomatic units
(e.g. win a victory, launch a campaign, etc.) and border-line cases belonging to the mixed class. The main distinction
between the first and the second classes is semantic: phraseological units have fully or partially transferred meanings
while components of phraseomatic units are used in their literal meanings. 5. Phraseological and phraseomatic units
are not regarded as word-equivalents but some of them are treated as word correlates. 6. Phraseological and
phraseomatic units are set expressions and their phraseological stability distinguishes them from free phrases and
compound words. 7. Phraseological and phraseomatic units are made up of words of different degree of wordness
depending on the type of set expressions they are used in. (Cf. e.g. small hours and red tape.) Their structural
separateness, an important factor of their stability, distinguishes them from compound words (cf. e.g. blackbird and
black market). Other aspects .of their stability are: stability of use, lexical stability and semantic stability. 8. Stability
of use means that set expressions are reproduced ready-made and not created in speech. They are not elements of
individual style of speech but language units. 9. Lexical stability means that the components of set expressions are
either irreplaceable (e.g. red tape, mare's nest) or partly replaceable within the bounds of phraseological or
phraseomatic variance: lexical (e.g. a skeleton in the cupboard-a skeleton in the closet), grammatical (e.g. to be in
deep water-to be in deep waters), positional (e.g. head over ears-over head and ears), quantitative (e.g. to lead
smb a dance-to lead smb a pretty dance), mixed variants (e.g. raise (stir up) a hornets' nest about one's earsarouse (stir up) the nest of hornets). 10. Semantic stability is based on the lexical stability of set expressions. Even
when occasional changes are introduced the meaning of set expression is preserved. It may only be specified, made
more precise, weakened or strengthened. In other words in spite of all occasional changes phraseological and
phraseomatic units, as distinguished from free phrases, remain semantically invariant or are destroyed. For example,
the substitution of the verbal component in the free phrase to raise a question by the verb to settle (to settle a
question) changes the meaning of the phrase, no such change occurs in to raise (stir up) a hornets' nest about one's
ears. 11. An integral part of this approach is a method of phraseological identification, which helps to single out set
expressions in Modern English.
Some Problems of the Diachronic Approach. The diachronic aspect of phraseology has scarcely been
investigated. Just a few points of interest may be briefly reviewed in connection with the origin of phraseological units
and the ways they appear in language. It is assumed that almost all phrases can be traced back to free word-groups
which in the course of the historical development of the English language have acquired semantic and grammatical
inseparability. It is observed that free word-groups may undergo the process of grammaticalization or lexicalization.
Cases of grammaticalization may be illustrated by the transformation of free word-groups composed of the verb have
a noun (pronoun) and Participle II of some other verb (e.g. OE. he haefde hine Seslaegenne) into the grammatical
form-the Present Perfect in Modern English. The degree of semantic and grammatical inseparability in this analytical
word-form is so high that the component have seems to possess no lexical meaning of its own.
The term lexicalization implies that the word-group under discussion develops into a word-equivalent, i.e. a
phraseological unit or a compound word. These two parallel lines of lexicalization of free word-groups can be
illustrated by the diachronic analysis of, e.g., the compound word instead and the phraseological unit in spite (of).
Both of them can be traced back to structurally identical free phrases.1 (Cf. OE. in stede and ME. in despit.)

There are some grounds to suppose that there exists a kind of interdependence between these two ways of
lexicalization of free word-groups which makes them mutually exclusive. It is observed, for example, that compounds
are more abundant in certain parts of speech, whereas phraseological units are numerically predominant in others.
Thus, e.g., phraseological units are found in great numbers as verb-equivalents whereas compound verbs are
comparatively few. This leads us to assume that lexicalization of free word-groups and their transformation into words
or phraseological units is governed by the general line of interdependence peculiar to each individual part of speech,
i.e. the more compounds we find in a certain part of speech the fewer phraseological units we are likely to encounter
in this class of words. Very little is known of the factors active in the process of lexicalization of free word-groups
which results in the appearance of phraseological units. This problem may be viewed in terms of the degree of
motivation. We may safely assume that a free word-group is transformed into a phraseological unit when it acquires
semantic inseparability and becomes synchronically non-motivated.
The following may be perceived as the main causes accounting for the loss of motivation of free word-groups: a)
When one of the components of a word-group becomes archaic or drops out of the language altogether the whole
word-group may become completely or partially non-motivated. For example, lack of motivation in the word-group
kith and kin may be accounted for by the fact that the member-word kith (OE. cyth) dropped out of the language
altogether except as the component of the phraseological unit under discussion. This is also observed in the
phraseological unit to and fro, and some otters. b) When as a result of a change in the semantic structure of a
polysemantic word some of its meanings disappear and can be found only in certain collocations. The noun mind,
e.g., once meant 'purpose' or 'intention' and -this meaning survives in the phrases to have a mind to do smth., to
change one's mind, etc. c) When a free- word-group used in professional speech penetrates into general literary
usage, it is often felt as non-motivated. To pull (the) strings (wires), e.g., was originally used as a free word-group in
its direct meaning by professional actors in puppet shows. In Modern English, however, it has lost all connection with
puppet-shows and therefore cannot be described as metaphorically motivated. Lack of motivation can also be
observed in the phraseological unit to stick to one's guns which can be traced back to military English, etc.
Sometimes extra-linguistic factors may account for the loss of motivation, to show the white feather-'to act as a
coward', e.g., can be traced back to the days when cock-fighting was popular. A white feather in a gamecock's
plumage denoted bad breeding and was regarded as a sign of cowardice. Now that cock-fighting is no longer a
popular sport, the phrase is felt as non-motivated. d) When a word-group making up part of a proverb or saying
begins to be used as a self-contained unit it may gradually become non-motivated if its connection with the
corresponding proverb or saying is not clearly perceived. A new broom, e.g., originates as a component of the saying
new brooms sweep clean. New broom as a phraseological unit may be viewed as non-motivated because the
meaning of the whole is not deducible from the meaning of the components. Moreover, it seems grammatically and
functionally self-contained and inseparable too. In the saying quoted above the noun broom is always used in the
plural; as a member-word of the phraseological unit it is mostly used in the singular. The phraseological unit a new
broom is characterized by functional inseparability. In the saying new brooms sweep clean the adjective new
functions as an attribute to the noun brooms, in the phraseological unit a new broom (e.g. Well, he is a new broom!)
the whole word-group is functionally inseparable. e) When part of a quotation from literary sources, mythology or
the Bible begins to be used as a self-contained unit, it may also lose all connection with the original context and as a
result of this become non-motivated. The phraseological unit the green-eyed monster (jealousy) can be easily found
as a part of the quotation from Shakespeare "It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on"
(Othello, II, i. 165). In Modern English, however, it functions as a non-motivated self-contained phraseological unit
and is also used to denote the T.V. set. Achilles heel-'the weak spot in a man's circumstances or character' can be
traced back to mythology, but it seems that in Modern English this word-group functions as a phraseological unit
largely because most English speakers do not connect it with the myth from which it was extracted. (A Course in
Modern English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)
Exercises
Exercise I. State, which of the underlined word-groups are phraseological units.
I. Where do you think you lost your purse? 2. When losing the game one shouldn't lose one's 'temper. 3. Have a
look at the reverse side of the coat. 4. The reverse side of the me dal is that we'll have to do it ourselves. 5. Keep the
butter in the refrigerator. 6. Keep an eye on the child. 7. He threw some cold water on his face to wake up. 8. I didn't

expect that he would throw cold water upon our project. 9. The tourists left the beaten track and saw a lot of
interesting places. 10. The author leaves the beaten track and offers a new treatment of the subject.
Exercise II. Using the dictionary define the meaning of homonymous free word-groups and phraseologlcal units:
blue look; black ball; blue bottle; hot head; big house; dancing master; flying man; blue stocking; shooting party,
skiing instructor.
Exercise III. Make up two lists out of the following combinations of words - free combinations of words and set
phrases: at death's door; at long last; beat about the bush; big house; bite off more than one can chew; black suit; black
sheep; by heart; dance around the room; draw a blank, draw the curtains; fall in love, fly high; going strong; open
wide; pass through the door; pay through the nose; red tape; smell a flower; smell a rat;
Exercise IV. Explain the meanings of the following combinations of words as a) free word combinations and
b) as phraseological units. Give equivalent for the phraseological unit in your native language: be on firm ground, the
bird is flown, black ball, blow one's own trumpet, break the ice, burn one's fingers, first night, give smb a ring, keep
one's head above water, look after, meet smb half-way, run out, show smb the door, throw down the glove, touch
bottom.
Exercise V. Make up two lists out of the following word-groups - phraseological fusions and phraseological
unities. Explain the difference between the two types of phraseological units: catch cold; blank verse; pay a visit;
suffer losses; know which way the wind blows; shut one's eyes to smth; see the world through rosy spectacles; a house
of cards; a new broom; offer an apology.
Exercise VI. Arrange the expressions according to their degree of 'freedom' or 'setness': I. bad actor, bad look,
bad break, bad character, bad debt, bad fortune, bad hat, bad headache, bad job, bad language, bad odor, bad tongue;
2. big bird, big boy, big business, big card, big drink, big head, big heart, black house, big words; 3. black art, black
ball, black diamonds, black eye, black eyes, black ingratitude, black list, black market:, black magic, black night,
black trousers; 4. blind man, blind coal, blind date, blind lead, blind story, blind usage, blind window; 5. blue beans,
blue blood, blue flower, blue funk, blue noses, blue skirt, blue stocking, blue water.
Exercise VII. Translate the following sentences; pick out idioms; find equivalents in your native language, where
possible. 1. She was the life and soul of the party. 2. He took me out to dinner the other night and he had a book with
him. "Got anything for me to read?" I said. "What's that?" "Oh, I don't think that's your cup of tea," he said. "It's
poetry. I've just been reviewing it." 3. Poor Norman knew no more about the stage than a babe unborn. 4. "How well
do you know Nightingale?" I was provoked enough to say it. As soon as I did, I knew it was a false step. 5. When I
heard Crawford talking about "trouble-makers", that was the last straw. 6. Then he returned to harmless talk,
deliberately small beer. 7. Martin's a dark horse. I should like to know what he wants for the college. 8. "By the way,
Staffy, who's going to be your best man?" 9. It had all started out of nothing and then they were hammer and tongs
with 'Emily saying all sorts of things she couldn't possibly have meant that she'd leave the house and never come
back that she was grudged every mouthful she ate oh! All sorts of silly things. 10. He'd be a fish out of water in
England. 11. After all, what's eight thousand pounds? A drop in the ocean. 12. There was a time when the black sheep
of the family was sent from my country to America; now apparently he's sent from your country to Europe. 13. I don't
want to be a skeleton at the feast, because I've been feeling very gratified myself, but I think it would be remiss not to
remind you that the thing's still open. 14. "What about them? Why my father should want to marry again at his age"
I can understand that," said Philip. "After all, he had rather 'a raw deal in marriage." 15. Don't be a dog in the manger,
Sheppey.
Exercise VIII. Translate the following zoosemic idioms; see whether there are corresponding idioms in in your
native language. A. 1. top dog; 2. clever dog; 3. dead dog; 4. dirty dog; 5. big dog; 6. red dog; 7. dumb dog; 8. gay
dog; 9. lazy dog; 10. lucky dog; 11. sea dog; 12. the black dog; 13. hot dog; 14. spotted dog; B. 1. milk cow; 2. the
fatted cow; 3. old bird; 4. the golden calf; 5. lost sheep; 6. cooked goose; 7. fighting cock; 8. old cat; 9. great lion;
10. dark horse; 11. dead horse.
Exercise XI. Comment on the changes the idioms have undergone in the following sentences. 1. The gleam of the sea
through the trees turned my thoughts to bathing. I dressed quickly and went out. Bob rose to meet me, waving an
absurdly long tail. The hatchet was definitely buried now. That little matter of the jug of water was forgotten. 2. One

had clearly got the idea this Brutt was out of a job; had he not said something about irons in the fire? 3. While Howard
stood there, his mouth open, not putting a face on it, not aggressive, for once undefiant. 4. If he "stuck in his heels" he
would go on mismanaging. 5. I hate the idea of Larry making such a mess of his life. 6. I was laying a trap for him; I
felt I couldn't play him such a dirty trick. 7. You'll have to be looking out for a nice safe investment then. Don't put too
many eggs into one basket, that's all. 8. It will put his foot right on the ladder. There's no one who deserves to have his
foot on the ladder more than young Eliot. 9. But now at eighty, with his curious second wind that I had seen before in
very old men, he could produce it again, far more vigorously than ten years before. 10. As soon as ever I can get a job
I'm going back to work. I've got several irons in the fire and I'm hoping to land something before long. Gosh, it'll be
good to be back home again. 11. Well, I've got two or three irons in the fire, which means I shall have to stick around
for a bit. 12. Are you certain Jenny will be Tony's tea. 13. As for offering him tenderness one ought to know that
gently, inexorably, he would throw it back in one's teeth. 14. And there were groups of young fellows kicking up a hell
of a row. 15. Perhaps after all it was there where the new world lay; in some almost impossible fusion whereby he
could eat his cake and have it. 16. By the time we'd paid expenses we weren't any better off than we'd been before. I
was at my wit's end. 17. Come, let us not beat about the bush. 18. The game is up, Martha you see, I know. 19. I
feel so terribly alone and so wrongly, full of self pity that I had to write to you if only to get things off my chest,
perhaps my letter will not reach you. 20. "And you say that Mr. Richmond, the plaintiff, did all those things?" "Yes,
My Lord, yes Mr. Stanmore?" said the judge, condescending to put the ball into play again. 21. Breathing heavily,
Bowen now x-ed out his original line of dialogue and typed: Gregory, you're just pulling my leg. 22. But he does make
me feel like a piece of china in a bull shop sometimes. 23. Antoine, the manservant, brought in a tray with an array of
bottles and Isabel, always tactful, knowing that nine men out of ten are convinced they can mix a better cocktail than
any woman (and they are right), asked me to shake a couple. 24. My common sense tells me that I'm making a
mountain out of a molehill. 5. The Duke with a slight smile made a modest gesture of protest. Machiavelli, his heart in
his mouth, for he knew that what he had to say was not what Duke wanted, went on blandly. 26. "Robinson. Nice
English name." He looked across to Horsham. "Large, yellow face?" he said. "Fat? Finger in financial pies generally?"
27. A nice little international pit he had thought, in which to dip his fingers, in which to platy about... 28. Stein was on
the rocks. But what rocks? In mid-ocean or near shore? Was he desperate or only resigned to uncomfortable
economies? 29. When the Master asked me to act as his deputy less than two months ago, I fully expected that before
this term was over he would be back in the s-saddle again. 30. Unfortunately, that cuts no ice with the Fellowship
examiners. 31. I've been hanging out of the window for the last five days to see you coming and every time the bell
rang my heart leapt to my mouth and I had all I could do to swallow it again. 32. Cut off your hair. I think this was
the first time that Jane jibbed. Her hair was long and thick and as a girl she had been quite vain of it; to cut it off was a
very drastic proceeding. This really was burning her boats behind her. In her case, it was not the first step, that cost so
much, it was the last. 33. Would she be arch, would she be familiar? Or would she put on airs?
Exercise XII. Comment on the changes the proverbs underwent in the following texts. 1. Of no city, in my
experience, is this much more true than of Paris. There high society seldom admits outsiders into its midst, the
politicians live in their own corrupt circle, the bourgeoisie, great and small, frequent one another, writers congregate
with writers, painters hobnob with painters and musicians with musicians. The same thing is true of London, but in a
less marked degree; there birds of a feather flock much less together... 2. When our ship comes home, she would say,
and at once sternly warn me about "counting our chickens before they are hatched". 3. Why the Court could meet in
the summer, couldn't it? Or if they were in a special hurry, what was to prevent them meeting here? If Mahomet can't
go to the mountain! Yes, indeed! 4. If you insist I'll admit that what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. 5.
"If she'd had character she'd have been able to make something of life." "If pots and pens... Aren't you very hard
Isabel?" 6. A mangoose in the hand is worth two cobras in the bush. 7. And always give 'em a bottle of medicine even
if you and the whole Pharmaceutical Society know it's useless even a straw's a comfort to a drowning man.

STYLISTICS OF THE WORD

The vocabulary of the English language is not homogeneous but presents a great variety of words to serve different
purposes and make our speech expressive, such as, stylistic words, emotive words and expressive words. The main
stock of the English vocabulary make neutral words that do not bear any coloring, as, man, girl, cold, green, to

go, to speak, to eat, to drink, to sleep, we, that and others; when used in speech these words simply state a
fact; they are used in any style of speech, are of neutral stylistic value and no emotive value is inherent in them.
Neutral words make the basis of any utterance. Words characteristic of a particular style of speech pos sess a stylistic
coloring or value. In Modern English two principal layers of stylistic value are distinguished: bookish or literary
words and colloquial words. Bookish words make a characteristic feature of official documents, of poetry, of technical
and scientific books, of fiction and literary works in high-flown style. Colloquial words are found in familiar and
informal speech, which may be standard and sub-standard? The distinctive feature of stylistic and emotive words is
that they do not directly affect the meaning of the utterance; they make it more emotional or refer it to a particular
style of speech. Emotive and stylistic words always are synonymous to neutral words, as, for instance, to commence'
(literary) has the synonym to begin (neutral); lad (colloquial) stands for, boy; the words to converse (literary)
and to chatter (colloquial) stand for to speak in corresponding styles of speech; the words to implore, to entreat,
to beseech are emotional and bear the emotive value and are synonyms for to ask. Words of a certain stylistic value
differ in valency from the corresponding neutral words and are preferably used in combination with words having the
same stylistic value, as, for instance, the words to begin and to commence; the first is of neutral stylistic coloring;
whereas the latter is a bookish word. "In official documents commence is appropriate: the play bill tells us the per formance will commence, though we ask each other when it begins. The grave historical style justifies
commence, we commence hostilities, though, we begin a quarrel; similarly we commence operations, but
merely begin dinner." In case the word is used in a not appropriate style a humorous effect is achieved as, for
instance, in the passage: Mr. Winkle, stooping forward with his body half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice
by Mr. Weller. The verb to assist is bookish and so here it is completely out of place, since it is applied to quite an
ordinary occasion.
Various types of bookish words may be distinguished: words that may be found in any text of bookish style, as:
elevate, consent, participate, error, proceed, comprise and others; special words or terms, that is words
denoting special things or expressing ideas of a particular branch of study. Every branch of science and technique has
their own terminology a set of special words and stable word-combinations, in most cases, nominal combinations.
Hence, there are mathematical terms, biological terms, linguistic, terms, phonological terms and others. Terms have a
narrow field of usage; their use is restricted to special books, scientific, technical or of other branches of study, as,
linguistics, philology, literature, art, music and others. Special terms are current and known only among those
who are specialists. Their meaning is usually more concrete and narrower than that of other words. Archaic words or
archaisms are words that are obsolete and are no longer in use but are found in poetry, official documents and in older
literary works; they may be also found in later prose of high-flown style. Archaism is an important source of sty listic
effect; it involves words, their meanings, idioms, grammatical structure and form, spelling and pronunciation.
Archaisms may be employed in poetry or in modern literary prose works as a stylistic device to give an ancient flavor.
In older texts they were not archaic but current at the time of writing. Take, for instance, the following lines from
Shakespeare's sonnet: In me thou see'st the twilight of such day. As after sunset fadeth in the west. The forms of the
verbs see'st and fadeth represent the normal inflexions at the time of Shakespeare; the same holds true for the
pronoun thou. In Modern English they are no longer in use and are archaic. In Byron's: Come hither, hither, my
little page! Why dost thou weep and wail? Or dost thou dread the billows' rage, Or tremble at the gale? The obsolete
inflexions (dost), thou as well as hither (here), billow (sea wave) are archaisms making a characteristic feature
of poetic diction. Neologisms are words derived or devised or introduced in a new sense for this particular situation by
the writer as a stylistic device, as, for instance, Thackeray's coinage of the word lordolatry or of the word
voordling; or again O'Henry's clepfopigia. These words are also called "nonce-words". Or take some recent
coinages, as: He was a fundamentalist coloristically.
None of these words are in use or are to be found in any dictionaries. Nonce-combinations of words are also
devised by creative writers for the sake of expressiveness, especially as complicated attributes, as: All these
language-of-the-streets and morals-of-the-gutter playwrights and writers are just a phase. Her face had that I'venever-done-a-day's-work-in-my-life Madonna mask.
These make a distinctive feature of the English language. Most of these writer's neologisms are found only in the
works of the writer as a characteristic feature of his style and some of them find their way into literary English and
become part and parcel of the English vocabulary, as, the word snob introduced by Thackeray in the meaning 'a

person respecting others on account of their high rank and wealth, or a person who despises others on account of their
low rank and lack of wealth'. Words of local coloring are words denoting things charac teristic of the life of the people
of a particular country; these are words that bear the ethnographical coloring; these are the names of national clothing,
of national customs, national food, songs, dances and so on. E.g.: kilt (part of Highland male dress), wigwam,
tomahawk, toreador, sombrero, samovar, geisha, and others.
Bookish words are mostly borrowings from foreign languages, from Latin, Greek and French in particular. Borrowed
words get assimilated, or anglicized, with the time; they acquire the pronunciation and the spelling affected by the
English language and take the inflexions of the English language; as a result of it loan words lose their foreign look
and do not betray their foreign origin; as, table (French), clerk (Lat.), easel (Dutch), window (Scand.), cork
(Spanish). These are fully assimilated words. The degree of assimilation, however, may be different there may be
non-assimilated words which display their foreign origin in pronunciation, spelling and do not take the English
inflexions, as: billet-doux, nuance, protg; they are in use for stylistic purposes or because they have no English
synonyms. Partly assimilated words may betray their foreign origin in a different way. To take only a few instances: in
caf the spelling is alien to the English language but its pronunciation is anglicized ['kfei] and the stress is shifted;
it is assimilated grammatically as the plural is cafes. The word communique displays its origin by its foreign
spelling and partly by its pronunciation. The spelling of stanza and fiasco betrays their Italian origin, but their
pronunciation and inflexions are anglicized ['stnz], [fi'skou], pi. stanzas, fiasco(es); chauffeur has the foreign
spelling and pronunciation but has derived the verb to chauff by back-formation, which is enough evidence of its
being fully assimilated. Bookish words are mostly polysyllabic as a large number of them are words of Romanic
origin; they are used mostly in books of elevated style or in books on science. Colloquial words are characteristic of
colloquial style of speech. This layer of the vocabulary is represented by shorter words, in most cases of one or two
syllables; from the point of view of their origin they are mostly Anglo-Saxon. We distinguish standard colloquial
words, which make part of Standard literary English, and sub-standard colloquial words belonging to unconventional
English. There is, however, no hard and fast borderline between these layers, and the elements of each layer are highly
mobile. Slang words, words of jargons, vulgar words are sub-standard and belong to unconventional English, as,
nicker (sl.), to nab (sl.), digs (sl.), damn (vulg.), bloody (vulg.), puss (vulg.), mug (vulg.), to wolf (vulg.),
boozer (vulg.). Slang makes speech expressive and emotional; it is often metaphorical, colorful, it evokes images;
slang is often represented by witty figurative coinages, as, for instance, sleep-producer (a dull performance) or:
"Open your peepers, Alexander, and just look, look, look." (H. Bates) Slang is one of the expressive stylistic features
of Modern English. Vulgar words make an utterance emotional and sometimes expressive; vulgar words belong to the
sub-standard, coarse layer of the vocabulary; they are employed in literary works as a stylistic device, usually to give a
characteristic feature of a low disreputable personage. Abbreviations constitute one of the distinctive features of
colloquialisms, as, gym, linodorm exam, phone, tech, baccy, sis, etc. Emotive words are words
expressing different kinds of emotions; they are employed to excite wonder, indignation, annoyance, contempt, joy
and other feelings. With some words emotional connotation makes part of the meaning of the word, as adore is much
more emotional than love, although both are designations of essentially the same feeling, or the verb to beseech is
much more emotional than to ask as it implies anxiety, entreaty. Supplication in to long is more emotional than in
to wish, as it implies yearnings, vehemence. There are words that express emotion when used in speech, as, great
and large, for instance, mean to understanding very much the same thing; but the former is an emotional word and
the latter is not. "If I say I found a large table in my room I am simply stating a fact; but if I say I found a great table
in my room, I am expressing my surprise or annoyance." In the sentence: "I'm awfully sorry I'm late", or "I'm
awfully glad to see you", the word awfully does not give anything to our understanding, does hot bear any additional
information, but makes the utterance emotional, intensifying the meaning of the adjectives, it stands for very,
extremely. Interjections are words that express merely emotions, surprise, annoyance, satisfaction, pain, anger, joy
and others, as, for instance: oh, hay, gosh. Sound imitation words may also be classed as expressive means of the
language; a characteristic feature of sound imitation words is their motivation, i. e. their phonemic structure presents
the imitation of sounds that are found in reality, so that new roots are created; the meaning of the word is closely
connected with its sounding; its motivation is clear. It may be imitation of sounds produced by birds or ani mals, as,
cuckoo, chirp, miaow, imitation of sounds in nature, as, splash, whirl, crack; imitations of sounds produced
by things when moving, as, rattle, buzz, hiss, rustle; imitation of sounds produced by people, as: giggle, murmur, hum,
and others. Sound imitative words are utilized for expressive purposes. These are the words that make up the stylistic
resources of the vocabulary, which may be placed at the disposal of the writer or the speaker. Bookish words create an
impression of solemnity, pathos, irony. Stylistics of the word is a source of expressiveness.
Exercises
Exercise I. Comment on the degree of the assimilation of the words in bold type. 1. He sent a note to his sister, via
his man Joseph and her maid Antoinette to ask her to come to the library so that they could have a talk. 2. I lit my lantern and dressed, bundled my things into my rucksack I hadn't got much, so it didn't take a minute and slipped

my arms through the straps. 3. On her marriage then Mrs Heccomb nee Miss Yardes had gone to' live at Seale, on the
Kentish coast... 4. We had a drink and walked along to a restaurant where he could lunch in the open air. 5. Jago
had supported me and ever since had borne me the special grateful affection that one feels toward protege. 6. They ate
in alternate mouthfuls, block chocolate and brioches. 7. He took her through narrow tortuous streets and after a while
stopped at a small hotel with a pretentious facade. 8. What she did see was the pension on the crag in Switzerland. 9.
We arranged to meet at the Dome next day to have an aperitif and eat at some place on the boulevard. 10. I said that
we proposed to spend the evening after hall working out a modus operandi. 11. But, as I expect you know, we have
to reckon with a certain amount of personalia. 12. While Bob and I held our wine, trying to gather up enough
courage to drink it, Mrs Wetherby got a stool out of a corner, knocked the carton full of magazines from it to the
floor, climbed up on it and began rummaging around in a high cupboard. 13. The main house, a Victorian grande
dame, was prickly with cupolas, little balconies and chimneys. 14. "Pearl!" he said, wiping his eyes. "What a
wonderful name for a desperado." 15. It was delicious, but I realized with sinking heart that smoking salmon bellies
would be added to my canning duties, and in order to learn I would probably have to spend at least a couple of days in
Clamface's or his brothers' wigwams, or wherever they lived. 16. The Swensens and Sharkey I didn't mind, but I did
not like the other Indians, and when they came to call I filled up Stove's reservoir with water and after I scrubbed the
house from top to bottom. 17. The orchestra of a piano, accordion, violin, trumpet and saxophone manned by
hard-working sweaty musicians. 18. The dance hall was very large and brilliantly lighted; festooned with dusty green
and pink crepe-paper steamers, heated to approximately ninety degrees and packed with dancers. 19. That's fine for
one chef d'oeuvre, but it gets to be a bore. 20. Anyway I reckon in a week's time I'll have a fully grown face fungus to
improve the picture, and I'll look like the only ascetic bon-vivant in town.
Exercise II. Pick out colloquialisms from the extracts below. 1. I've always been a good runner, quick and with a big
stride as well, the only trouble being that no matter how fast I run, and I did a very fair lick even though I do say so
myself, it didn't stop me getting caught by the cops after the bakery job. 2. And even when I jogtrot on behind a wood
and they can't see me anymore they know my sweeping-brush head will bob along that hedge top in an hour's time and
that I'll report to the bloke on the gate. 3. I feel like the first man because I've hardly got a stitch on and am sent
against the frozen fields in a shimmy and shorts. 4. And there are thousands of them all over the pox eaten country, in
shops, offices, railway stations, cars, houses, pubs In-law blokes like you and them, all on the watch for Out-law
blokes like me and us and watching to phone for the coppers as soon as we make a false move. 5. But even though
some people would call this frost-pain suffering if they wrote about it to their mams in a letter, I don't, because I know
that in half an hour I'm going to be warm that by the time I get to the main road and am turning on to the wheat field
footpath by the bus stop I'm going to feel as hot as a pot-bellied stove and as happy as a dog with a tin tail... 6. Don't I
come out three mornings a week on my long-distance running, which is fifty times better than boozing. 7. Borstal's
Borstal' no matter what they do; but anyway I moaned about it being a bit thick sending me out so early to run five
miles on art empty stomach, until they talked me round to thinking it' wasn't so bad which I knew all the time
until they, called me a good sport and patted me on the back when I said I'd do it and that I'd try to win them the
Borstal Blue Ribbon Prize Cup For Long Distance Cross Country Running (All England). 8. At the moment it's dead
blokes like him as have the whip-hand over blokes like me, and I'm almost dead sure it'll always be like that, but even
so, by Christ, I'd rather be like I am always on the run and breaking into shops for a packet of fags and a jar of jam
than have the whip-hand over somebody else and be dead from the toe nails up. 9. Borstal didn't hurt me in that
respect, so since I've got no complaints I don't have to describe what they gave us to eat, what the dorms were like, or
how they treated us.
10. But anyway, we were all kids then, and wanted to go out to the woods for a change, to get
away from the roads of stinking hot tar one summer. 11. But they never dreamed that what happened was going to
happen, just like the governor of the Borstal who spouts to us about honesty. 12. It's a good job I can only think of
these things as fast as I can write with this stub of pencil that's clutched in my paw, otherwise I'd have dropped the
whole thing weeks ago. 13. The time was autumn and the night foggy enough to set me and my mate Mike roaming
the streets when we should have been rooted in front of the telly or stuck into a plush posh seat at the pictures, but I
was restless after six weeks away from any sort of work and well you might ask me why I'd been bone-idle for so
long... 14. And when the dough ran out I didn't think about anything much, but just roamed the streets looking for
another job, I told mam hoping I suppose to get my hands on another five hundred nicker so's the nice life we'd got
used to could go on and on for ever. 15. To begin with, the adverts on the telly had shown us how much more there

was in the world to buy than we'd ever dreamed of when we'd looked into shop windows but hadn't seen all there was
to see because we didn't have the money to buy it with anyway.
Exercise III. Translate the following extracts. Comment on the alien words and word-combinations and their
stylistic function. 1. I started life with the ghastly monnicker George Plumb in 1934 in a suburban semi-detached four
miles from Birmingham's Bullring, where the sun bakes down every morning on a lot of snotty-nosed toreros with
their waterproof muletas shuffling through the sand on their way to their offices in New Street. My old man was one
such snotty-nosed torero and his daily corrida was performed in the District and National Bank. 2. "Well, I've
thought over this demarche of Getliff's." 3. I must leave these minutiae to the younger men. 4. They had given him
carte blanche, so here he was, dropping in. 5. Eddie brought one hand out of his pocket and pinched a heavy moire
fold of the curtain by which he stood. 6. Arts and crafts had succeeded Sturm und Drang. 7. On the whole, they
walked abreast out as far apart as they could; at times they converged so close that they jogged el bows, if they split up
into twos, the twos called across to each other this was daylight, there was no tete-a-tete. 8. The twitch of the coral
ball did not disturb the apathy of the library cat this furious mouser had been introduced when mice began to get at
the belles lettres, but he only worked by night. 9. The pause... was underlined by the swimming entrance of Phyllis,
who changed the plates and brought in a strawberry compote. 10. Whatever manias might possess him in solitude,
making some haunted landscape in which cupboards and tables looked like cliffs or opaque bottomless pools, the
effect (at least to a woman) coming in here was, that this was how this fundamentally plain and rather old-fashioned
fellow lived when en pantoufles. 11. "I'm not so young, as all that." "Well, in statu pupillari..." 12. "Respect's a
broad human instinct," said Mr Pippingham, letting one eye wander to meet the souffle. 13. "Well, goodbye. Bon
appetit," added Eddie, in a loud bitter tone. 14. When it came to my debut Mike De Cohn left nothing to chance. 15.
Now I've not promised her anything, but I suppose one says some pretty daft things in extremis and they're always the
things a bloke forgets and a girl remembers.
Exercise IV. Translate the sentences below. Pick out neologisms. Comment on the sphere of life where they
belong. 1. Among the motorists were hundreds who had spent the night in their cars in lay-bys after being caught up in
the giant crawl at the weekend. 2. After tea I rang him up. "Want a baby-sitter again tomorrow, Bob?" 3. "Aren't we
baby-sitting?" Susan asked. 4. You're the first person I ever met who had a king for a pin-up. 5. Blast-off and from
the launch pad the enormous rocket lifted slowly and majestically, its base shrouded in brilliant flame. 6. In
Cambridge, undergraduates voted yesterday to remove college gates as a symbol of solidarity. This followed a 24-hour
sit-in, when rooms near the University's Senate House were taken over. 7. Pulsars, pulsating stars first found by the
Mullard Radio-observatory at Cambridge earlier this year, give out absolutely regular bursts of energy at intervals of,
up to about one second. 8. More than half the pupils at Liverpool's Holt comprehensive school were sent home
yesterday when 14 teachers, members of the National Association of Schoolmasters, began a work-to-rule in support
of a salary claim. 9. The hovercraft has still to prove itself as a moneymaker for transport operations. 10. If he was to
lose a day's pay he was certainly intending to get the bliss of a lie-in.11. The diagram below shows the plan to orbit the
moon after blast-off tomorrow, until splashdown next Friday. 12. Carr's legislating aims to hamstring the right to
strike. 13. Communists object to concept of revolutionary suicide or revolutionary supermanism. 14. The manned linkup spaceships was the prototype of such a platform. 15. The announcement on completion of the flight programme
said space walkers, during their hour outside the spaceships "performed a number of assembly operations, took
pictures".
Exercise V. Set off sound imitation and sound imitative words.
1. It's a good life, I'm saying to myself, if you don't give in to coppers and Borstal-bosses and the rest of them
bastard-faced in-laws. Trot-trot-trot. Puff-puff-puff. Slap-slap-slap go my feet on the hard soil. Swish-swish-swish as
my arms and side catch the bare branches of a bush. 2. Suddenly he stopped in the path, opened his death-like jaws
and uttered a loud ha ha. 3. Well, it gives us the chance for a little ring-a-ding-ding eh? 4. There is a tat-tat-tat on
the door. 5. A nasty irritating tap-tapping noise it is, too. 6. Don't mind me, Bowen wanted to say to him: go
brrmmm, brrrmmm if you want to. 7. But when he expects the rope to come from the window he hears instead of this
someone who makes "rrrrrrUH, rrrrrrUH". 8. Then the next evening the Father goes to the street he makes "owr, owrowr" as he always does. 9. Brrr, it's cold as ice waiting here! Let me get in. 10. So when I visit her I make a dog "owr,
owr-owr" and she throws from her window a rope, which I climb. 11. "SSShh, talk quietly..." "Why?" 12. The syphon

hissed again. 13. His voice broke off instantly and banging the tray down on the slatted table, he strode to the veranda
rail. 14. It made her purr and rise on her hind legs to paw my shoulder as I crouched on the patio whistling to her in
the early afternoons. 15. He waited. The clock ticked.

The Etymology of the English Vocabulary

Some Basic Assumptions. The most characteristic feature of English is usually said to be its mixed character.
Many linguists consider foreign influence, especially, that of French, to be the most important factor in the history of
English. This wide-spread viewpoint is supported only by the evidence of the English word-stock, as its grammar and
phonetic system are very stable and not easily influenced by other languages. While it is altogether wrong to speak of
the mixed character of the language as a whole, the composite nature of the English vocabulary cannot be denied. To
comprehend the nature of the English vocabulary and its historical development it is necessary to examine the
etymology of its different layers, the historical causes of their appearance, their volume and role and the comparative
importance of native and borrowed elements in replenishing the English vocabulary. Before embarking upon a
description of the English word-stock from this point of view we must make special mention of some terms. 1. In
linguistic literature the term native is conventionally used to denote words of Anglo-Saxon origin brought to the
British Isles from the continent in the 5th century by the Germanic tribes-the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes.
Practically, however, the term is often applied to words whose origin cannot be traced to any other language. Thus, the
word path is classified as native just because its origin has not yet been established with any degree of certainty. It is
possible to conjecture that further progress of linguistic science may throw some light upon its origin and it may prove
to have been borrowed at some earlier period. It is for this reason that Professor A. I. Smirnitsky relying on the earliest
manuscripts of the English language available suggested another interpretation of the term native - as words which
may be presumed to have existed in the English word-stock of the 7th century. This interpretation may have somewhat
more reliable criteria behind it, but it seems to have the same drawback-both viewpoints present the native element in
English as static. In this book we shall proceed from a different understanding of the term native as comprising not
only the ancient Anglo-Saxon core but also words coined later on their basis by means of various processes operative
in English. 2. The term borrowing is used in linguistics to denote the process of adopting words from other languages
and also the result of this process, the language material itself. It has already been stated that not only words, but also
word-building affixes were borrowed into English (as is the case with -able, -ment, -ity, etc.)..!. It must be mentioned
that some word-groups, too, were borrowed in their foreign form (e.g., coup d'etat, vis-a-vis). In its second meaning
the term borrowing is sometimes used in a wider sense. It is extended onto the so-called translation-loans (or loantranslations) and semantic borrowing. Translation-loans are words and expressions formed from the material available
in the language after the patterns characteristic of the given language, but under the influence of some foreign words
and expressions (e. g. mother tongue< L. lingua materna; it goes without saying <Fr. cela vasans dire;. Semantic
borrowing is the appearance of a new meaning due to the influence of a related word' in another language (e.g. the
word propaganda and reaction acquired their political meanings under the influence of French, deviation and
bureau entered political vocabulary, as-in right and left deviations, Political bureau, under the influence of
Russian). Further on we shall use the term borrowing in its second meaning, as a borrowing proper or a word taken
over in its material form. Distinction should be made between true borrowings and words formed out of morphemes
borrowed from Latin and Greek, e.g. telephone, phonogram. Such words were never part of Latin or Greek and they
do not reflect any contacts with the peoples speaking those languages. It is of importance to note that the term
borrowing belongs to diachronic description of the word-stock. Thus the words wine, cheap, pound introduced by the
Romans into all Germanic dialects' long before the Angles and the Saxons settled on the British Isles, and such late
Latin loans as alibi, memorandum, stratum may all be referred to borrowings from the same language in describing
their origin, though in modern English they constitute distinctly different groups of words. 3. There is also certain
confusion between the terms source of borrowings and origin of the word. This confusion may be seen in
contradictory marking of one and the same word as, say, a French borrowing in one dictionary and Latin borrowing in
another. It is suggested here that the term source of borrowing should be applied to the language from which this or
that particular word was taken into English. So when describing words as Latin, French or Scandinavian borrowings
we point out their source but not their origin. The term origin o f the word should be applied to the language the word
may be traced to. Thus, the French borrowing table is Latin by origin (L. tabula), the Latin borrowing school came

into Latin from the Greek language (Gr, schole), so it may be described as Greek by origin. It should be remembered,
however, that whereas the immediate source of borrowing is as a rule known and can be stated with some certainty,
the actual origin of the word may be rather doubtful. For example, the word ink was borrowed from Old French, but it
may be traced back to Latin and still further to Greek (cf. Gr. kaio-), and it is quite possible that it was borrowed into
Greek from some other language. The immediate source of borrowing is naturally of greater importance for language
students because it reveals the extra-linguistic factors responsible for the act of borrowing, and also because the
borrowed words bear, as a rule, the imprint of the sound and graphic form, the morphological and semantic structure
characteristic of the language they were borrowed from.
Words of Native Origin. Words of native origin consist for the most part of very ancient elements-IndoEuropean, Germanic and West Germanic cognates. The bulk of-the Old English word-stock has been preserved,
although some words have passed out of existence. When speaking about the role of the native element in the English
language linguists usually confine themselves to the small Anglo-Saxon stock of words, which is estimated to make
25-30% of the English vocabulary. To assign the native element its true place it is not so important to count the
number of Anglo-Saxon words that have survived up to our days, as to study their semantic and stylistic character,
their word-building ability, frequency value, collocability.
Semantic Characteristics and Collocability. Almost all words of Anglo-Saxon origin belong to very important
semantic groups. They include most of the auxiliary and modal verbs (shall, will, must, can, may, etc.), pronouns (I,
you, he, my, his, who, etc.), prepositions (in, out, on, under, etc.), numerals (one, two, three, four, etc.) and
conjunctions (and, but, till, as, etc.). Notional words of Anglo-Saxon origin include such groups as words denoting
parts of the body (head, hand, arm, back, etc.), members of the family and closest relatives (farher, mother,
brother, son, wife), natural phenomena and planets (snow, rain, wind, sun, moon, star, etc.), animals (horse, cow,
sheep, cat), qualities and properties (old, young, cold, hot, light, dark, long), common actions (do, make, go, come,
see, hear, eat, etc.), etc. Most of the native words have undergone great changes in their semantic structure, and as a
result are nowadays polysemantic, e.g. the word finger does not only denote a part of a hand as in Old English, but
also 1) the part of a glove covering one of the fingers, 2) a finger-like part in various machines, 3) a hand of a clock, 4)
an index, 5) a unit of measurement. Highly polysemantic are the words man, head, hand, go, etc. Most native words
possess a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency. Many of them enter a number of phraseological units, e.g.
the word heel enters the following units: heel over head or head over heels- 'upside down'; cool one's heel-'be kept
waiting'; show a clean pair of heels, take to one's heels-'run away', turn on one's heels- 'turn sharply round', etc.
Derivational Potential. The great stability and semantic peculiarities of Anglo-Saxon words account for their
great derivational potential. Most words of native origin make up large clusters of derived and compound words in the
present-day language, e.g. the word wood is the basis for the formation of the following words: wooden, woody,
wooded, woodcraft, woodcutter, woodwork and many others. The formation of new words is greatly facilitated by
the fact that most Anglo-Saxon words are root-words. New words have been coined from Anglo-Saxon simple wordstems mainly by means of affixation, word-composition and conversion. Some linguists contend that due to the large
additions to its vocabulary from different languages, English lost much of its old faculty to form new words. The great
number of compound and derived words in modern English, the diversity of their patterns, the stability and
productivity of the patterns and the appearance of new ones testify to the contrary. Such affixes of native origin as
-ness, -ish, -ed, un- mis- make part of .the patterns widely used to build numerous new words throughout the whole
history of English, though some of them have changed their collocability or have become polysemantic, e.g. the agentforming suffix -er, which was in Old English mostly added to noun-stems, is now most often combined with verbstems, besides it has come to form also names of instruments, persons in a certain state or doing something at the
moment. Some native words were used as components of compounds so often that they have acquired the status of
derivational affixes (e. g. -dom, -hood, -ly, over-, out-, under-), others are now semi-affixational morphemes. It is
noteworthy that to the native element in English we must also refer some new simple words based on words of AngloSaxon origin. Words with a new non-derived stem branch off from primary simple words as a result of simplification
of some derivatives in a cluster of words and their semantic isolation, as in king, kind n, kind a and kin n, from
which all of them were derived (cp. OE. cyning, cynd, cynde, cyn), or bless and bleed derived from blood (cp. OE.
bledsian, bledan, blod). Sometimes a word split into two or more words with different forms and meanings (i.e.
etymological doublets) due to the difference in function and stress, as is the case with off and of (from OE. of which

was stressed as an adverb and unstressed as a preposition). Dialectal forms of a word may develop into independent
words, as in one and an (< OE. an), whole and hale (< OE. hal). New root-words based on Anglo-Saxon words also
came into being with the rise of homonyms owing to the split of polysemy. The semantic characteristics, stability and
wide collocability of native words account for their frequency in speech. However there are some words among them,
which are now archaic or poetic (e.g. lore, methinks, quoth? whilom, ere, welkin, etc.), or used only as historical
terms (e.g. thane, yeoman denoting ranks, stocks- 'an instrument of torture', etc.). What has been said above shows
that the native element, has been playing a significant role in the English language. To fully estimate the importance of
the native element in English, it is essential to study the role of English derivational means and semantic development
in the life of borrowings, which will be dwelt upon in the sections below.
BORROWINGS
Causes and Ways of Borrowing. In its 15 century long history recorded written manuscripts the English
language happened to come in long and close contact with several other languages, mainly Latin, French and Old
Norse (or Scandinavian). The great influx of borrowings from these sources can be accounted for by a number of
historical causes. Due to the great influence of the Roman civilization Latin was for a long time used in England as the
language of learning and religion. Old Norse was the language of the conquerors who were on the same level of social
and cultural development and who merged rather easily with the local population in the 9th, 10th and the first half of
the 11lth century. French (to be more exact its Norman dialect) was the language of the other conquerors who brought
with them a lot of new notions of a higher social system-developed feudalism, it was the language of upper classes, of
official documents and school instruction from the middle of the 11th century to the end of the 14th century. In the
study of the borrowed element in English the main emphasis is as a rule placed on the Middle English period.
Borrowings of later periods became the object of investigation only in recent years. These investigations have shown
that the flow of borrowings has been steady and uninterrupted. The greatest number has come from French. They refer
to various fields of social-political, scientific and cultural life. A large portion of borrowings (41%) is scientific and
technical terms. The number and character of borrowed words tell us of the relations between the peoples, the level of
their culture, etc. It is for this reason that borrowings have often been called the milestones of history. Thus if we go
through the lists of borrowings in English and arrange them in groups according to their meaning, we shall be able to
obtain much valuable information with regard to England's contacts with many nations. Some borrowings, however,
cannot be explained by the direct influence of certain historical conditions, they do not come along with any new
objects or ideas. Such were for instance the words air, place, brave, gay borrowed from French. It must be pointed
out that while the general historical causes of borrowing from different languages have been studied with a
considerable degree of thoroughness the purely linguistic reasons for borrowing are still open to investigation. The
number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of the
contacts, but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of languages concerned. The closer the
languages, the deeper and more versatile is the influence. This largely accounts for the well-marked contrast between
the French and the Scandinavian influence on the English language. Thus under the influence of the Scandinavian
languages, which were closely related to Old English, some classes of words were borrowed that could not have been
adopted from non-related or distantly related- languages (the pronouns they, their, them, for instance); a number of
Scandinavian borrowings were felt as derived from native words (they were of the same root and the connection
between them was easily seen), e.g. drop (AS.)- drip (Scand.), true (AS.)-tryst (Scand.); the Scandinavian influence
even accelerated to a certain degree the development of the grammatical structure of English. Borrowings enter the
language in two ways: through oral speech (by immediate contact between the peoples) and through written speech
(by indirect contact through books, etc.). Oral borrowing took place chiefly in the early periods of history, whereas in
recent times written borrowing gained importance. Words borrowed orally (e.g. L. inch, mill, street) are usually short
and they undergo considerable changes in the act of adoption. Written borrowings (e.g. Fr. communique, belles-lettres,
naivete) preserve their spelling and some peculiarities of their sound-form, their assimilation is a long and laborious
process.
Criteria of Borrowings. Though borrowed words undergo changes in the adopting language they preserve some
of their former peculiarities for a comparatively long period. This makes -it possible to work out some criteria for
determining whether the word belongs to the borrowed element. In some cases the pronunciation of the word (strange
sounds, sound combinations, position of stress, etc.), its spelling and the correlation between sounds and letters are an
indication of the foreign origin of the word. This is the case with waltz (G.), psychology (Gr.), souffle (Fr.), etc. The

initial position of the sounds [v], [d] [g] or of the letters x, j, z is a sure sign that the word has been borrowed, e.g.
volcano (It.), vase (Fr.), vaccine (L.), jungle (Hindi), gesture (L.), giant (OFr.), zeal (L.), zero (Fr.), zinc (G.), etc.
The morphological structure of the word and its grammatical forms may also bear witness to the word being adopted
from another language. Thus the suffix in neurosis (Gy.) betray the foreign origin of the word. The same is true of the
irregular plural forms papyra (from papyrus, Gr.), pastorali (from pastorale, It.), beaux (from beau, Fr.), bacteria (from
bacterium, L.) and the like. Last but not least is the lexical meaning of the word. Thus the concept denoted by the
words ricksha(w), pagoda (Chin.) make us suppose that we deal with borrowings. These criteria are not always
helpful. Some early borrowings have become so thoroughly assimilated that they are unrecognizable without a
historical analysis, e.g. chalk, mile (L.), ill, ugly (Scand.), enemy, car (Fr.), etc. It must also be taken into
consideration that the closer the relation between the languages, the more difficult it is to distinguish borrowings.
Sometimes the form of the word and its meaning in Modern English enable us to tell the immediate source of
borrowing. Thus if the digraph ch is sounded as [J], the word is a late French borrowing (as in echelon, chauffeur,
chef); if it stands for [k], it came through Greek (archaic, architect, chronology}; if it is pronounced as [tj'], it is either
an early borrowing (chose, OFr.; cherry, L., OFr.; chime, L.), or a word of Anglo-Saxon origin (choose, child, chin).
Assimilation of Borrowings. It is now essential to analyse the changes
borrowings have undergone in the English language and how they have adapted themselves to its peculiarities. All the
changes that borrowed elements undergo may be divided into two large groups. On the one hand there are changes
specific of borrowed words only. These changes aim at adapting words of foreign origin to the norms of the borrowing
language, e.g. the consonant combinations [pn], [ps], [pt] in the words pneumatics, psychology, Ptolemey of Greek
origin were simplified into [n], [s], [t], since the consonant combinations [ps], [pt], [pn], very frequent at the end of
English words (as in sleeps, stopped, etc.), were never, used in the initial position. For the same reason the initial [ks]
was changed into [z] (as in Gr. xylophone). The suffixes -ar, -or, -ator in early Latin borrowings were replaced by the
highly productive Old English suffix -ere, as in L. Caesar>0E'. Casere, L. sutor>OE. siitere. By analogy with the
great majority of nouns that form their plural in -s, borrowings, even very recent ones, have assumed this inflection
instead of their original plural endings. The forms Soviets, bolsheviks, kolkhozes, sputniks illustrate the process. On
the other hand we observe changes that are characteristic of both borrowed and native words. These changes are due
to the development of the word according to the laws of the given language. When the highly inflected Old English
system of declension changed into the simpler system of Middle English, early borrowings conformed with the
general rule. Under the influence of the so-called inflexional levelling borrowings like feolaga (MnE. fellow), straet
(MnE. street), disc (MnE. dish) that had a number of grammatical forms in Old English acquired only three forms in
Middle English: common case and possessive case singular and plural (fellow, fellowes, fellowes). It is very important
to discriminate between the two processes-the adaptation of borrowed material to the norms of the language and the
development of these words according to the laws of the language. This differentiation is not always easily
discernible. In most cases we must 'resort to historical analysis before we can draw any definite conclusions. There is
nothing in the form of the words procession and progression to show that the former was already used in England in
the 11th century, the latter not till the 15th century. The history of these words reveals that the word procession has
undergone a number of changes alongside with other English words (change in declension, accentuation, structure,
sounds),-whereas the word progression underwent some changes by analogy with the word procession and other
similar words already at the time of its appearance in the language.
Phonetic, Grammatical and Lexical Assimilation of Borrowings.
Since the process of assimilation of borrowings includes changes in sound-form, morphological structure, grammar
characteristics, meaning and usage linguists distinguish phonetic, grammatical and lexical assimilation of borrowings.
Phonetic assimilation comprising changes in sound-form and stress is perhaps the most conspicuous. Sounds that
were alien to the English language were fitted into its scheme of sounds. For instance, the long [e] and [e] in recent
French borrowings, alien to English speech, are rendered with the help of [ei] (as in the words communique,
chaussee, cafe). Familiar sounds or sound combinations the position of which was strange to the English language,
were replaced by other sounds or sound combinations to make the words conform to the norms of the language, e.g.
German spitz [pits] was turned into English [spits]. Substitution of native sounds for foreign ones usually takes place
in the very act of borrowing. But some words retain their foreign pronunciation for a long time before the unfamiliar
sounds are replaced by similar native sounds.
Even when a borrowed word seems at first sight to be identical in form with its immediate etymon as OE. skill <:
Scand. skil; OE. scinn < < Scand. skinn; OE. ran < Scand. ran the phonetic structure of the word undergoes some

changes, since every language as well as every period in the history of a language is characterized by its own
peculiarities in the articulation of sounds.
In words that were added to English from foreign sources, especially from French or Latin, the accent was
gradually transferred to the first syllable. Thus words like honour, reason were accented on the same principle as the
native father, mother.
Grammatical Assimilation. Usually as soon as words from other languages were introduced into English they lost
their former grammatical categories and paradigms and acquired new grammatical categories and paradigms by
analogy with other English words, as in Corn. sing. Sputnik Poss.
sing. Sputnik's Corn. pi. Sputniks Poss.
However, there are some words in Modern English that have for centuries retained their foreign inflexions.
Thus a considerable group of borrowed nouns, all of them terms or literary words adopted in the 16th century or later,
have preserved their original plural inflexion to this day, e.g. phenomenon (L.) -phenomena; addendum (L.)
-addenda; parenthesis (Gr.)-parentheses. Other borrowings of the same period have two plural forms-the native and
the foreign, e.g. vacuum (L.) - vacua, vacuums, virtuoso (It.) - virtuosi, virtuosos. All borrowings that were
composite in structure in their native language appeared in English as indivisible simple words, unless there were
already words with the same morphemes in it, e.g. in the word saunter the French infinitive inflexion -er is retained
(cf. OFr. s'aunter), but it has changed its quality, it is preserved in all the other grammatical forms of the word (cf.
saunters, sauntered, sauntering), which means that it has become part of the stem in English. The French reflexive
pronoun s- has become fixed as an inseparable element of the word. The former Italian diminishing suffixes -etto,
-otta, -ello(a), -cello in the words ballot, stiletto, umbrella cannot be distinguished without special historical
analysis, unless one knows the Italian language. The composite nature of the word portfolio is not seen either
(portafogli < porta - imperative of 'carry' + fogli-'sheets of paper'). This loss of morphological seams in borrowings
may be termed simplification by analogy with a similar process in native words. It must be borne in mind that when
there appears in a language a group of borrowed words built on the same pattern or containing the same morphemes,
the morphological structure of the words becomes apparent and in the course of time their word-building -elements
.can be employed to form new words.2 Thus the word bolshevik was at first indivisible in English, which is seen from
the forms bolshevikism, bolshe-vikise, bolshevikian entered by some dictionaries. Later on the word came to be
divided into the morphological elements bolshevik. The new morphological division can be accounted for by the
existence of a number of words containing these elements (bolshevism, bolshevist, bolshe-vise; sputnik, udarnik,'
menshevik). Sometimes in borrowed words foreign affixes are replaced by those available in the English language,
e.g. the inflexion -us in Latin adjectives was replaced in English with the suffixes -ous or-al: L. barbarus > > E.
barbarous; L. botanicus > E. botanical; L. balneus > E. balneal. Lexical Assimilation. When a word is taken over
into another language, its semantic structure as a rule undergoes great changes.
Polysemantic words are usually adopted only in one or two of their meanings. Thus the word timbre that had a
number of meanings in French was borrowed into English as a musical term only. The words cargo and cask, highly
polysemantic in Spanish, were adopted only in one of their meanings- 'the goods carried in a ship', 'a barrel for
holding liquids' respectively.
In some cases we can observe specialization of meaning, as in the word hangar, denoting a building in which
aeroplanes are kept (in French it meant simply 'shed') and revue, which had the meaning of 'review' in French and
came to denote a kind of theatrical entertainment in English. In the process of its historical development a borrowing
sometimes acquired new meanings that were not to be found in its former semantic structure. For instance, the verb
move in Modern English has developed the meanings of 'propose', 'change one's flat', 'mix with people' and others that
the French mouvoir does not possess. The word scope, which originally had the meaning of 'aim, purpose', now
means 'ability to understand', 'the field within which an activity takes place, sphere', 'opportunity, freedom of action'.
As a rule the development of new meanings takes place 50-100 years after the word is borrowed. The semantic
structure of borrowings changes in other ways as well. Some meanings become more general, others more specialized,
etc. For instance, the word terrorist, which was taken over from French in the meaning of 'Jacobin', widened its
meaning to 'one who governs, or opposes a government by violent means'. The word umbrella, borrowed in the
meaning of a 'sunshade' or 'parasol' (from It. ombrella < ombra- 'shade') came to denote similar protection from the
rain as well. Usually the primary meaning of a borrowed word is retained throughout its history, but sometimes it
becomes a secondary meaning. Thus the Scandinavian borrowings wing, root, take and many others have retained

their primary meanings to the present day, whereas in the OE. feolase (MnE. fellow) which was borrowed from the
same source in the meaning of 'comrade, companion', the primary meaning has receded to the background and was
replaced by the meaning that appeared in New English 'a man or a boy'. Sometimes change of meaning is the result of
associating borrowed words with familiar words which somewhat resemble them in sound but which are not at all
related. This process, which is termed folk etymology, often changes the form of the word in w^hole or in part, so as
to bring it nearer to the word or words with which it is thought to be connected, e.g. the French verb sur(o)under had
the meaning of 'overflow'. In English -r(o)under was associated by mistake with round and the verb was interpreted
as meaning 'enclose on all sides, encircle' (MnE. surround). Old French estandard (L. estendere-'to spread') had the
meaning of 'a flag, banner'. In English the first part was wrongly associated with the verb stand and the word
standard also acquired the meaning of 'something stable, officially accepted'. Folk etymologization is a slow
process; people first attempt to give the foreign borrowing its foreign pronunciation, but gradually popular use evolves
a new pronunciation and spelling. Another phenomenon which must also receive special attention is the formation of
derivatives from borrowed word-stems. New derivatives are usually formed with the help of productive affixes, often
of Anglo-Saxon origin. For instance: faintness, closeness, easily, nobly, etc. As a rule derivatives begin to appear
rather soon after the borrowing of the word. Thus almost immediately after the borrowing of the word sputnik the
words pre-sputnik, sputnikist, sputnikked, to out-sputnik were coined in English. Many derivatives were formed
by means of conversion, as in to manifesto (1748) < manifesto (It., 1644); to encore (1748) < encore (Fr., 1712); to
coach (1612) < coach (Fr., 1556). Similarly hybrid compounds were formed, e.g. faint-hearted, ill-tempered,
painsta king.
Degree of Assimilation and Factors Determining It. Even a superficial examination of borrowed words in the
English word-stock shows that there are words among them that are easily recognized as foreign (such as decollete,
facade, Zeitgeist, voile) and there are others that have become so firmly rooted in the language, so thoroughly
assimilated that it is sometimes extremely difficult to distinguish them from words of Anglo-Saxon origin (these are
words like pupil, master, city, river, etc.).
Unassimilated words differ from assimilated ones in their pronunciation, spelling, semantic structure, frequency
and sphere of application. However, there is no distinct border-line between the two groups. There are also words
assimilated in some respects and unassimilated in others, they may be called partially assimilated. Such are
communique, detente not yet assimilated phonetically, phenomenon (pi. phenomena), graffito (pi. graffiti)
unassimilated grammatically, etc. 'So far no linguist has been able to suggest more or less comprehensive criteria for
determining the degree of assimilation of borrowings. The degree of assimilation depends in the first place upon the
time of borrowing. The general principle is: the older the borrowing, the more thoroughly it tends to follow normal
English habits of accentuation, pronunciation, etc. It is natural that the bulk of early borrowings have acquired full
English citizenship and that most English speaking people are astonished on first hearing, that such everyday words as
window, chair, dish, box have not always belonged to their language. Late borrowings often retain their foreign
peculiarities. However mere age is not the sole factor. Not only borrowings long in use, but also those of recent date
may be completely made over to conform to English patterns if they are widely and popularly employed. Words that
are rarely used in everyday speech, that are known to a small group of people retain their foreign peculiarities. Thus
many 19th century French borrowings have been completely assimilated (e.g. turbine, clinic, exploitation,
diplomat)^ whereas the words adopted much earlier noblesse [no'bles] (ME.), ennui [a'nwi:] (1667), eclat [el'klcci
(1674) have not been assimilated even in point of pronunciation. Another factor determining the process of
assimilation is the way in which the borrowing was taken over into the language. Words borrowed orally are
assimilated more readily, they undergo greater changes, whereas with words adopted through writing the process of
assimilation is longer and more laborious.
INTERRELATION BETWEEN NATIVE AND BORROWED ELEMENTS
The Role of Native and Borrowed Elements. The number of borrowings in Old English was meagre. In the Middle
English period there was an influx of loans. It is often contended that since the Norman conquest borrowing has been
the chief factor in the enrichment of the English vocabulary and as a result there was a sharp decline in the
productivity of word-formation. Historical evidence, however, testifies to the fact that throughout its entire history,
even in the periods, of the mightiest influxes of borrowings, other processes, no less intense, were in operation-word-

formation and semantic development, which involved both native and borrowed elements. If the estimation of the role
of borrowings is based on the study of words recorded in the dictionary, it is easy to overestimate the effect of the loan
words, as the number of native words is extremely small compared with the number of borrowings recorded. The only
true way to estimate the relation of the native to the borrowed element is to consider the two as actually used in
speech. If one counts every word used, including repetitions, in' some reading matter, the proportion of native to
borrowed words will be quite different. On such a count, every writer uses considerably more native words than
borrowings. Shakespeare, for example, has 90%, Mi 1 ton 81 %, Tennyson 88%1. This shows how important is the
comparatively small nucleus of native words. Different borrowings are marked by different frequency value. Those
well established in the vocabulary may be as frequent in speech as native words, whereas others occur very rarely.
The Influence of Borrowings. The great number of borrowings in English left some imprint upon the language.
influence is observed in the volume of its vocabulary. Due to its history the English language, more than any other
modern language, has absorbed foreign elements in its vocabulary. But the adoption of foreign words must not be
understood as mere quantitative change. Any importation into the lexical system brings about semantic and stylistic
changes in the words of this language and changes in its synonymic groups. It has been mentioned that when
borrowed words were identical in meaning with those already in English the adopted word very often displaced the
native word. In most cases, however, the borrowed words and synonymous native words (or words borrowed earlier)
remained in the language, becoming more or less differentiated in meaning and use. Cf., e.g., the sphere of application
and meaning of feed and nourish, try and endeavour, meet and encounter. As a result the number of synonymic
groups in English greatly increased. The synonymic groups became voluminous and acquired many words rarely used.
This brought about a rise in the percentage of stylistic synonyms.
Influence of Borrowings on the Semantic Structure of Words. As a result of the differentiation in meaning
between synonymous words many native words or words borrowed earlier narrowed their meaning or sphere of
application. Thus the word stool of Anglo-Saxon origin, which in Old English denoted any article of furniture
designed for sitting on, under the influence of the French borrowing chair came to be used as the name for only one
kind of furniture. Due to borrowings some words passed out of the literary national language and have become
dialectal. Another instance of foreign influence upon the semantic structure of some English words is semantic
borrowing, i.e. the borrowing of meaning from a word in a foreign language. This often takes place in English words
having common roots with some words in another language (international words today reflect this process best), e.g.
the words pioneer and cadres which are international words have acquired new meanings under the influence of the
Russian and . Sometimes English words acquire additional meanings under the influence of related
words having quite different roots, e.g. the political meanings of shock and deviation have come from the Russian
and .
Influence of Borrowings on the Lexical Territorial Divergence. Abundant borrowing intensified the difference
between the word-stock of the literary national language and dialects. On the one hand, a number of words were
borrowed into the literary national language which are not to be found in the dialects (such as literary words,
scientific and political terminology, etc.). In a number of cases the dialects have preserved some Anglo-Saxon words
which were replaced by borrowings in the literary language. Thus the Scotch dialect has preserved such words as ken
- (OE. cennan); eke - dobavlenie (OE. eaca); eath - , (OE. ease); fleme -
(OE. flyman). On the other hand, a number of words were borrowed into dialects and are used throughout
the country. Thus, the Scottish and Irish dialects have suffered much greater Celtic influence than the literary national
language or the Southern dialect, as the Celtic languages were longer spoken in Scotland and Ireland - some sections
of the population use them even now. The Irish dialect, for example, has the following words of Celtic origin:
shamrock-trilistnic, dun-holm, colleen - devushka, shillelagh - dubinka, etc. In the Northern, Scottish and
Eastern dialects there are .many more Scandinavian borrowings than in the national literary language as most
Scandinavian settlements were found in the north of the country, e.g. busk - 'get ready'; fell-'hill'; mun-'mouth';
wapentake-'division of shire'. Some Scandinavian borrowings ousted native words in dialects. Since many of these
words were of the same root a great number of etymological doublets appeared, e.g. dag-dew, kirk-church, benkbench, kist-chest, garth-yard, loup-leap, etc.
Influence of Borrowings on the Word-Structure, Word-Clusters and the System of Word-Building. The
great number of. borrowings could not but leave a definite imprint on the morphological structure of words in

English. A number of new structural types appeared in the language. This took place when the morphological
structure of borrowings, obscured. at the time of adoption, became transparent in the course of time and served as a
pattern for new formations. Among the affixes which can be considered borrowed by English some are highlyproductive and can combine with native and borrowed items (e.g. re-, inter-, -able, -er, -ism, etc.), others are not so
productive and combine only with Romanic stems (co-, de-, trans-, -al, -cy, -ic, -ical, etc.), still others are often met
with in borrowed words, but do not form any new words in English (-ous, -ive, -ent, etc.). Some borrowed affixes
have even ousted those of native origin, e.g. in Modern English the prefix pre- expressing priority of action has
replaced the native prefix fore-, which was highly productive in Middle English and early New English, especially in
the 16-17th centuries. Another imprint of borrowings on the structural types of words in English is the appearance of a
great number of words with bound morphemes, such as tolerate, tolerable, tolerance, toleration, etc. Clusters of
words in English also underwent some changes-both quantitative and qualitative-due to the influx of borrowings. On
the one hand, many clusters of words were enlarged. Not only were new derivatives formed with the help of borrowed
affixes, but some borrowings entered the clusters of words already existing in English. Mention has already been
made of Scandinavian borrowings like drip. Some Latin and French borrowings entered the clusters of words
borrowed from Romanic languages before, e.g. when the French borrowings exploitation, mobilization, militarism,
employee, personnel, millionaire were taken over into English in the 19th century, they occupied the position of
derivatives of the words exploit, mobilize, etc. borrowed much earlier. On the other hand, the influx of borrowings in
English has changed the very nature of word-clusters which now unite not only words of the same root-morpheme,
but also of different synonymous root-morphemes, as in spring-vernal, two-second, dual, sea-maritime, etc.
Influence of Borrowings on the Phonetic Structure of Words and the Sound System. As a result of intense
borrowing there appeared in the English language a number of words of new phonetic structure with strange sounds
#nd sound combinations, or familiar sounds in unusual positions. Such are the words with the initial [ps], [pn], [pt] (as
in Gr. psilanthropism) which are used in English alongside with the forms without the initial sound [p]. If there
were many borrowed words containing a certain phonetic peculiarity, they influenced to some extent the sound
system of the language. Thus abundant borrowing from French in the Middle English period accounts for the
appearance of a new diphthong in English-[oi], which, according to Prof. B. A. Ilyish, could not have developed from
any Old English sound or sound combination, but came into English together with such French words as point, joint,
poise. The initial [sk], which reappeared in English together with Scandinavian and other borrowings, is nowadays a
common beginning for a great number of words. Abundant borrowing also brought about some changes in the
distribution of English sounds, e.g. the Old English variant phonemes [f] and [v] developed into different phonemes,
that is [v] came to be used initially (as in vain, valley, vulgar) and [f] in the inter vocal position (as in effect, affect,
affair) which was impossible in Old English. The affricate [ds], which developed at the beginning of the Middle
English period and was found at the end or in the middle of words (as in bridge-of, brics;), under the influence of
numerous borrowings came to be used in the initial position (as in jungle, journey, gesture).

The Enrichment (Replenishment) of the English Word-Stock

Interdependence of Various Aspects of the Word. The foregoing description of the word dwelt on its structural,
semantic, stylistic and etymological peculiarities separately. In actual speech all these aspects are closely interrelated
and interdependent and the pattern of their interdependence largely preconditions the comparative value and place of
the word in Modern English. This interdependence is most vividly brought out in the frequency value attached to the
words in the language. However it must be pointed out that frequency value alone, important as it is, is not an
adequate criterion to establish the most important relationships between words or the most useful section of
vocabulary.
Notional and Word Forms. The frequency distribution singles out two
classes, all the words of the language fall into: the so-called notional w o r d s, the largest class, having a low
frequency of occurrence in comparison with a numerically small group of the so-called form or function words. Form
words in terms of absolute figures make a specific group of about 150 units. Notional words constitute the bulk of the
existing word-stock; according to the recent counts given for the first 1000 most frequently occurring words they
make 93% of the total number. The results of these counts1 (given below graphically) show the numerical interrelation
of the two classes. we observe that the verbs (to) keep and (to) turn develop meanings peculiar to form words without

breaking ^'ith the class of notional words. All notional lexical units are traditionally subdivided into parts of speech,
i.e. lexical-grammatical classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Nouns numerically make the largest class-about
39%, verbs come second-25% of all notional words, they are followed by adjectives -17% and adverbs making 12%,
the smallest group of notional words. The frequency value of words show that the form words, though insignificant in
terms of absolute figures, constitute the most frequent group of words inseparably bound up with almost all patterns
notional words are used in. It is interesting to note that the first ten words in order of frequency are: the, of, and, to, a,
in, that, is, was, he. The high frequency value of these 150 function words accounts for the fact that this small group
makes up approximately half the lexical items of any English text. The frequency value of different lexicalgrammatical classes of notional words also shows a different distribution as compared with the absolute figures for the
same classes, as it is the verbs that prove to be words of highest frequency and greatest potential collocability.
Frequency, Polysemy and Structure. The interdependence of various features of the word may be easily
observed through a comparative analysis of these aspects in relation to any chosen individual feature. Thus choosing,
for example, the semantic structure as a starting point we observe that there is a certain interdependence between the
number of meanings in a word and its structural and derivational type, its etymological character, its stylistic
reference. The analysis may start with any other aspect of the word - its structure, style or origin - it will generally
reveal the same type of interdependence of all the aspects. Words of highest frequency, those that come into the first
2000 of most frequently occurring words all tend to be polysemantic and structurally simple. It should be noted,
however, that structure and etymology by themselves are not always indicative of other aspects of the word-simple
words are not necessarily polysemantic, words that etymologically belong to late borrowings may be simple in
structure. Frequency most clearly reflects the close interconnection between polysemy and the structure of the word.
The higher the frequency, the more polysemantic is the word, the simpler it is in structure. The latest data of linguistic
investigation show that the number of meanings is inversely proportional to the number of morphemes the word
consists of. Derived and compound words rarely have high frequency of occurrence and are rarely polysemantic.
Comparison of the words, members of the same word-cluster, for example heart-hearty-heartily-heartlessheartiness- heartsick shows that it is the simple word of the cluster heart that is -marked by the highest freguency (it
belongs to the first 500 most frequently occurring words). We also find that .the word is highly polysemantic, heart
has 6 meanings.1 Other members of the cluster which are all polymorphic and complex have fewer meanings and
many of them are practically monosemantic, e.g. hearty has 3 meanings, heartily -2 and the rest only 1. All of these
words have much lower frequences as compared with the simple member of the cluster-heartily belongs to the 6th
thousand, heartless to the 13th, heartiness and heartsick to the 20th thousand. The same is observed in the simple
word man having 9 meanings and polymorphic derived words manful, manly, manliness, which have only one
meaning, etc. Thus the interdependence of frequency, polysemy and structure manifests itself not only in the
morphemic structure of the word, but also in its derivational structure. Derived words are as a rule poorer in the
number of meanings and have much lower frequencies than the corresponding simple words though they may be
morphemically identical. It may be very well exemplified by nouns and verbs formed by conversion, e.g. the simple
noun hand has 15 meanings while the derived, verb (to) hand has only one meaning and covers only 4% of the total
occurrences of both.
Frequency and Sfylistic Reference. Frequency is also indicative of the interdependence between polysemy,
stylistic reference and emotive charge. It can easily be observed in any group of synonyms. Analysing synonymic
groupings like make-manufacture-fabricate; heavy-ponderous-weighty-cumbrous; gather-assemble; facecountenance-mug we find that the neutral member of the synonymic group, e.g. make (the first 500 words) has 28
meanings, whereas its literary synonyms manufacture (the 2nd .thousand) has 2 and fabricate (the 14th thousand)
which has a narrow, specific stylistic reference has only one meaning. A similar relation is observed in other
synonymic groups. The inference, consequently, is that stylistically neutral vocabulary units tend to be polysemantic
and to have higher frequency value, whereas words of narrow or specific stylistic reference or nonliterary vocabulary
units are mostly monosemantic and have a low frequency value. The following examples may serve as illustration: the
neutral word horse, in addition to its basic meaning, has the meanings-'a frame', 'a rope', 'cavalry'; its poetic synonym
steed has only one meaning. The neutral word face forms a variety of word-groups in its basic meaning, in addition, it
has at least 3 more meanings-'boldness', 'impudence', e.g. to have the face to do smth; 'an outer part', 'a surface', e.g.
the face of a coin, the face of a clock. The word face also enters a number of phraseological units, e.g. to put a new

face on a matter, on the face of it. Its literary bookish synonym countenance has only two meanings and a much
poorer collocability; its third synonym mug belongs to slang, has a heavy emotive charge, is monosemantic and its
lexical valency is greatly restricted. The frequency values of these words speak for themselves -face belongs to the
first 500 words, countenance to the 4th thousand and mug to the 6th thousand of the most frequently occurring
words.
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
characterized 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.! 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. smael;
little from OE. lytel; diminutive from Fr.<. L. diminutivus; petite from Fr. petite; viee' (Scand. origin) from ME.
wei, wee, we; tiny (origin dubious) from ME. tine; minute from Fr.< L. minuta; microscopic from Gr. mikros + Gr.
scopos; miniature from lt.< 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 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.
Frequency and Semantics. 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',
e.g. the exact time, smb's exact words, etc. and 'capable of being precise', e.g. exact observer, exact memory. The
comparison of the frequencies 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.
Development of Vocabulary. As has been already mentioned, no vocabulary of any living language is ever stable
but is constantly changing, growing and decaying. The changes occurring in the vocabulary are due both to linguistic
and non-linguistic causes, but in most cases to the combination of both. Words may drop out altogether as a result of
the disappearance of the actual objects they denote, e.g. the OE'. wunden-stefna- 'a curved-stemmed ship'; garspear,
dart'; some-words were ousted1 as a result of the influence of Scandinavian and French borrowings, e.g. the

Scandinavian take and die ousted the OE. niman and sweltan, the French army and place replaced the OE. here and
stabs. Sometimes words do not actually drop out but become obsolete, sinking to the level of vocabulary units used in
narrow, specialized fields of human intercourse making a group of archaisms: e.g. billow-'wave'; welkin-'sky';
steed-'horse'; slay-'kill' are practically never used except in poetry; words like halberd, visor, gauntlet are used only
as historical terms. Yet the number of new words that appear in the language is so much greater than those that drop
out or become obsolete, that the development of vocabularies may be described as a process of never-ending growth.
The appearance of a great number of new words and the development of new meanings in the words already
available in the language may be largely accounted for by the rapid flow of events, the progress of science and
technology and emergence of new concepts in different fields of human activity. The influx of new words has never
been more rapid than in the last few decades of this century. Estimates suggest that during the past twenty-five years
advances in technology and communications media have produced a greater change in our language than in any
similar period in history. The specialized vocabularies of aviation, radio, television, medical and atomic research, new
vocabulary items created by recent development in social history-all are part of this unusual influx. Thus war has
brought into .English such vocabulary items as blackout, fifth-columnist, paratroops, A-bomb, V-Day, etc.; the
development of science gave such words as hydroponics, psycholinguistics, polystyrene, radar, cyclotron, meson,
positron; antibiotic, etc.; 1 the conquest and research of cosmic space by the Soviet people gave birth to sputnik,
lunnik, babymoon, space-rocket, space-ship, space-suit, moonship, moon crawler, lunokhod, etc. The growth of
the vocabulary reflects not only the general progress made by mankind but also the peculiarities of the way of life of
the speech community in which the new words appear, the way its science and culture tend to develop. The peculiar
developments of the American way of life for example find expression in the vocabulary items like taxi-dancer-, 'a
girl employed by a dance hall, cafe, cabaret to dance with patrons who pay for each dance'; to job-hunt-'to search
assiduously for a job'; the political life of America of to-day gave items like witch-hunt-'the screening and subsequent
persecution of political opponents'; ghostwriter-'a person engaged to write the speeches or articles of an eminent
personality'; brinkmanship-'a political course of keeping the world on the brink of war'; sitdowner-'a participant of a
sit-down strike'; to sit in-'to remain sitting in available places in a cafe, unserved in protest of Jim Crow Law'; a
sitter-in; a lie-in oralie-down-'a lying down of a group of people in a public place to disrupt traffic as a form of
protest or demonstration'; to nuclearize - 'to equip conventional armies with nuclear weapons'; nuclearization;
nuclearism-'emphasis on nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war or as a means of attaining political and social goals'.
Structural and Semantic Peculiarities of New Vocabulary Units. It must be mentioned as a noteworthy
peculiarity that new vocabulary items in Modern English belong only to the notional parts of speech, to be more exact,
only to nouns, verbs and adjectives; of these nouns are most numerous. New vocabulary units are as a rule
monosemantic and most of them are marked by peculiar stylistic value-they primarily belong to the specialized
vocabulary. Neutral words and phrases are comparatively few. Terms used in various fields of science and technique
make the greater part of new words. The analysis of the development of the vocabulary of Modern English shows that
there are two aspects of the growth of the language-the appearance of new lexical items which increase the vocabulary
numerically and the appearance of new meanings of old words.
New vocabulary units are mostly the result of the new combinations of old elements. Entirely new lexical items make
an insignificant section of vocabulary.
Structurally new vocabulary items represent two types of lexical units: words, e.g. blackout, microfilm-reader,
unfreeze, and word-groups, mostly phraseological units, e.g. blood bank-'a place where blood plasma are stored';
atomic pile-'reactor', etc. Words in their turn comprise various structural types: a) simple words, e.g. jeep -'a small,
light motor vehicle esp. for military use'; zebra - 'street crossing-place, marked by black and white stripes'; b) derived
words, such as collaborationist-'one who in occupied territory works helpfully with the enemy'; centrism-'a middleof-the road or a moderate position in polities', a preppie - 'a student or graduate of a preparatory school (si.)'; e)
compounds, e.g. corpsman (mil.) - 'a member of a hospital squad trained to administer first aid to wounded
servicemen', script-show - 'a serial program on radio and television'; house-husband - U.S. 'a married man who
manages a household', etc. The analysis of new words for their derivational structure shows a marked predominance
of derived and compound words and a rather small number of simple words. Word-groups comprise a considerable
part of vocabulary extension. Structurally, the bulk of the word-groups belongs to the attributive-nominal type built on
the A + N and N + formulas, e.g. frequency modulation, jet engine, total war, Common Marketeer, machine time,

etc. Word-groups and different types of words are unequally distributed among various lexical stylistic groups of the
vocabulary, with a predominance of one or another type in every group. For example, new words in the field of
science are mostly of derived and compound structure but the technical section of the vocabulary extension is
characterised by simple words. The greater part of word-groups is found among scientific and technical terms; the
political layer of vocabulary is rather poor in word-groups. Besides this peculiar distribution of different types of
words, every type acquires its own specific peculiarity in different lexical stylistic groups of the vocabulary, for
example, although derived words are typical both of scientific and technical terms, words formed by conversion are
found mostly among technical terms.
WAYS AND MEANS OF ENRICHING THE VOCABULARY
There are two ways of enriching the vocabulary as has been mentioned above: A. vocabulary extension the appearance
of new lexical items. New vocabulary units appear mainly as a result of: 1. productive or patterned ways of wordformation; 2. non-patterned ways of word-creation; 3. borrowing from other languages. B. semantic extension - the
appearance of new meanings of existing words which may result in homonyms.
Productive Word-Formation Productive. Productive word-formation is the most effective means of enriching
the vocabulary. The most widely used means are affixation (prefixation mainly for verbs and adjectives, suffixation for
nouns and adjectives), conversion (giving the greatest number of new words in verbs and nouns) and composition
(most productive in nouns and adjectives). 'New' words that appear as a result of productive word-formation are not
entirely new as they are all made up of elements already available in the language. The newness of these words resides
in the particular combination of the items previously familiar to the language speaker. As has already been mentioned
productivity of derivative devices that give rise to novel vocabulary units is fundamentally relative and it follows that
there are no patterns, which can be called 'fully' productive. Productive patterns in each part of speech, with a set of
individual structural and semantic constraints, serve as a formal expression of the regular semantic relationship
between different classes or semantic groupings of words. Thus the types of new words that may appear in this or that
lexical-grammatical class of words can be predicted with a high degree of probability. The regularity of expression of
the underlying semantic relations, firmly rooted in the minds of the speakers, make the derivational patterns
bidirectional rules, that is, the existence of one class of words presupposes the possibility of appearance of the other
which stands in regular semantic relations with it. This can be clearly observed in the high degree of productivity of
conversion. For instance the existence and frequent use of the noun denoting an object presupposes the possibility of
the verb denoting an action connected with it, e.g. the nouns stream, sardine, hi-fi, timetable, lead to the appearance
of verbs to stream -'to divide students into separate classes according to level of intelligence', to sardine-'to pack
closely'; to hifi-'to listen to hi-fi recordings'; to timetable 'to set a timetable'. Similarly a verb denoting an action
presupposes a noun denoting an act, result, or instance of this action as in the new words, e.g. a holdup, a
breakdown, a layout, etc.
The clarity and stability of the structural and semantic relations underlying productive patterns allows of certain
stretching of individual constraints on the structure and meaning of the derivational bases making the pattern highly
productive. Highly productive patterns of this type are not many. The derivational affixes which are the ICs of these
patterns such as -ness, -er, mini-, over- become unusually active and are felt according to some scholars "productive
as individual units" as compared to affixes "productive in a certain pattern, but not in another." The suffixal nominal
patterns with suffixes -ness and -er deserve special mention. The suffix -ness is associated with names of abstract
qualities and states. Though it is regularly added to adjectival bases, practically the range of bases the suffix can be
collocated with is both structurally and semantically almost unlimited, e.g. otherness, alone-ness, thingness, oneness,
well-to-doness, out-of-the-placeness, etc. The only exception is the verbal bases and the sphere of the derivational
pattern a + -ity -> N The nominal suffix -er denoting an active doer may serve as another example. The suffix gives
numerous suffixal and compound nouns and though it is largely a deverbal suffix as in brain-washer, a doubletalker, a sit-inner new nouns are freely formed from bases of other parts of speech, e.g. a roomer, a YCLer, a onewinger, a ganger, etc. Yet the bulk of productive patterns giving rise to freely-formed and easily predictable lexical
classes of new words have a set of rigid structural and semantic constraints such as the lexical-grammatical class and
structural type of bases,2 the semantic nature of the base, etc. The degree of productivity is also connected with a
certain power of analogy attached to each pattern.

The following productive types giving the greatest number of new vocabulary items may be mentioned: deverbal
suffixal adjectives denoting passive possibility of the action, e.g. attachable, acceptable, livable-in, likeable, etc.;
prefixal negative adjectives formed after two patterns: 1) e.g. unguarded, unheard-of, unbinding, etc., 2) e.g.
unsound, uncool, especially with deverbal adjectival bases as in unthinkable, unquantifiable, unavoidable,
unanswerable, etc.; prefixal verbs of repetitive meaning (re- + + v->- V), e.g. rearrange, re-train, remap, etc.;
prefixal verbs of reversative meaning (un- + v->V), e.g. uncap, unbundle, unhook, undock, etc.; derivational
compound adjectives denoting possession e.g. flat-bottomed, long-handled, heavy-lidded, etc. The greater part of
new compound nouns are formed after pattern, e.g. wave-length, sound-track, etc.
The bidirectional nature of productive derivational patterns is of special interest in connection with back-derivation as
a source of new verbs. The pattern of semantic relationship of the action and its active doer, the action and the name of
the process of this action are regularly represented in Modern English by highly productive nominal patterns with
suffixes -er and -ing. Hence the noun whose structure contains this suffix or may be interpreted as having it is
understood as a secondary unit motivated by a verb even if the verb does not actually exist. This was the case with
editor, baby-sitter, housekeeping, a new "simpler" verb was formed to fill the gap. The noun was felt as; derived and
the "corresponding" verb was formed by taking the suffix or the suffix-like sound-cluster away. The following verbs,
e.g. to beg, to edit, to stage-manage, to babysit, to dress-make are the results of back-formation. Back-derivation as
a re-interpretation of the derivational structure is now growing in productivity but it functions only within the
framework of highly productive patterns with regular" and transparent derivative relations associated formally with a
certain suffix. Many new back-derived verbs are often stylistically marked as colloquial, e.g. enthuse from
enthusiasm, playact from play-acting, tongue-tie from tongue-tied, sight-see from sight-seeing. The correct
appraisal of the role of productive word-formation and its power to give analogic creations would be incomplete if one
does not take into account the so-called occasional or potential words. Built on analogy with the most productive types
of derived and compound words, easily understood and never striking one as "unusual" or "new" they are so numerous
that it is virtually impossible to make conversation to-day, to hear a speech or to read a newspaper without coming
across a number of words which are new to the language. Occasional words are especially connected with the force of
analogous creations based on productive word-formation patterns. It often happens that one or another word becomes,
sometimes due to social and political reasons, especially prominent and frequent. One of its components acquires an
additional derivative force and becomes the centre of a series of lexical items. It can be best illustrated by new words
formed on analogy with the compound noun sit-in, which according to A Dictionary of New English gave three sets of
analogic units. The noun sit-in is traced back to 1960 when it was formed from the verb sit-in introduced by the
Negro civil-rights movement. In the first series of analogic creations the -in was associated with a public protest
demonstration and gave rise to sit-in and sit-inner, kneel-in, ride-in, all motivated by the underlying verbal units.
The original meaning was soon extended to the staging of any kind of public demonstration and resulted in a new
series of nouns like a teach-in, study-in, talk-in, read-in, etc. which became independent of the existence of the
corresponding phrasal verbs. A third development was the weakening of the earlier meanings to cover any kind of
social gathering by a group, e.g. think-in, sing-in, fish-in, laugh-in, etc. The second components of compound nouns
often become such' centres of creations by analogy as for instance the component -sick- in seasick and homesick
gave on analogy car-sick, air-sick, space-sick. The compound noun earthquake led to birthquake (== population
explosion), youthquake (= a world-wide agitation caused by student uprisings), starquake (= a series of rapid
changes in the shape of the star). The noun teenager led to goldenager, skyscraper to thighscraper (== a mini-skirt),
house-wife to house-husband. The derivative component -proof, gave sound-proof, bullet-proof, fool-proof, kissproof, love-proof, etc.
Productive word-formation has a specific distribution in relation to different spheres of communication, thematic and
lexical stylistic groups of new words. New terminological vocabulary units appear mainly as a result of composition
making extensive use of borrowed root-morphemes, and affixation with sets of affixes of peculiar stylistic reference,1
often of Latin-Greek origin which are scarcely ever used outside this group of words, for example suffixes -ite, -ine-tron, etc. The suffixes -in, -gen, -ogen are productive in the field of chemistry and biochemistry, e.g. citrin,
penicillin, carcinogen; -ics in the naming of sciences as in radionics, bionics; the prefixes non-, pan-, suffixes-ism,
-ist are most productive in political vocabulary, e.g. Nixonomics, Nixonomist, etc.

In comparison with specialized vocabulary items, lexical units of standard-colloquial layer are more often created by
affixes of neutral stylistic reference, by conversion and composition.
Various Ways of Word Creation. New words in different notional classes appear also as a result of various
non-patterned ways of word creation. The two main types of non-patterned word-creation are: I. Various ways of
transformation of a word-form into a word usually referred to as 1exica1ization and II. Shortening, which consists in
substituting a, part for a whole. Shortening comprises essentially different ways of word creation. It involves 1.
transformation of a word-group into a word, and 2. a change of the word-structure resulting in a new lexical item, i.e.
clipping.
Lexica1ization. Due to various semantic and syntactic reasons the grammatical flexion in some word-forms, most
often the plural of nouns, as in, e.g. the nouns arms, customs, colours, loses its grammatical .meaning and becomes
isolated from the paradigm of the words arm, custom, look. As a result of the re-interpretation of the plural suffix the
word-form arms, customs developed a different lexical meaning 'weapons' and 'import duties.' respectively. This led
to a complete break of semantic links with the semantic structure of the words arm, custom and thus to the
appearance of new words with a different set of grammatical features. It must be noted that there is no unanimity of
opinion on whether all such items should be viewed as new words or only as new meanings. Different approaches to
the problem are connected with the border-line between polysemy and homonymy l and many individual cases are
actually open to doubt.
Essentially the same phenomenon of lexicalization is observed in the transition of participles into adjectives. The
process is also known as adjectivization. It may be illustrated by a number of adjectives such as tired, devoted,
interesting, amusing, etc. which are now felt as homonymous to the participles of the verbs to tire, to marry, etc.
Lexicalization is a long, gradual historical process, which synchronically results in the appearance of new vocabulary
units.
Shortening. Distinction should be made between shortening which results in new lexical items and a specific type
of shortening proper only to written speech resulting in numerous graphical abbreviations which are only signs
representing words and word-groups of high. frequency of occurrence in various spheres of human activity as for
instance, RD for Road and St for Street in addresses on envelopes and in letters; tu for tube, aer for aerial in Radio
Engineering literature, etc. English graphical abbreviations include rather numerous shortened variants of-Latin and
French words and word-groups, e.g.: i.e. (L. id est)-'that is'; R.S.V.P. (Fr.-Repondez s'il vous plait) -'reply please', etc.
Graphical abbreviations are restricted in use to written speech, occurring only in various kinds of texts, articles, books,
advertisements, letters, etc. In reading, many of them are substituted by the words and phrases that they represent, e.g.
Dr. = doctor, Mr.=mister, Oct.= October, etc.; the abbreviations of Latin and French words and phrases are usually
read as their English equivalents. It follows that graphical abbreviations cannot be considered new lexical vocabulary
units. It is only natural that in the course of language development some graphical abbreviations should gradually
penetrate into the sphere of oral intercourse and, as a result, turn into self-contained lexical units used both in oral and
written speech. That is the case, for instance, with a.m. t'ei'em]-'in the morning, before noon'; p.m. ['pi:'em]-'in the
afternoon'; S.O.S. ['es 'ou 'es] (==Save Our Souls)-'urgent call for help', etc. Transformations of word-groups into
words involve different types of lexical shortening: elipsis or substantivization, initial letter or syllable abbreviations
(also referred to as acronyms), blendings, etc. Substantivization consists in dropping of the final nominal member of a
frequently used attributive word-group. When such a member of the word-group is dropped as, for example, was the
case with a documentary film the remaining adjective takes on the meaning and all the syntactic functions of the
noun and thus develops into a new word changing its class membership and becoming homonymous to the existing
adjective. It may be illustrated by a number of nouns that appeared in this way, e.g. an incendiary goes back to an
incendiary bomb, the finals to the final examinations, an editorial to an editorial article, etc. Other more recent
creations are an orbital (Br. 'a highway going around the suburbs of a city'), a verbal ('a verbal-confession introduced
as evidence at a trial'), a topless which goes to three different word-groups and accordingly has three meanings: 1) a
topless dress, bathing suit, etc., 2) a waitress, dancer, etc. wearing topless garments, 3) a bar, night-club featuring
topless waitresses or performers. Substantivization is often accompanied by productive suffixation as in, e.g., a onewinger from one-wing plane, a two-decker from two-deck bus or ship; it may be accompanied by clipping and
productive suffixation, e.g. flickers (coil.) from flicking pictures, a smoker from smoking carriage, etc. Acronyms
and letter abbreviations are lexical abbreviations of a phrase. There are different types of such abbreviations and there

is no unanimity of opinion among scholars whether all of them can be regarded as regular vocabulary units. It seems
logical to make distinction between acronyms and letter abbreviations. Letter abbreviations are mere replacements of
longer phrases including names of well-known organizations of undeniable currency, names of agencies and
institutions, political parties, famous people, names of official offices, etc. They are not spoken or treated as words but
pronounced letter by letter and as a rule possess no other linguistic forms proper to words. The following may serve as
examples of such abbreviations: CBW = chemical and biological warfare, DOD = Department of Defence (of the
USA), ITV = Independent Television, Instructional Television, SST = supersonic transport, etc. It should be
remembered that the border-line between letter abbreviations and true acronyms is fluid and many letter abbreviations
in the course of time may turn into regular vocabulary units. Occasionally letter abbreviations are given 'pronunciation
spelling' as for instance dejay (== D.J. == disc jokey), emce (= M.C. = master of ceremonies) in which case they tend
to pass over into true acronyms. Acronyms are regular vocabulary units spoken as words. They are formed in various
ways: 1) from the initial letters or syllables of a phrase, which may be pronounced differently a) as a succession of
sounds denoted by the constituent letters forming a syllabic pattern, i.e. as regular words, e.g. UNO ['ju:nou] = United
Nations Organizations; NATO ['neitou] == North Atlantic Treaty Organization, UNESCO [ju:'neskou]; laser ['leisa]
== =light amplification by stimulated emisson of radiation; radar ['reida] == ==radio detection and ranging; BMEWS
['bi:mju:z] == Ballistic Missile Early Warning System; b) as a succession of the alphabetical readings of the
constituent letters as in, e.g., YCL ['wai'si:'el] = Young Communist League; BBC ['bi:'bi:'si:] = British Broadcasting
Corporation; MP ['em'pi:] = Member of Parliament; SOS fes'ou'es] = Save Our Souls. 2) Acronyms may be formed
from the initial syllables of each word of the phrase, e.g. interpol = inter/national pol/ice; tacsatcom = Tactical
Satellite Communications; Capcom == Capsule Communicator (the person at a space' flight centre who
communicates with the astronauts during a space flight). 3) Acronyms may be formed by a combination of the
abbreviation of the first or the first two members of the phrase with the last member undergoing no change at all, e.g.
V-day = Victory Day; H-bomb = =hydrogen bomb; g-force = gravity force, etc. All acronyms unlike letter
abbreviations perform the syntactical functions of ordinary words taking on grammatical inflexions, e.g. MPs (will
attack huge arms bill), M.P's (concern at . . .). They also serve as derivational bases for derived words and easily
collocate with derivational suffixes as, e.g. YCLer (= member of the YCL); MPess (= woman-member of
Parliament); radarman, etc.
Blendings are the result of conscious creation of words by merging irregular fragments of" several words which
are aptly called "splinters." 1 Splinters assume different shapes-they may be severed from the source word at a
morpheme boundary as in transceiver (== transmitter and receiver), transistor (== transfer and resistor) or at a
syllable boundary like cute (from execute) in electrocute, medicare (from medical care), polu-tician (from pollute
and politician) or boundaries of both kinds may be disregarded as in brunch (from breakfast and lunch), smog (from
smoke and fog), ballute (from baloon arfd parachute), etc. Many blends show some degree of overlapping of vowels,
consonants and syllables or echo the word or word fragment it replaces. This device is often used to attain punning
effect, as in foolosopher echoing philosopher; icecapade ("== spectacular shows on ice) echoing escapade;
baloonatic (= baloon and lunatic). Blends are coined not infrequently in scientific and technical language as a means
of naming new things, as trade names in advertisements. Since blends break the rules of morphology they result in
original combinations which catch quickly. Most of the blends have a colloquial flavour.
Clipping refers to the creation of new words by shortening a word of two or more syllables (usually nouns and
adjectives) without changing its class membership. Clipped words, though they often exist together with the longer
original source word function as independent lexical units with a certain phonetic shape and lexical meaning of their
own. The lexical meanings of the clipped word and its source do not as a rule coincide, for instance, doc refers only to
'one who practices medicine', whereas doctor denotes also 'the higher degree given by a university and a person who
has received it', e.g. Doctor of Law, Doctor of Philosophy. Clipped words always differ from the non-clipped words
in the emotive charge and stylistic reference. Clippings indicate an attitude of familiarity on the part of the user either
towards the object denoted or towards the audience, thus clipped words are characteristic of colloquial speech. In the
course of time, though, many clipped words find their way into the literary language losing some of their colloquial
colouring. Clippings show various degrees of semantic dissociation from their full forms. Some are no longer felt to
be clippings, e.g. pants (cf. pantaloons), bus (cf. omnibus), bike (cf, bicycle), etc. Some of them retain rather close
semantic ties with the original word. This gives ground to doubt whether the clipped words should be considered

separate words. Some linguists hold the view that in case semantic dissociation is slight and the major difference lies
in the emotive charge and stylistic application the two units should be regarded as word-variants (e.g. exam and
examination, lab and laboratory, etc.).
Clipping often accompanies other ways of shortening such as substantivization, e.g. perm (from permanent wave), op
(from optical art), pop (from popular music, art, singer, etc.), etc. As independent vocabulary units clippings serve as
derivational bases for suffixal derivations collocating with highly productive neutral and stylistically non-neutral
suffixes -ie, -er, e.g. nightie (cf. night-dress), panties, hanky (cf. handkerchief). Cases of conversion are not
infrequent, e.g. to taxi, to perm, etc. There do not seem to be any clear rules by means of which we might predict
where a word will be cut though there are several types into which clippings are traditionally classified according to
the part of the word that is clipped: 1) Words that have been shortened at the end-the so-called apocope, e.g. ad (from
advertisement), lab (from laboratory), mike (from microphone), etc. 2) Words that have been shortened at the
beginning-the so-called aphaeresis, e.g. car (from motor-car), phone (from telephone), copter (from helicopter), etc.
3) Words in which some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle-the so-called syncope, e.g. maths
(from mathematics), pants (from pantaloons), specs (from spetacles), etc. 4) Words that have been clipped both at the
beginning and at the end, e.g. flu (from influenza), tec (from detective), fridge (from refrigerator), etc. It must be
stressed that acronyms and clipping are the main ways of word-creation most active in present-day English. The
peculiarity of both types of words is that they are structurally simple, semantically non-motivated and give rise to new
root-morphemes.
Borrowing. Borrowing as a means of replenishing the vocabulary of present-day English is of much lesser
importance and is active mainly in the field of scientific terminology. It should be noted that many terms are often
made up of borrowed morphemes, mostly morphemes from classical languages. 1) The present-day English
vocabulary, especially its terminological layers, is constantly enriched by words made up of morphemes of Latin and
Greek origin such as words with the morphemes -tron used chiefly in the field of electronics, e.g. mesotron,
cyclotron; etc.; tele-, e.g. telecast, telelecture, telediagnosis, -in, e.g. protein, penicillin; -scope, e.g. iconoscope,
oscilloscope; meta-, e.g. meta-culture, metaprogram; para- meaning 'related to, near', e.g. paralinguistic,
parabiospheric; video-, e.g. videodisk, videophone, etc. But though these words consist of borrowed morphemes
they cannot be regarded as true borrowings because these words did not exist either in the Greek or in the Latin wordstock. All of them are actually formed according to patterns of English word-formation, and many function in Modern
English as new affixes and semi-affixes.1 Words with some of them can be found in the vocabulary of various
languages and reflect as a rule the general progress in science and technology. It is noteworthy that a number of new
affixes appeared in Modern English through different types of borrowing. This can be exemplified by the Russian
suffix -nik which came within the words sputnik, lunnik and acquired the meaning of 'one who is connected with
something', but which under the influence of beatnik acquired a derogatory flavour and, is now a slang suffix. It is
used to denote 'person who rejects standard social values and becomes a devotee of some fact or idea', e.g. folk- nik,
protestnik, filmnik, etc. The prefix mini- is now currently used with two meanings: a) 'of very small size', e.g.
minicomputer, minicar, mini-war, ministate, and b) 'very short', as in mini dress, minicoat, miniskirt, etc.; the
prefix maxi- was borrowed on the analogy of mini- also in two meanings: a)'very large', e.g. maxi-order, maxi-taxi,
and b) 'long, reaching down to the ankle', e.g. maxicoat, maxi-dress, maxilength. The suffix -naut is found in, e.g.,
astronaut, aquanaut, lunarnaut, etc.
Numerous borrowed root-morphemes remain bound in the vocabulary of Modern English but acquire a considerable
derivative force and function as components of a specific group of compounds productive mainly in specialized
spheres, e.g. acoust(o)-acousto-optic, acousto-electron-ics; ge(o)-, e.g. geowarfare, geoscientist, multi- e.g. multicultural, multi-directional, multispectral, etc.; cosm(o)-, e.g. cosmodrome, cosmonautics, cosmonaut, etc. 2)
There are true borrowings from different languages as well. They, as a rule, reflect the way of life, the peculiarities of
development of the speech communities from which they come. From the Russian language there came words like
kolkhoz, Gosplan, Komsomol udarnik, sputnik, jak, etc. The words borrowed from the German language at the
time of war reflect the aggressive nature of German fascism, e.g. Blitzkrieg, Wehr-macht, Luftwaffe . As most of
these words remain unassimilated in present-day English, they are all the time felt as foreign words and tend to drop
out from the language. 3) Loan-translations also reflect the peculiarities of the way of life of the countries they come

from, and they easily become sTable units of the vocabulary, e.g. fellow-traveller, self-criticism, Socialist
democracy, Worker's Faculty, etc. which all come from the Russian language.'
Semantic Extension. Semantic extension of words already available in the language is a powerful source of
qualitative growth and development of the vocabulary though it does not necessarily add to its numerical growth; it is
only the split of polysemy that results in the appearance of new vocabulary units thus increasing the number of
words.1 In this connection it should be remembered that the border-line between a new meaning of the word and its
lexical homonym is in many cases so vague that it is often difficult to state with any degree of certainty whether we
have another meaning of the original word or its homonym-a new self-contained word, 2 e.g. in the verb to sit-in - 'to
join a group in playing cards' and a newly recorded use of to sit-in-'to remain unserved in the available seats in a cafe
in protest against Jimcrowism', -or 'to demonstrate by occupying a building and staying there until their grievances are
considered or until the demonstrators themselves are ejected - he meanings are so widely apart that they are definitely
felt as homonyms. The same may be said about the word heel (sl) 'a traitor, double-crosser' and heel - 'the back part of
a human foot'. On the other hand, the meaning of the verb freeze - 'to immobilize (foreign-owned credits) by
legislative measures' and its further penetration into a more general sphere seen in to freeze wages and the correlated
compound wage-freeze is definitely, felt as a mere development of the semantic structure of the verb (to) freeze. The
semantic connection is felt between the meanings of such words as hot: 1) (mus.) 'having an elaborate and stimulating
jazz rhythm' 2) (financ.) 'just isued' and 3) (si.) 'dangerous because connected with some crime' as in the phrase hot
money; to screen-'to classify by means of standardized test, to select methodically' (cf. the original meaning of the
verb (to) screen-'to separate coal into different sizes', 'to pass through a sieve or screen'). All these meanings may
serve as further examples of qualitative growth of Modern English vocabulary. A great number of new meanings
develop in simple words which belong to different spheres of human activity. New meanings appear mostly in
everyday general vocabulary, for example a beehive - 'a woman's hair style'; lungs (n pi.)-'breathing spaces, such as
small parks that might be placed in overpopulated or traffic-congested areas'; a bird- 'any flying craft'; a vegetable-'a
lifeless, inert person'; clean (sl.)- free from the use of narcotic drugs'; to uncap (sl.) - 'to disclose, to reveal'. There is a
strong tendency in words of specialized-and terminological type to develop non-specialized, non-terminological
meanings as, for example, the technical term feedback that developed a non-terminological meaning 'a reciprocal
effect of one person or thing upon another', parameter that developed a new meaning 'any defining or characteristic
factor', scenario-'any projected course or plan of action'. It is of interest to note that many new meanings in the sphere
of general vocabulary are stylistically and emotively non-neutral and marked as colloquial and slang, for example
Juice (US sl.) - 'position, power, influence; favourable standing'; bread (sl.) - 'money'; straight (sl.)-'not deviating
from the norm in politics, habits; conventional, orthodox', etc. On the other, hand scientific and technical
terminological meanings appear as a result of specialization as in, e.g., read (genetic) - 'to decode'; messenger-'a
chemical substance which carries or transmits genetic information'. New terminological meanings also appear as a
result of expansion of the sphere of application, i.e. when terms of one branch of science develop new meanings and
pass over to other branches, e.g. a general scientific term system (n) in cybernetics developed the meaning 'anything
consisting of at least two interrelated parts'; logic acquired in electronics the meaning 'the logical operations
performed by a computer by means of electronic circuitry'; perturbance in astronomy- 'disturbances in the motions of
planets', etc. It should be noted that new meanings appear not only as a result of semantic development of words but
also as a result of semantic development of affixes. Thus, the adjectival prefix a- in such adjectives as awhir =
whirring; aswivel = swivelling; aclutter = cluttered; aglaze = glazed developed a new meaning similar to the
meanings of the participles but giving a more vivid effect of the process than the corresponding non-prefixal
participles in -ing and -ed. The prefix anti- developed two new meanings: 1) 'belongng to the hypothetical world
consisting of the counterpart of ordinary matter', e.g. anti-matter, anti-world, anti-nucleus, etc.; 2) 'that which
rejects or reverses the traditional characteristics', e.g. anti-novel, anti-hero, anti-electron, etc.; the prefix nondeveloped a new meaning 'sham, pretended, pseudo', e.g. non-book, non-actor, non-policy, etc. It follows from the
foregoing discussion that the principal ways of enriching the vocabulary of present-day English with new words are
various ways of productive word-formation and word-creation. The most active ways of word creation are clippings
and acronyms. The semantic development of words already available in the language is the main source of the
qualitative growth of the vocabulary but does not essentially change the vocabulary quantitatively. (A Course in
Modern English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)

THE MAIN VARIANTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

General Characteristics of the English Language in Different Parts of the English-Speaking World It is natural
that the English language is not used with uniformity in the British Isles and in Australia, in the USA and in New
Zealand, in Canada and in India, etc. The English language also has some peculiarities in Wales, Scotland, in other
parts of the British Isles and America. Is the nature of these varieties the same? Modern linguistics distinguishes
territorial variants of a national language and local dialects. Variants of a language are regional varieties of a standard
literary language characterized by some minor peculiarities in the sound system, vocabulary and grammar and by their
own literary norms. Dialects are varieties of a language used as a means of oral communication in small localities,
they are set off (more or less sharply) from other varieties by some distinctive features of pronunciation, grammar and
vocabulary. Close inspection of the varieties mentioned above reveals that they are essentially different in character. It
is not difficult to establish that the varieties spoken in small areas are local dialects. The status of the other varieties is
more difficult to establish. It is over half a century already that the nature of the two main variants of the English
language, British and American (Br and AE) has been discussed. Some American linguists, H. L. Mencken for one,
speak of two separate languages with a steady flood of linguistic influence first (up to about 1914) from. Britain to
America, and since then from America to the British Isles. They even proclaim that the American influence on British
English is so powerful that there will come a time when the American standard will be established in Britain. Other
linguists regard the language of the USA as a dialect of English. Still more questionable is the position of Australian
English (AuE) and Canadian English (CnE).The differences between the English language as spoken in Britain, the
USA, Australia and Canada are immediately noticeable in the field of phonetics. However these distinctions are
confined to the articulatory - acoustic characteristics of some phonemes, to some differences in the use of others and
to the differences in the rhythm and intonation of speech. The few phonemes characteristic of American pronunciation
and alien to British literary norms can as a rule be observed in British dialects. The variations in vocabulary, to be
considered below, are not very numerous. Most of them are divergences in the semantic structure of words and in their
usage. The dissimilarities in grammar like AE gotten, proven for BE got, proved are scarce. For the most part these
dissimilarities consist in the preference of this or that grammatical category or form to some others. For example, the
preference of Past Indefinite to Present Prefect, the formation of the Future Tense with will as the.only auxiliary verb
for all persons, and some others. Recent investigations have also shown that the Present Continuous form in the
meaning of Future is used twice as frequently in BE as in the American, Canadian and Australian variants; infinitive
constructions are used more rarely in AE than in BE and AuE and passive constructions are, on the contrary, more
frequent in America than in Britain and in Australia. Since BE, AE and AuE have essentially the same grammar
system, phonetic system and vocabulary, they cannot be regarded as different languages. Nor can they be referred to
local dialects; because they serve all spheres of verbal communication in society, within their territorial area they have
dialectal differences of their own; besides they differ far less than local dialects (e.g. far less than the dialects of
Dewsbury and it is noteworthy that quite a few prominent American linguists do not share this opinion (e. g. A. S.
Baugh, W. N. Francis and others). Howden, two English towns in Yorkshire some forty miles apart). Another
consideration is that AE has its own literary norm and AuE is developing one. Thus we must speak of three variants of
the English national language having different accepted literary standards, one spoken in the British Isles, another
spoken in the USA, the third in Australia.
Lexical Differences of Territorial Variants. Speaking about the lexical distinctions between the territorial
variants of the English language it is necessary to point out that from the point of view of their modern currency in
different parts of the English-speaking world all lexical units may be divided into general English, those common to
all the variants and locally-marked, those specific to present-day usage in one of the variants and not found in the
others (i.e. Briticisms, Americanisms, Australianisms, Canadianisms, etc.). When speaking about the territorial
differences of the English language philologists and lexicographers usually note the fact that different variants of
English use different words for the same objects. Thus in describing the lexical differences between the British and
American variants they provide long lists of word pairs like BE flat underground lorry pavement post tin-opener
government leader teaching staff AE apartment subway truck sidewalk mail can-opener administration editorial
faculty

From such lists one may infer that the words in the left column are the equivalents of th6se given in the right column
and used on the other side of the Atlantic. But the matter is not as simple as that. These pairs present quite different
cases. It is only in some rare cases- like tin-opener-can-opener or fishmonger-fish-dealer that the members of such
pairs are semantically equivalent. In pairs like government-administration, leader-editorial, only one lexical
semantic variant of one of the members is locally-marked. Thus in the first pair the lexical semantic variant of
administration-'the executive officials of a government' is an Americanism, in the second pair the word leader in the
meaning of 'leading article in a newspaper' is a Briticism. In some cases a notion may have two synonymous
designations used on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but one of them is more frequent in Britain, the other-in the
USA. Thus in the pairs post-mail, timetable-schedule, notice-bulletin the first word is more frequent in Britain, the
second-in America. So the difference here lies only in word-frequency. Most locally-marked lexical units belong to
partial Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., that is they are typical of this or that variant only in one or some of their
meanings. Within the semantic structure of such words one may often find meanings belonging to general English,
Americanisms and Briticisms, e.g., in the word pavement, the meaning 'street or road covered with stone, asphalt,
concrete, etc.' is an Americanism, the meaning 'paved path for pedestrians at the side of the road' is a Briticism (the
corresponding American expression is sidewalk), the other two meanings 'the covering of the floor made of flat
blocks of wood, stone, etc.' and 'soil' (geol.) are general English. Very often the meanings that belong to general
English are common and neutral, central, direct, while the Americanisms are colloquial, marginal and figurative, e.g.
shoulder-general English-'the joint connecting the arm or forelimb with the body', Americanism-'either edge of a road
or high-.way'. There are also some full Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., i.e. lexical units specific to the British,
American, etc. variant in all their meanings. For example, the words fortnight, pillar-box are full Briticisms,
campus, mail-boy are full Americanisms, outback, backblocks are full Australianisms. These may be subdivided
into lexical units denoting some realia that have no counterparts elsewhere (such as the Americanism junior high
school) and those denoting phenomena observable in other English-speaking countries but expressed there in a
-different way (e.g. campus is defined in British dictionaries as 'grounds of a school or college'). The number of
lexical units denoting some realia having no counterparts in the other English-speaking countries is considerable in
each variant. To these we may refer, for example, lexical units pertaining to such spheres o'f life as flora and fauna
(e.g. AuE kangaroo, kaola, dingo, gum-tree), names of schools of learning (e.g. junior high school and senior high
school in AE or composite high school in CnE), names of things of everyday life, often connected with peculiar
national conditions, traditions and customs (e.g. AuE boomerang, AE drug-store, CnE float-house). But it is not the
lexical units of this kind that can be considered distinguishing features of this or that variant. As the lexical units are
the only means of expressing the notions in question in the English language some of them have become common
property of the entire English-speaking community (as, e.g., drug-store, lightning rod, super-market, baby-sitter
that extended from AE, or the hockey terms that originated
in Canada (body-check, red-line, puck-carrier, etc.); others have even become international (as the former
Americanisms motel, lynch, abolitionist, radio, cybernetics, telephone, anesthesia, or the former Australianisms
dingo, kangaroo and cockatoo).
The numerous locally-marked slangisms, professionalisms and dialectisms cannot be considered distinguishing
features either, since they do not belong to the literary language. Less obvious, yet not less important, are the regional
differences of another kind, the so-called derivational variants of words, having the same root and identical in lexical
meaning though differing in derivational affixes (e.g. BE acclimate-AE acclimatize, BE aluminium - AE
aluminum). Sometimes the derivational variation embraces several words of the same word-cluster. Compare, for
example, the derivatives of race (division of mankind) in British and American English: BE racial/racialist a,
racialist re, racialism n AE racist a, racist n, racialism/racism n When speaking about the territorial lexical
divergences it is not sufficient to bring into comparison separate words, it is necessary to compare lexico-semantic
groups of words or synonymic sets, to study the relations within these groups and sets, because on the one hand a
different number of members in a lexico-semantic group is connected with a different semantic structure of its
members, on the other hand even insignificant modifications in the semantic structure of a word bring about tangible
reshufflement in the structure of the lexico-semantic group to which the word belongs. For example, the British and
Australian variants have different sets of words denoting inland areas: only inland is common to both, besides BE has
interior, remote, etc., AuE has bush, outback, backblocks, back of beyond, back of Bourke and many others.

Accordingly, the semantic structure of the word bush and its position in the two variants are altogether different: in
BE it has one central meaning ('shrub') and several derived ones, some of which are now obsolete, in AuE it has two
semantic centres ('wood' and 'inland areas') that embrace five main and four derived meanings. Lexical peculiarities in
different parts of the English-speaking world are not only those in vocabulary, to be disposed of in an alphabetical list,
they also concern the very fashion of using words. For instance, the grammatical valency of the verb to push is much
narrower in AuE, than in BE and AE (e.g. in this variant it is not used in the patterns Wen, NVen, NV,,,g, NprpVfngSome patterns of the verb are typical only of one variant (e.g. NV^ and NprpV, - of BE, NV and NVg- of AE). There
are also some features of dissimilarity in the word's lexical valency, e.g. a specifically British peculiarity observed in
newspaper style is the ability of the verb to be used in combination with nouns denoting price or quality (to push up
prices, rents, etc.). As to word-formation in different variants, the word-building means employed are the same and
most of them are equally productive. The difference lies only in the varying degree of productivity of some of them in
this or that variant. As compared with the British variant, for example, in the American variant the affixes -ette, -ee,
super-, as in kitchenette, draftee, super-market, are used more extensively; the same is true of conversion and
blending (as in walk-out-'workers' strike' from (to) walk out; (to) major-'specialize in a subject or field of study'
from. the adjective major; motel from motor + hotel, etc.). In the Australian variant the suffixes -ie/-y and -ee, as
well as abbreviations are more productive than in BE. Thus, the lexical distinctions between different variants of
English are intricate and varied, but they do not make a system. For the most part they are partial divergences in the
semantic structure and usage of some words.
Some Points of History of the Territorial Variants and Lexical Interchange Between Them. The lexical
divergences between different variants of English have been brought about by several historical processes. As is well
known the English language was brought to the American continent at the beginning of the 17th century and to
Australia at the end of the 18th century as a result of the expansion of British colonialism. It is inevitable that on each
territory in the new conditions the subsequent development of the language should diverge somewhat from that of
British English. In the first place names for new animals, birds, fishes, plants, trees, etc. were formed of familiar
English elements according to familiar English patterns. Such are mockingbird, bullfrog, catfish, peanut, sweet
potato, popcorn that were coined in AE or dogger-'professional hunter of dingoes', Bushman-'Australian soldier in
Boer War' formed in AuE. New words were also borrowed to express new concepts from the languages with which
English came into contact on the new territories. Thus, in the American variant there appeared Indian hickory, moose,
racoon, Spanish canyon, mustang, ranch, sombrero, etc. At the same time quite a number of words lost in BE have
survived on the other continents and conversely, certain features of earlier BE that have been retained in England were
lost in the new varieties of the language, changed their meaning or acquired a new additional one. For example,
Chaucer used to guess in the meaning of to think, so do the present day Americans; the English however abandoned it
centuries ago and when they happen to hear it today they are conscious that it is an Americanism. The same is true of
the words to loan for to lend, fall for autumn, homely for ugly, crude, etc. The word barn designated in Britain a
building for storing grain (the word was a compound in Old English consisting of here-'barley' and aern- 'house'); in
AE it came also to mean a place for housing stock, particularly cattle. Similarly, corn was applied in America to an
altogether different cereal (maize) and lost its former general meaning 'grain'. The word station acquired the meaning
of 'a sheep or cattle ranch', the word bush-the meaning of 'wood' and shrub (AuE scrub)- 'any vegetation but wood'
in AuE. Modern times are characterized by considerable leveling of the lexical distinctions between the variants due
to the growth of cultural and economic ties between nations and development of modern means of communication.
For example, a large number of Americanisms have gained currency in BE, some becoming so thoroughly naturalized
that the dictionaries in England no longer mark them as aliens (e.g. reliable, lengthy, talented, belittle). Others have
a limited sphere of application (e.g. fan- colloq. 'a person enthusiastic about a specific sport, pastime, or performer', to
iron out-'smooth out, eliminate'). The influx of American films, comics and periodicals resulted in the infiltration of
American slang, e.g. gimmick-'deceptive or secret device', to root-'support or encourage a contestant or team, as by
applauding or cheering', etc.
Certain uses of familiar words, which some 50 years ago were peculiar to the US, are now either completely
naturalized in Britain or evidently on the way to naturalization. Numerous examples will be found by noting the
words and meanings indicated as American in dictionaries at the beginning of the century and in present days. At the
same time a number of Briticisms have passed into the language of the USA, e.g. smog which is a blend of smoke

and fog, to brief, 'to give instructions'. This fact the advocates of the American language theory deliberately
ignore. Sometimes the Briticisms adopted in America compete with the corresponding American expressions, the
result being the differentiation in meaning or spheres of application, for example, unlike the American store, the
word shop, taken over from across the ocean i at the beginning of the 20th century is applied only to small
specialized establishments (e.g. gift shop, hat shop, candy shop), or specialized departments of a department store
(e.g. the misses' shop). British luggage used alongside American baggage in America differs from its rival in
collocability (luggage compartment, luggage rack, but baggage car, baggage check, baggage room). In the pair
autumn-fall the difference
' in AE is of another nature: the former is bookish, while the latter colloquial. (A
Course in Modern English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)
THE BRITISH AND THE AMERICAN ENGLISH VARIANTS
Local Dialects in the British Isles In the British Isles there exist many speech varieties confined to particular areas.
These local dialects traceable to Old English dialects may be classified into six distinct divisions: 1) Lowland
(Scottish or Scotch(The Scottish dialect of the English language is to be distinguished from the Scottish tongue, which
is a Celtic language spoken in the Highlands.), North of the river Tweed),1 2) Northern (between the rivers Tweed and
Humber), 3) Western, 4) Midland and 5) Eastern (between the river Humber and the Thames), 6) Southern (South of
the Thames). Their sphere of application is confined to the oral speech of the rural population in a locality and only
the Scottish dialect can be said to have a literature of its own with Robert Burns as its greatest representative.
Offsprings of the English national literary language, the British local dialects are marked off from the former and from
each other by some phonetic, grammatical and lexical peculiarities. In this book we are naturally concerned only with
the latter. Careful consideration of the national and the dialect vocabularies discloses that the most marked difference
between them lies in the limited character of the dialect vocabularies. The literary language contains many words not
to be found in dialects, among them technical and scientific terms. Local lexical peculiarities, as yet the least studied,
are most noticeable in specifically dialectal words pertaining to local customs, social life and natural conditions:
laird-'landed proprietor in Scotland', burgh - 'Scottish chartered town', kirk-'church', loch-'Scottish lake or
landlocked arm of the sea', etc. There are many names of objects and processes connected with farming, such as the
names of agricultural processes, tools, domestic animals and the like, e.g. galloway-'horse f small strong breed from
Galloway, Scotland', kyloe-'one of small reed of long-horned Scotch cattle', shelty-'Shetland pony'. There is ..also a
considerable number of emotionally coloured dialectal words, e.g. Scot. bonny-'beautiful, healthy-looking',
braw-'fine, excellent', daffy-'crazy, silly', cuddy-'fool, ass', loon-'clumsy, stupid person'. In addition, words may have
different meanings in the national language and in the local dialects, e.g. in the Scottish dialect the word to call is used
in the meaning of 'to drive', to set-'to suit', short-'rude', silly-'weak', etc. Dialectal lexical differences also embrace
word-building patterns. For instance, some Irish words contain the diminutive suffixes -an, -een, -can, as in
bohaun-'cabin' (from Irish both-'cabin'); bohereen- 'narrow road' (from Irish bothar-'road'); mearacaun-'thimble'
(from Irish rnear-'finger'); etc. Some of these suffixes may even be added to English bases, as in girleen, dogeen,
squireen (squirrel), etc. Some specifically dialectal derivatives are formed from standard English stems with the help
of standard English affixes, e.g. Scot. flesher-'butcher', suddenly-'suddenness'. A great number of words specifically
dialectal appeared as a result of intense borrowing from other languages, others are words that have disappeared from
the national literary language or become archaic, poetical, such as gang-'go', OE 5an5an; bairn-'child', OE beam, etc.
Thus, the lexical differences between the English national language and its dialects are due to the difference in the
spheres of application, different tempoes of development, different contacts with other peoples, and deliberate
elaboration of literary norms.
The Relationship Between the English National Language and British Local Dialects.
The local dialects in Britain are sharply declining in importance at the present time, they are being obliterated by the
literary language. This process is twofold. On the one hand, lexical units of the literary language enter local dialects,
ousting some of their words and expressions. On the other hand, dialectal words penetrate into the national literary
language. Many frequent words of common use are dialectal in origin, such as girl, one, raid, glamour, etc. Some
words from dialects are used as technical terms or professionalisms in the literary language, e.g. the Scotch
cuddy-'ass' is used in the meaning of jack-screw and lug-'ear' in the meaning of handle. Dialect peculiarities
(phonetic, grammatical, but mainly lexical) modify in varying degrees the language spoken in different parts of

Britain. These speech-forms are called regional variants of the national language and they are gradually replacing the
old local dialects. It should be noted that the word dialect is used in two meanings nowadays: to denote the old
dialects which are now dying away, and to denote the regional variants, i.e. a literary standard with some features from
local dialects. The most marked difference between dialects and regional variants in the field of phonetics lies in the
fact that dialects possess phonemic distinctions, while regional variants are characterized by phonetic distinctions. In
matters of vocabulary and grammar the difference is in the greater number and greater diversity of local peculiarities
in the dialect? as compared with the regional variants.
Local Dialects in the USA. The English language in the United States
is characterized by
relative uniformity throughout the country. One can travel three thousand miles without encountering any but the
slightest dialect differences. Nevertheless, regional variations in speech undoubtedly exist and they have been
observed and recorded by a number of investigators. The following three major belts of dialects have so far been
identified, each with its own characteristic features: Northern, Midland and Southern, Midland being in turn divided
into North Midland and South Midland. The differences in pronunciation between American dialects are most
apparent, but they seldom interfere with understanding. Distinctions in grammar are scarce. The differences in
vocabulary are rather numerous, but they are easy to pick up. Cf., e.g., Eastern New England sour-milk cheese, Inland
Northern Dutch cheese, New York City pot cheese for Standard American cottage cheese. The American linguist O.
F. Emerson maintains that American English had not had time to break up into widely diverse dialects and he believes
that in the course of time the American dialects might finally become nearly as distinct as the dialects in Britain. He is
certainly greatly mistaken. In modern times dialect divergence cannot increase. On the contrary, in the United States,
as elsewhere, the national language is tending to wipe out the dialect distinctions and to become still more uniform.
Comparison of the dialect differences in the British Isles and in the USA reveals that not only are they less numerous
and far less marked in the USA, but that the very nature of the local distinctions is different. What is usually known as
American dialects is closer in nature to regional variants of the literary language. The problem of discriminating
between literary and dialect speech patterns in the USA is much more complicated than in Britain. Many American
linguists point out that American English differs from British English in having no one locality whose speech patterns
have come to be recognized as the model for the rest of the country.
ARCHAIC WORDS
The word stock of a language is in an increasing state of change. Words change their meaning and sometimes drop
out of the language altogether. New words spring up and replace the old ones. Some words stay in the language a very
long time and do not lose their faculty of gaining new meanings and becoming richer and richer polysemantically.
Other words live but a short time and are like bubbles oh the surface of water they disappear leaving no trace of
their existence. In every period in the development of a literary language one can find words, which will show more or
less apparent changes in their meaning or usage, from full vigor, through a moribund state, to death, i.e. complete
disappearance of the unit from the language. It is possible to distinguish three stages in the aging process of words:
The beginning of the aging process when the word becomes rarely used. Such words are called obsolescent, i.e., they
are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use (thou, thee, thy, thine, art, wilt). To the category of obsolescent
words belong many French borrowings: a pallet - a straw mattress; a palfrey - a small horse. The second group of
archaic words are those that have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized by the English speaking
community: e.g. methinks - it seems to me, nay - no. These words are called obsolete. The third group, which may be
called archaic proper, are words which are no longer recognizable in modern English, words that were in use in Old
English and which have either dropped out of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that
they have become unrecognizable, e.g. troth faith, a losel = a worthless, lazy fellow. The border- lines
between the groups are not distinct. There is still another class of words, which is erroneously classed as archaic, viz.
historical words. By-gone periods in the life of any society are marked by historical events, and by institution,
customs, material objects, etc. which are no longer in use, for example: Thane, yeoman, goblet, bal dric, mace. Words
of this type never disappear from the language. They are historical terms and remain as terms referring to definite
stages in the development of society. Historical words have no synonyms, whereas archaic words have been replaced
by modern synonyms.
EXERCISES.

Exercise I. Pick out archaic words and comment on their usage and meaning: do, dost, does, you, thee, ye, thou,
horse, though, also, albeit, eke, spring, vernal, said, told, maiden, girl, haply, perhaps, ere, before.
Exercise II. Substitute modern forms and words for: hath, dost, thee, didst, wight, ye, whilom, sooth, yon, sate,
rhymeth.
Exercise III. a) Give modern English equivalents of the following words; B) Classify them into lexical and
grammatical archaisms; c) Translate them into your native language: bade, spouse, dire, aught, quoth, kine, swain,
courser, ire, charger, thy, thine, troth, hath, albeit.
Exercise IV. a) Copy out all the archaisms from the following extracts. Classify them into lexical or
grammatical archaisms.
1. "Why, uncle," replied Lambourne, "thinkest thou I am an infidel, and would harm those of mine own house?"
"It is for no harm that I speak, Mike," answered his uncle, "but a simple humour of precaution which I have. True,
thou art as well gilded as a snake when he casts his old slough in the spring-time; but for all that, thou creepest not
into my Eden. I will look after mine Eve, Mike, and so content thee. But how brave thou be'st, lad! To look on thee
now, and compare thee with Master Tressilian here, in his sad-colored riding-suit, who would not say that thou wert
the real gentleman, and he the tapster's boy?"
"Troth, uncle," replied Lambourne, "no one would say so but one of your country-breeding, that knows no better."
(W. Scott).
2. ...the lady called to the pedlar, "Good fellow, step forward - undo thy pack - if thou haas good wares, chance
has sent thee hither for my convenience, and thy profit, (id.)
3. He hastened, however, to attempt an explanation with Janet. "Maiden," he said, "thou hast the face of one who
should love her mistress. She hath much need of faithful service." "Get thee gone instantly, or I will call for
assistance," said Janet; "My father must ere this time be returned, "(id.)
4. "...is that short cloak of cherry-coloured fine cloth, garnished with gold buttons and loops - is it not of an absolute fancy, Janet?"
"Nay, my lady," replied Janet, "if you consult my poor judgement, it is, methinks, over-gaudy for a graceful
habit."
"Now, out upon thy judgement, if it be no brighter, wench," said the Countess, "thou shalt wear it thyself for penance sake; and I promise thee the gold buttons, being somewhat massive, will comfort thy father, and reconcile him
to the cherry-coloured body." (id.)
NEOLOGISMS
In dictionaries neologism is generally defined as 'a new word or a new meaning for an established word . The
coining of new words generally arises first of all with the need to designate new concepts and also with the need to
express nuances of meaning called forth by a deeper understanding of the nature of the phenomenon in question. It
may also be the result of a search for a more economical, brief and compact form of utterance, which proves to be a
more expressive means of communicating the idea. Thus, a neologism is any word or word equivalent, formed
according to the productive patterns or borrowed, from another language and felt by the speakers as something new.
The first type of newly coined words, i.e. those, which designate newborn concepts, may be named terminological
coinages or terminological neologisms. The second type, i.e. words coined because their creators seek expressive
utterance may be named stylistic coinages or stylistic neologisms. Neologisms are mainly coined according to the
productive models for word building in the given language. But the neologisms of the literary-bookish type may
sometimes be built with the help of affixes and by other means which have gone out of use or which are in the process
of dying out. In this case the stylistic affect produced by means of word building chosen becomes more apparent, and
the stylistic function of the device can be felt more acutely.
Some patterns according to which neologisms are formed are of interest. "Automation" "automatic control of
production" is irregularly formed from the stem "automatic" - with the help of the very productive affixation.
Compound words form the basic stock of all neologisms in modern English. Mostly they are words formed by a mere
composition: blood transfusion, barfly, job-hunting. Very often two or more types of word building combine in

creating a neologism. Thus composition, substantivisation and semantic change together are present in the personal
name 'come-back - "a person who returns after a long absence". Shortening is incident for the modern stage of
development of the English language: ad = advertisement, co-ed - coeducation, coke = coca-cola. Blend or fusion has
become highly productive of late. In this case the ending is cut off the first stem and the beginning is out off the
second one. Escalator (escalated elevator), motel (motorists' hotel), spam Spiced ham), telecast (television
broadcast). Of wide use in coining neologisms are many Latin and Greek prefixes: anti-, auto-, co-, crypto, de-, dis-,
extra-, neo-, pseudo-, semi-, and suffixes: -cracy, -graphy, -ism, -logy, -ise (ize). Also a great many neologisms have
been created with the help of element -in: live-in, eat-in, lock-in, with the help of prefixes mini-, maxi- and suffixx
ship: minicomputer, minidose, maxicoat, maxi-shorts, lifemanship, ringmanship.
EXSRCISES
Exercise I. a) Comment on the neologisms formed by means of composition. Translate the sentences into your
native language. I. The aerobee is good enough for carrying instruments above the stratosphere (Time). 2. In the
House of Lords a protest was made by the Bishop of Chichester against the method of area-bombing (Annual
Register). 3. The 'aircraft has a reinforced hull to bellyland on water. 4. Fighter pilots are being offered nearly 200
dollars a month plus blood-money. 5. Business men are tempted to employ "contact-men" in an effort to smooth
away obstacles (The Times). 6. Los Angeles barflies were intrigued by a new diversion: automatic quiz machines
(ibid.). 7. The chief innovation is a television baby-sitter (ibid.). 8. The President's strategists called in a new team
of ghostwriters (ibid.). 9. ''How many people were engaged in digging gold?" The answer was, about 460 000, but
one of my more facetious friends asked whether that included women gold-diggers 10. "Elizabeth Ann" is the most
sought-after kitchen unit in the country (Daily Express). 11. He was recommended an easy-to-use liquid. 12. All
sorts of people were there: the too-fats, the too-thins and the just-rights.
Exercise II. a) Comment on the formation of the neologisms in the sentences bellow. b) Pick out the converted
nouns formed from verbs with postpositions. c) Translate the sentences into your native language. I. The policy of
the Ministry in recent years has been to push up the milling of oats in England. 2. Ten fliers bail out over the city. 3.
He checked into a Brooklyn hospital for an operation (Time). 4. Mining and agriculture are the most vital
industries, which we must man up. 5. All he got was a brush-off. 6. The end of the war automatically brought the
British public release from the blackout, which had already some months before became a "dim-out" (Annual
Register). 7. A mock-up was made, and this aircraft could undoubtedly have done the job.
Exercise III. a) Comment on the following groups of neologisms in connection with word building and
borrowings. b) Translate the sentences into your native language. 1. black shirt, bobby pin, candid camera, beach
wagon, sit-down, strike, dive-bomber, dog-fight, fellow-traveler, fifth column, newscast, the atomic age, bottom
dollar, latch-key-lady, hair-do; 2. climate, address, bleed, colour, floor, hostel, perm; 3. adman, angledozer,
agrobiology, autostrada, bibliofilm, aeroneurosis; 4. bail out, black out, crack down; 5. Blitzkrieg, hasenpreffer,
gestapo, nazi, langlauf, reichskanzler; 6. Boysenberry, quisling; 7. chemurgy, cinecamera, microcopy, electrocute;
8. commentator, falangist, leftist, rightist, remilitarize, oldster, amputee, adulthood, developmental, de-icer, Arkie.
Exercise IV. Give appropriate words or phrases in your native language corresponding to the underlined
English expressions. I. If the boss is not successful, in preventing pay-offs they will commence a stay-in strike the
following day. 2. About a dozen Civil Rights demonstrators staged a sit-down in one of the main corridors of a
governmental office today. 3. Some military units were held up because of the lie-down on the part of the
demonstrators. They threw themselves in front of a convoy of army vehicles. 4. Philadelphia teach-ins organized by
students and faculty members at Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania and nearby colleges were
attended by many people. 5. Sing-in is known as a topical concert held for educational and political purposes, to
make the youth understand what is actually going on in that part of the world. 6.Yesterday it was reported in the
press that a preach-in was held in a Philadelphia church against the war in Vietnam. 7.We hope all our readers will
discuss this great issue in their organizations, and that many will respond to our invitation to take part in this
'Morning Star" write-in. 8. Run-off is a term used to describe an election held before or after the regular elections, if
a post has for some reasons been left vacant.
Exercise V. The following list contains 'occasional' words and word combinations, and neologisms. Can you

distinguish between them? How can you explain your classification?

Aeroneurosis, airminded, to baby-sit, brinkmanship,! canned, contact-man, discotheque, duffle-coat, gadgeteer,
helibus, launderette, lobsterdom, megadeath, mini-skirt, motorcade, para-diplomacy, paratroops, to pre-plan, polythene
bag, population-stifled city, public relations, officer, retiree, robotics, rocketry, a sit-down strike, to space-call, superdigestible food, supermarket, teenager, televiewer, unbirdminded, vinyl, vital statistics
Exercise VI. Read the following passages and find out examples of neologisms, which have appeared in the
English language together with new achievements of science and technology.
One of the most important aspects of twentieth-century vocabulary the rapid extension of scientific vocabulary
in recent times has already been dealt with, but a feature of this has been the spread of what we may call semiscientific words to general aspects of life, usually abstract conceptions; this is particularly noticeable in a group of
words all of which end in -ize, and many of which have also a secondary form, generally with change of meaning,
beginning, with de-; there are usually two forms at least, the verb in -ize and the corresponding abstract noun in
-ization. Forms of this kind are not all very recent; Bentham, for example, used minimize, but there is a great increase
in such forms in the nineteenth century, and the process continues today. The forms are often deceptive; actualize
might strike a reader as being very recent, but it was used by Coleridge a hundred and fifty years ago. Among
examples we may note scientific words, which are to be expected, as carbonize, a term in the woollen trade, and
decarbonize, recognizable chiefly as a motoring term, decolourize, dehydrogenize, dehypnotize, demagnetize,
deoxidize, and depolarize; demonetize still belongs only to the world of economics; deodorize and devitalize have
spread from science to a more general application; among more general terms we have decentralize, deciuilize,
dehumanize, demobilize, denationalize, denaturalize; some forms seem unnecessary, and some are ugly, as
dechristianize, depauperize, and desynonymize... The only argument in favor of some of these forms is that they
allow us to do in one word what would otherwise require three or four and that seems to be a great virtue in the
modern world.
Two other groups of words, originally scientific, but which have spread into the common vocabulary, both show
developments of modern science. One of the recent aims of the scientist has been to replace human labor by the efforts
of the machine, and this is reflected in our vocabulary by a number of recent words with the prefix auto-, and of newly
formed compounds with the first element automatic... Man's conquest of space, and his ability to perform certain
actions over long distances, is shown in the large number of words containing the prefix tele-. (J. A. Shear d. The
Words We Use, pp. 315-316)
3. Now that the first steps in this direction [exploration of space] have been taken there exists already a whole
technical vocabulary that is being created in answer to the demands of the new science of space travel, itself;
dependent on rocketry. The cosmonaut (a word invented by the Russians and displayed by them on placards and
banners on the day of Gagarin's first flight in 1961) travels' in a capsule (like probe this is an old word put to a new
use) blasted off from a launching pad. The space suit he wears had a name in science fiction even before it existed in
reality. At present these spacemen have confined themselves to orbiting round the earth but they hope in duel course
to set up space platforms or space stations from which to conduct explorations of the moon and planets. All this
vocabulary really forms a subject in itself ranging from the retro-rocket, which so to speak puts on the brakes for the
space traveler, to the emotional indoctrination training, which teaches him to endure both fear and endless boredom
as he hurtles towards Venus or Mars. (Brian Forster. The Changing English Language, pp. 121-122)

ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY. TYPES OF DICTIONARIES.

Lexicography, the science of dictionary-compiling, is closely connected with lexicology, both dealing with the same
problems-the form, meaning, usage and origin of vocabulary units - and making use of each other's achievements. On
the one hand, the enormous raw material collected in dictionaries is widely used by linguists in their research. On the
other hand, the principles of dictionary-making are always based on linguistic fundamentals, and each individual entry
is made up in accordance with the current knowledge and findings of scholars in the various fields of language study.

The compiler's approach to various lexicological problems (such as homonymy, phraseological units, etc.) always
finds reflection in the selection and arrangement of the material.
Encyclopaedic and Linguistic Dictionaries. There are many different types of English dictionaries. First of all
they may all be roughly divided into two groups- encyclopaedic and linguistic. The two groups of reference books
differ essentially in the choice of items included and in the sort of information given about them. Linguistic
dictionaries are word-books, their subject matter is lexical units and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation,
meaning, peculiarities of use, etc. The encyclopaedic dictionaries, the biggest of which are sometimes called simply
encyclopaedias are thing- books, that give information about the extra-linguistic world, they deal with concepts
(objects and phenomena), their relations to other objects and phenomena, etc. It follows that the encyclopaedic
dictionaries will never enter items like father, go, that, be, if, black, but only those of designative character, such as
names for substances, diseases, plants and animals, institutions, terms of science, some important events in history and
also geographical and biographical entries. Although some of the items included in encyclopaedic and linguistic
dictionaries coincide, such as the names of some diseases, the information presented in them is altogether different.
The former give much more extensive information on these subjects. For example, the entry influenza in a linguistic
dictionary presents the word's spelling and pronunciation, grammar characteristics, synonyms, etc. In an
encyclopaedia the entry influenza discloses the causes, symptoms, characteristics and varieties of this disease, various
treatments of and remedies for it, ways of infection, etc. Though, strictly speaking, it is with linguistic dictionaries that
lexicology is closely connected and in our further consideration we shall be concerned with this type of reference
books only, it may be useful for students of English to know that the most well-known encyclopaedias in English are
The Encyclopaedia Britannica'(in 24 volumes) and The Encyclopedia Americana (in 30 volumes). Very popular in
Great Britain and the USA are also Collier's Encyclopedia (in 24 vols) intended for students and school teachers,
Chamber's Encyclopaedia (in 15 vols) which is a family type reference book, and Everyman's Encyclopaedia (in 12
vols) designed for all-round use. Besides the general encyclopaedic dictionaries there are reference books that are
confined to definite fields of knowledge, such as The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford Companion to
Theatre, CasselFs Encyclopaedia of World Literature, etc. There are also numerous dictionaries presenting information
about notable persons (scientists, writers, kings, presidents, etc.) often called Who's Who dictionaries. As concept and
word-meaning are closely bound up the encyclopaedic and linguistic dictionaries often overlap. Encyclopaedias
sometimes indicate the origin of the word, which belongs to the domain of linguistics. On the other hand, there are
elements of encyclopaedic character in many linguistic dictionaries. Some of these are unavoidable. With terms, for
instance, a lexicographic definition of meaning will not differ greatly from a short logical definition of the respective
concept in encyclopaedic dictionaries. Some dictionary-compilers include in their word-lists such elements of purely
encyclopaedic nature as names of famous people together with their birth and death dates or the names of major cities
and towns, giving not only their correct spelling and pronunciation, but also a brief description of their population,
location, etc.
For practical purposes it is important to know that American dictionaries are characterized by encyclopaedic inclusion
of scientific, technical, geographical and bibliographical items whereas it is common practice with British
lexicographers to exclude from their dictionaries information of this kind to devote maximum space to the linguistic
properties of words.
Classification of Linguistic Dictionaries. Thus a linguistic dictionary is a book of words in a language, usually
listed alphabetically, with definitions, pronunciations, etymologies and other linguistic information or with their
equivalents in another language (or other languages). Linguistic dictionaries may be divided into different categories
by different criteria. According to the nature of their word-list we may speak about general dictionaries, on the one
hand, and restricted, on the other. The terms genera1 and restricted do not refer to the size of the dictionary or to the
number of items listed. What is meant is that the former contain lexical units in ordinary use with this or that
proportion of items from various spheres of life, while the latter make their choice only from a certain part of the
word-stock, the restriction being based on any principle determined by the compiler. To restricted dictionaries belong
terminological, phraseological, dialectal word-books, dictionaries of new words, of foreign words, of abbreviations,
etc. As to the information they provide all linguistic dictionaries fall into those presenting a wide range of data,
especially with regard to the semantic aspect of the vocabulary items entered (they are called explanatory) and those

dealing with lexical units only in relation to some of their characteristics, e.g. only in relation to their etymology or
frequency or pronunciation. These are termed specialized dictionaries.
Dictionaries with the same nature of word-lists may differ widely in the kind of information they afford, and the other
way round, dictionaries providing data of similar nature may have a different kind of word-list. For example,
dictionaries of unrestricted word-lists may be quite different in the type of information they contain (explanatory,
pronouncing, etymological, ideographic, etc.), terminological dictionaries can also be explanatory, parallel,
ideographic, presenting the frequency value of the items entered, etc. On the other hand, translation dictionaries may
be general in their word-list, or terminological, phraseological, etc. Frequency dictionaries may have general and
terminological word-lists. All types of dictionaries, save the translation ones, may be m o n o-lingual or bilingual, i.e.
the information about the items entered may be given in the same language or in another one. Care should be taken not
to mix up the terms monolingual and explanatory, on the one hand, and bilingual and translation dictionaries on the
other. The two pairs of terms reflect different dimensions of dictionaries. The terms monolingual and bi1ingual
pertain to the language in which the information about the words dealt with is couched. The terms explanatory and
translation dictionaries characterize the kind of information itself. Thus among dictionaries of the same type, say
phraseological or terminological, we may find both monolingual and bilingual word-books. For example, Kluges
Etymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen Sprache is bilingual, but it is not its purpose to supply translation of the
items entered. It is important to realize that no dictionary, even the most general one, can be a general-purpose wordbook, each one pursues a certain aim, each is designed for a certain set of users. Therefore the selection of material
and its presentation, the language in which it is couched depend very much upon the supposed users, i.e. whether the
dictionary is planned to serve scholarly users or students or the general public. Thus to characterize a dictionary one
must qualify it at least from the four angles mentioned above: 1) the nature of the word-list, 2) the information
supplied, 3) the language of the explanations, 4) the prospective user. Below we shall give a brief survey of the most
important types of English dictionaries, both published in English-speaking countries and at home. We shall first dwell
on the dictionaries that are unrestricted in their word-lists and general in the information they contain, on explanatory
and translation dictionaries,-presented by the greatest number of word-books, then deal with word-books of restricted
word-lists and with specialized dictionaries and after that with a special group of reference books, the so-called
learner's dictionaries.
Explanatory Dictionaries. Out of the great abundance of linguistic
dictionaries of the English language a
large group is made up of the so-called explanatory dictionaries, big and small, compiled in English-speaking
countries. These dictionaries provide information on all aspects of the lexical units entered: graphical, phonetic,
grammatical, semantic, stylistic, etymological, etc. Most of these dictionaries deal with the form, usage and meaning
of lexical units in Modern English, regarding it as a stabilized system and taking no account of its past development.
They are synchronic in their presentation of words as distinct from diachronic, those concerned with the development
of words occurring within the written history of the language. For instance, the New English Dictionary on Historical
Principles commonly abbreviated in NED and its abridgement The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles
(SOD) cover the history of the English vocabulary from the days of King Alfred down to the present time; they are
diachronic, whereas another abridgement of the NED-the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (COD) as
well as H. C. Wyld's Universal Dictionary of the English Language are synchronic. Other series of aurhoritative
synchronic explanatory dictionaries are Webster dictionaries, the Funk and Wagnalls (or Standard) dictionaries and the
Century dictionaries. It should be noted that brief remarks of historical and etymological nature inserted in dictionaries
like the COD do not make them diachronic. Moreover, dictionaries of a separate historical period, such as AngloSaxon Dictionary by J. Bosworth and T. N. Toller, Stratmann's Middle English Dictionary by H. Bradley, which are
sometimes called historical, cannot be strictly speaking referred to diachronic wordbooks. They do not trace the
evolution of the language, but study a synchronic cross-section, i.e. the words of a historical period are regarded from
a synchronic angle.
Translation Dictionaries. Translation dictionaries, (sometimes also called parallel) are wordbooks containing
vocabulary items in one language and their equivalents in another language. Many English-Russian and RussianEnglish dictionaries have been made in our country to meet the demands of language students and those who use
English in their work. The most representative translation dictionaries for English are the New English-Russian
Dictionary edited by Prof. I. R. Galperin, the English-Russian Dictionary by Prof. V. K. Miiller and The Russian-

English Dictionary under prof. A. I. Smirnitsky's general direction. 1 It is common practice to call such word-books
English-English dictionaries. But 'this label cannot be accepted as a term for it only points out that the English words
treated are explained in the same language, which is typical not only of this type of dictionaries (cf. synonym-books).
Specialized Dictionaries. Phraseological dictionaries in England and America have accumulated vast collections
of idiomatic or colloquial phrases, proverbs and other, usually image-bearing word-groups with profuse illustrations.
But the compilers' approach is in most cases purely empiric. By phraseology many of them mean all forms of
linguistic anomalies which transgress the laws of grammar or logic and which are approved by usage. Therefore
alongside set-phrases they enter free phrases and even separate words.1 The choice of items is arbitrary, based onintuition and not on any objective criteria. Different meanings of polysemantic units are not singled out, homonyms
are not discriminated, no variant phrases are listed. An Anglo-Russian Phraseological Dictionary by A. V. Koonin has
many advantages over the reference books published abroad and can be considered the first dictionary of English
phraseology proper. To ensure the highest possible cognitive value and quick finding of necessary phrases the
dictionary enters phrase variants and structural synonyms, distinguishes between polysemantic and homorrymic
phrases, shows word- and form-building abilities of phraseological units and illustrates their use by quotations. New
Words dictionaries have it as their aim adequate reflection of the continuous growth of the English language. There are
three dictionaries of neologisms for Modern English. Two of these (Berg P. A Dictionary of New Words in English,
1953; Reifer M. Dictionary of New Words, N. Y., 1955) came out in the middle of the 50s and are somewhat out-ofdate. The third (A Dictionary of New English. A Barnhart Dictionary, L., 1973) is more up-to-date. The Barnhart
Dictionary of New English covers words, phrases, meanings and abbreviations which came into the vocabulary of the
English language during the period 1963-1972. The new items were collected from the reading of over half a million
running words from US, British and Canadian sources-newspapers, magazines and books. Dictionaries of slang
contain elements from areas of substandard speech such as vulgarisms, jargonisms, taboo words, curse-words,
colloquialisms, etc. The most well-known dictionaries of the type are Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
by E. Partridge, Dictionary of the Underworld: British and American, The American Thesaurus of Slang by L. V.
Berry & M. Den Bork, The Dictionary of American Slang by H. Wentworth and S. B. Flexner.
Usage dictionaries make it their business to pass judgement on usage problems of all kinds, on what is right or
wrong. Designed for native speakers they supply much various information on such usage problems as, e.g., the
difference in meaning between words like comedy, farce and burlesque, illusion and delusion, formality and
formalism, the proper pronunciation of words like foyer, yolk, nonchalant, the plural forms of the nouns flamingo,
radix, commander-in-chief, the meaning of such foreign words as quorum, quadroon, quatrocento, and of such
archaic words as yon, yclept, and so forth. They also explain what is meant by neologisms, archaisms, colloquial and
slang words and how one is to handle them, etc. The most widely used usage guide is the classic Dictionary of Modern
English Usage by N. W. Fowler. Based on it are Usage and Abusage, and Guide to Good English by E. Partridge, A
Dictionary of American English Usage by M. Nicholson, and others. Perhaps the best usage dictionary is A Dictionary
of Contemporary American Usage by B. Evans and C. Evans. (N. Y., 1957).
Dictionaries of word-frequency inform the user as to the frequency of occurrence of lexical units in speech, to be more
exact in the corpus of the reading matter or in the stretch of oral speech on which the word-counts are based.
Most frequency dictionaries and tables of word frequencies published in English-speaking countries were constructed
to make up lists of words considered suitable as the basis for teaching English as a foreign language, the so-called
basic vocabulary. Such are, e.g., the E. Throndike dictionaries and M. West's General Service List. Other frequency
dictionaries were designed for spelling reforming, for psycholinguistic studies, for an all-round synchronic analysis of
modern English, etc. In the 50s-70s there appeared a number of frequency dictionaries of English made up by Soviet
linguo-statisticians for the purposes of automatic analysis of scientific and technical texts and for teaching purposes
(in non-language institutions). A Reverse dictionary is a list of words in which the entry words are arranged in
alphabetical order starting with their final letters.
The original aim of such dictionaries
was to indicate words, which form rhymes (in those days the composition of verse was popular as a very delicate
pastime). It is for this reason that one of the most well-known reverse dictionaries of the English language, that
compiled by John Walker, is called Rhyming Dictionary of the English Language. Nowadays the fields of application
of the dictionaries based on the reverse order (back-to-front dictionaries) have become much wider. These word-books
are indispensable for those studying the frequency and productivity of certain word-forming elements and other

problems of word-formation, since they record, in systematic and successive arrangement, all words with the same
suffixes and all compounds with the same terminal components. Teachers of English and textbook compilers will find
them useful for making vocabulary exercises of various kinds. Those working in the fields of language and
information processing will be supplied with important initial material for automatic translation and programmed
instruction using computers. Pronouncing dictionaries record contemporary pronunciation. As compared with the
phonetic characteristics of words given by other dictionaries the information provided by pronouncing dictionaries is
much more detailed: they indicate variant pronunciations, which are numerous in some cases), as well as the
pronunciation of different grammatical forms. The world famous English Pronouncing Dictionary by Daniel Jones, is
considered to provide the most expert guidance on British English pronunciation. The most popular dictionary for the
American variant is A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English by J. S. Kenyon and T. A. Knott. Etymological
dictionaries trace present-day words to the oldest forms available, establish their primary meanings and give the
parent form reconstructed by means of the comparative-historical method. In case of borrowings they point out the
immediate source of borrowing, its origin, and parallel forms in cognate languages. The most authoritative of these is
nowadays the newly-published Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology edited by C. T. Onions. Quite popular is the
famous Etymological English Dictionary by W. W. Skeat compiled at the beginning of the century and published
many times. Ideographic dictionaries designed for English-speaking writers, orators or translators seeking to express
their ideas adequately contain words grouped- by the concepts expressed. The world famous ideographic dictionary of
English is P. M. Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. Besides the most important and widely used types
of English dictionaries discussed above there are some others, of which no account can be taken in a brief treatment
like this (such as synonym-books, spelling reference books, hard-words dictionaries, etc.). (A Course in Modern
English Lexicology. R.S.Ginsburg, S. S. Khidekel, G.I.Knyazeva, A.A.Sankin. M., 1966)

Terminology.
Linguistic Terminology. It is sometimes suggested that the terminology, or 'jargon', of modern linguistics is
unnecessarily complex. This is a criticism, which need not detain us long. Every science has its own technical
vocabulary: it is only because the layman takes on trust the established sciences, and especially the 'natural' sciences,
that he does not question their right to furnish themselves with special vocabularies. The technical terms used by
linguists arise in the course of their work and are easily understood by those who approach the subject sympathetically
and without prejudice. It should not be forgotten that most of the terms which the non-linguist employs to talk about
language ('word', 'syllable', 'letter', 'phrase', 'sentence', 'noun', 'verb', etc.) originated as technical terms of tra ditional
grammar and are no less 'abstract' in their reference than the more recent creations of linguists. If the contemporary
linguist requires different terms, instead of or in addition to, those familiar to the layman, this is accounted for partly
by the fact that the non-technical employment of many of the terms of traditional grammar has rendered them
insufficiently precise for scientific purposes and partly by the simple fact that modern linguistics has in certain
respects advanced beyond traditional grammar in its attempt to construct a general theory of language-structure. The
technical terms employed in this book will be introduced gradually, with full explana tion and as far as possible with
reference to traditional terms of general currency. As we shall see, the use of a special vocabulary eliminates a good
deal of ambiguity and possible misunderstanding in the discussion of language. (John Lyons. Introduction to
Theoretical Linguistics, p. 1-2)
There is at present no theory of Definition capable of practical application under normal circumstances. The
traditional theory, in so far as it has not been lost in the barren subtleties of Genus and Differentia, and in the
confusion due to the term 'Connotation', has made little progress chiefly on account of the barbarous superstitions
about language, which have gathered on the confines of logic from earliest times. Four difficulties have stood in the
way and must first be removed.
Firstly, do we define things or words? To decide this point we have only to notice that if we speak about defining
words we refer to something very different from what is referred to, meant, by 'defining things'. When we define
words we take another set of words, which may be used with the same referent as the first, i. e., we substitute a
symbol, which will be better understood, in a given situation. With things, on the other hand, no such substitution is
involved. A so-called definition of a horse as opposed to the definition of the word 'horse', is a statement about it

enumerating properties by means of which it may be compared with and distinguished from other things. There is thus
no rivalry between 'verbal' and 'real' definitions. The words by means of which these properties are enumerated do, of
course, give us a substitute symbol either a complete analysis, or as abbreviated by classificatory methods (the
usual 'genus and differentia' type) with the same referent (the horse) as the original symbol; but rather by way of
corollary than as the main purpose of the analysis. Moreover, this process is only possible with complex objects,
which have been long studied by some science. With simple objects, or those which for lack of investigation are not
known to be analyzable, as well as with everything to which classificatory methods have not yet been applied, such a
method is clearly not avail able, and here other symbols must be found as the substitutes which symbol-definition
seeks to provide. Such, in outline, is the solution of the long-standing dispute between the advocates of real and
symbolic definitions. The second difficulty is closely related to the above... Definitions have usually, for grammatical
reasons, to be stated in a form, which makes them appear to be about things. This is because we are in the habit of
abbreviating such symbols as the "word 'fire' refers to the same referent as the words 'what burns'" to "fire is what
burns"; and of saying "Chien means 'dog'" when we ought to say "the word chien and the word 'dog' both mean the
same animal".
Thirdly, all definitions are essentially ad hoc. They are relevant to some purpose or situation, and consequently are
applicable only over a restricted field or 'universe of discourse'. For some definitions, those of physics, for instance,
this universe is very wide. Thus for the physicist 'energy' is a wider term than for the schoolmaster, since the pupil
whose report is marked 'without energy' is known to the physicist as possessing it in a variety of forms. Whenever a
term is thus taken outside the universe of discourse for which it has been defined, it becomes a metaphor, and may be
in need of fresh definition. Though there is more in metaphor than this, we have here an essential feature of symbolic
metaphorical language...
Fourthly, there is the problem of 'intensive' as opposed to 'extensive' definition which comes to a head with the use
of the terms 'denote' and 'connote' ... it is necessary to point out that two symbols may be said to have the same
connotation when they symbolize the same reference An intensive or connotative definition will be one which
involves no change in those characters of a referent in virtue of which it forms a context with its original sign in an
extensive definition there may be such change in other words when we define intensively we keep to the same signsituation for definiendum and definiens, when we define extensively this may bi changed. (C. K. Ogden and I. A.
Richards. The Meaning of Meaning, pp. 109-112)
Exercises
Exercise I. Discuss the terms found in the following passage. It has often been suggested that there exists a fundamen tal distinction between two uses of language, one referential and cognitive, the other emotive. This dichotomy the
theory of the Great Divide, as it has been called is clearly oversimplified and even misleading: as a recent critic has
pointed out, "'emotive', or 'affective', is being used as a catch-all term to refer to a number of quite distinct factors",
some of which have very little to do with 'emotions' in the ordinary sense of the term. Some scholars have therefore
devised a more delicate set of distinctions to handle these complex and elusive phenomena. From the semantic and
stylistic point of view, it is preferable to discard the term 'emotive' altogether and to speak, more neutrally, of
'connotations' or 'overtones': some of these will be directly related to emotional attitude, whereas others will be merely
'expressive' in the broader sense. As far as meaning is concerned, such overtones would seem to fall into three groups:
those generated by the name, those connected with the sense, and a third type which involves the word as a whole and
depends on what is nowadays called 'register'. (Stephen Ullmann. Stylistics and Semantics, pp. 139-140)
Test Questions
1. What is the basic criterion for distinguishing between a term and a unit of the general vocabulary? 2. Why do we
say that a term is inseparable from its definition?
3. What is the hallmark of an ideal terminological system?
4. Why should polysemy be avoided in terms? 5. What structural types of terms do you know? 6. Why should the term
'metalanguage' be used with respect to language only? 7. Why do we require a metalanguage?
THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC PROCESS OF BORROWING.

The English word stock at present is one of the largest in the world. The tempo of the growth of the vocabulary in the
English language corresponds to the tempo of progress of the given speaking community. Being a Germanic language
its word stock contains about 25% of lexical units of Germanic origin and more than 65% of lexemes of Romance
origin. This fact can be diachronically and sociolinguistically explained. The borrowing from Latin into the Germanic
languages started before the Germanic tribes of Angles and Saxons, etc. migrated to England due to close political
and trade relations (wine, butter, cheese). A number of Latin words were borrowed from the Celts (street, wall; names
of places: London, Caster, Castle, Chester, Chestry). Thus, during the Old English period many Latin and Greek
words were introduced in the language. The Christianization of England and the introduction of Latin in Christian
churches in the VIIth century lead to intensive borrowings from Latin of words, including religious terms: altar,
priest, psalm, temple, kitchen, palm. Scandinavian invasions brought to about 40 lexemes to be borrowed from Old
Norse, pertaining to the sea and battle, social and administrative system, etc.: like law, the verb form are, the lexical
units take, cut, both, ill, ugly, egg, sky, sister, window, get.146 The Norman invasion contributed to intensive
borrowing from Norman French, which was used as the language of the government, the church, the army, etc. During
the Renaissance the vocabulary was enlarged by borrowings, especially from Latin and. Italian, Spanish and
Portuguese also contributed to this process: stanza, violin, alligator, peccadillo, sombrero. With the colonial
expansion of the British Empire English borrowed words from more than 50 different languages. From Americas came
words like: llama, quinine, barbecue, cannibal, etc., from Africa, zebra and chimpanzee; from India, bandana,
punch; from Australia: kangaroo and boomerang. In addition, a lot of scientific terms were coined to express new
concepts, discoveries and inventions. Most of the terms like positron, neutron, penicillin, were formed using from
Greek and Latin morphemes. The Romanian Language has been borrowing words from various languages: Romance
(French, Italian, etc.), Greek, Turkish Slavic, Germanic, Romance, Ugro-Finnish, and other languages. As it was
mentioned above all the borrowings from Romance languages have contributed to a considerable re-romanization of
Romanian. Lately this process has been intensified by English, a Germanic language. Most of the borrowings coming
from English may be considered as part of the international vocabulary. Borrowing from English now is highly
motivated be the rapid development of science and technology, economy, culture, etc. in the USA and Great
Britain and the necessity to coin new words or use existing words to express new concepts. Communication and
social, political, military and economic relations of the world community have developed to such an extent that
now that new advanced technologies and goods spread all over the globe, the English language in this case is
being used as a lingua Franca. An English technical metalanguage is being spread all over the world becoming
part of various languages. As a good example may serve the metalanguage of informatics or informational
terminology, which is practically used in most countries. Even in cases when there exist equivalents in the native
languages to name some concepts, as a rule, the English term is usually preferred in a more scientific functional
style. Practically in all the former socialist Warsaw Pact countries English has become very popular and is widely
taught in the majority of educational institutions and this makes it easier to borrow lexical units from the English
language. In Republic of Moldova English is taught as one of the foreign languages even in those schools, where
French was and still is traditionally taught. Thus, in spite of the fact that Republic of Moldova is a Francophone
country, English has become very popular with the students and is widely taught and learnt in the absolute majority of
educational institutions. The motivation is in the fact that English has become a real international language and gives
more opportunities in most countries of the world to a lot of people as compared to French (which used to be a lingua
Franca since it took over from Latin in the XVI century up till the second half of the XX century) or to Russian (which
is an international regional language on the territory of the former USSR). Active borrowing from French, Italian,
Latin, and now from English has lead to a reromanisation process in Romanian. Tens of thousand of English words
have been borrowed by Romanian have further contributed to the reromanisation process, because most of the
borrowed words are of Latin or Romance origin, or are words coined by means of morphemes of Latin and Greek
origin. A large number of etymological doublets (triplets, n-plets) have appeared in Romanian due to the adoption of
large number of lexemes during the transition period to the Market economy. Thus, the lexical unit branch coming
from the Italian branca now it has in Romanian, as it has been said above, two units originating from the same word:
bran and brnc. The word market, (from the Italian - mercata) has been recently borrowed into Romanian
(market, marketing), and it also has quite a number of relatives here: mercantile, comerciant marfa, marchidan,
iarmaroc, mercerie, merceologie. In the colloquial functional style we find out quite a number of words, which are

practically not translated into Romanian: speech, briefing, visa, fast-food, charter, baner (from the English banner)
caravan (in the meaning of vehicle or kind of transportation means), bridge, etc.; Abbreviations like " SOS ", " VIP ",
etc.
Neology is the science dealing with neologisms or new words, by which we usually mean the new words (including
the technical terms) appearing in the language as a result of word building and borrowing. English and American
linguists have an important role in compiling dictionaries of neologisms and supplements to explanatory dictionaries.
During the previous decades two invaluable dictionaries by Bamhart have been edited. They fix about 10.000 new
words and their meanings. Such dictionaries as Mayor's and Le May dictionaries of new words (1982 and 1985),
Longman Guardian's dictionary of new words (1986) and Green's dictionary of jargon (1987) are also worthy to be
mentioned. Edition of a four-volume appendix to The Oxford Dictionary edited by R. Burchfield that contains more
than 60.000 vocabulary articles and more than half a million of illustrated examples. The main distinctive feature of
the appendix is the following: a word to enter Bamhart's dictionary is to be used not less than during one year,
whereas in the lexicographical center of the Oxford university this term is five years longer. The new meanings (new
lexico-semantic variant of words) are included in such dictionaries. The main principle of including a word in the
dictionary was its wide usage. He intentionally excluded jargon and slang, one-day living words and new terms in
developing technology. Green wanted to concentrate over the main candidates to become facts of the language, over
those survived in the long course of development of the language. The main problems of neology according to V.
Gahk are : distinguishing new words and meanings; the appearance of words in correlation with the pragmatic needs
of society; patterns of coinage and attitude towards them (accepting or rejecting) of different society groups (age,
profession, etc.). The word is accepted and distributed by users. Next stage of socialization is the acceptance of the
word by large groups of speakers of the language. Next comes the process of lexicalization, and then - getting skills in
an adequate usage of the new word. A prominent English linguist and lexicographer Ch. Barber expressed his point of
view on this question saying that sometimes a new word is produced by a single speaker only, in some special
situation, never to occur again. Sometimes a word produced by a single speaker is taken up by a small group and
persists there for a time without gaining any wider circulation; many small groups have such private words.
Sometimes, however, a word is invented or introduced by a number of different people independently because the
social and linguistic climate favours this development, and such a word is much more likely to gain general
acceptance. A new word, whether the product of one person or many, may have the luck to be popularized by the press
or the wireless, or to be adopted as a piece of exact terminology by some official body; or it may just spread through
the community because it satisfies some need in the speakers, until it becomes an accepted part of the language, and
eventually gets through to the lexicographers and is immortalized in a dictionary." One of the unsolved problems of
neology continues to be the problem of the term "neologism", which by its very nature is ambiguous. In dictionaries it
is generally defined as "a new word or expression or a new meaning of a word". Here we should mention the fact
that the existing words, like the language as a whole, is in permanent state of flux. Most words become polysemantic
and their semantic structure is in permanent development and change, similar to the evolution of the given society or
speaking community. It is much easier to use the already existing words to express new concepts and ideas, objects
and phenomena instead of coining new words (which would have radically increased the number of words to many
millions). In this respect we can state that most of the words are in constant state of renovation, possessing one or
more submeanings relatively new, and this or that contextual meaning many words may be considered to be
neologisms. Another problem is: how long should newly coined words or sub-meanings of existing lexemes be
considered as new? Again this is a sociolinguistic factor. It depends on the tempo of development of this or that
speaking community. Thus, the massive avalanche of new technical terms in most fields of science and technology
now are assimilated and people get familiar with them much more rapidly in highly developed societies, where people
have the knowledge and money to learn and use the latest inventions, wonders of the new technologies, scientific
discoveries, machine and devices to be used in everyday activity. Thus, such terms as e-mail, internet, modem, CDROM, world-web, etc. for most people in such highly developed countries like the USA, Great Britain, and so on
were considered to be neologisms for short period of time at the end of the XX th century. The higher the tempo of
development of a given country and society the shorter the period of time this or that term or sub-meaning of an
existing word is considered to be a neologism. The slower the tempo of development of a speaking community the
longer is the period of time a given new word or meaning is assimilated and considered as a neologism. Thus, such

terms as television, TV set, radio, radio set, intervision, etc. were considered to be neologisms for a longer period of
time even in countries with an advanced rhythm of development of science and technology, economy, culture,
education, etc., because at that period of time the tempo of development was relatively slower in comparison with that
of the end of the XXth century or beginning of the XXI st century. Besides, inside the speaking communities there are
people with different possibilities and opportunities. Thus in Republic of Moldova the terms e-mail, internet,
modem, CD-ROM, world-web are not considered as neologisms only by a small minority of the population, they are
regarded as neologisms by about 10 -20% of the population, and most of the population have no idea of what these
lexemes mean, because the have not had the happy chance to get familiar with all these novelties. More than that. In
some parts of the world you may find people who have never used not just a computer, but a simple phone, or TV
set. For those people terms like TV set, radio, radio set, intervision, electricity, spaceship are completely new
words and notions they have still to get familiar with. It is not so simple of lexical units to cease to be neologisms, just
as soon as they are included in good dictionaries. The sociolinguistic factor is always there and should be taken into
consideration. Linguists usually ask themselves: which of the units of the multitude of potential words and new
borrowings or meanings are going to be accepted by the speaking community and become part of the official
dictionary word-stock? There are various suggestions. But the most important one should be the necessity of the
given unit to be used in the language of the speaking community. If there is no need, no place for a word or meaning
in the given language to carry out a certain function, they would soon be ousted or dropped out of the language.
The well-known lexicologist I. Arnold explains the above mentioned problems connected with the process of the
appearance of neologisms and their acceptance by stating that Language as well as other adaptive systems is capable
of obtaining information from the extra-linguistic world and with the help of feedback makes use of it for selfoptimization. If the variation proves useful, it remains in the vocabulary. The process may be observed by its results,
that is by studying new words or neologisms. New notions constantly come into being, requiring new words to name
them. Sometimes a new name is introduced for a thing or notion that continues to exist, and the older name ceases to
be used. The number of words in a language is therefore not constant, the increase, as a rule, more than makes up for
the leak-out. New words and expressions are created for new things irrespective of their scale of importance. They
may be all-important and concern some social relationships, such as a new form of state, e.g. People's Republic, or
something threatening the very existence of humanity, like nuclear war. Or again the thing may be quite insignificant
and short lived, like fashions in dancing, clothing, hairdo or footwear. In every case either the old words are
appropriately changed in meaning or new words are borrowed, or more often coined out of the existing language
material either according to the patterns and ways already productive in the language at a given stage of its
development or creating new ones. Thus, a neologism is a newly coined word or phrase or a new meaning for an
existing word, or a word borrowed from another language." Thus, the unit of language evolution is considered the
change of nomination that is correlation between the determinant and the determinatum. According to Gahk, a
neologism is a new word (a stable word combination) new either by the form or by the content. According to this in
the vocabulary of neologisms we can distinguish: 1. Proper neologisms (the novelty of the form combines with the
novelty of the content). Ex: audio-typing, bio-computer, thought-processor. 2. Transnominations. combining the
novelty of the form of the word with the meaning, expressed by an already existing form: sudser (soap-opera), big C
(Cancer). 3. Semantic innovations: (the new meaning is expressed by an already existing form). Ex: bread (money).
The language of the last two decades is characterized by the predominance of units of the first type, that is linked
to the increasing necessity of the society to name new things and phenomena, that appear because of the scientific and
technical development. Thus, the development of computer technics caused the appearance of an enormous number of
new units: to telecomute, electronic cottage. Transnominations appear in the language with the aim to give a new,
more emotional name to the thing, having a neutral name and reflect the tendency of the utilisation of more expressive
forms. This tendency like other ones reflects processes in connection with the necessity of the improvement of the
linguistic system. For example: bubble-headed, airhead, airbrain (new slangy units used only in American English).
By semantic innovations we understand new meanings of already existing words. At the same time the following
variants are possible: 1. old words entirely change the meanings, losing the already existing one. 2. in the semantic
structure of the word another lexico-semantic variant appears by the preservation of all traditional variants. Among
semantic innovations of the last decades predominant are the units of the second type. Among the most used new
meanings in modern English we can notice: go-go (modern), flaky (excentric), funky (pleasant), etc. Among semantic

innovations there is the tendency to form more abstract lexico-semantic variants of the word, the predominant being
the enlargement of the meaning. Semantic neologisms, more than other means of formation of new coinages, are
mostly used in slang. We should also mention the fact that borrowings do not substitute or oust the native English
units. It enriches the English word-stock, changes the stylistic shade of lexical units, their structure, homonymic and
synonymic relations are formed. And one more important point is that English has borrowed a great many words from
other languages, especially from Latin, Greek and Romance languages, that as a result it has formed a considerable
number of international words, and still forming lots of new words by means of derivation, composition, abbreviation,
clipping, blending etc. using Latin and Greek elements, boosting in this way the number of international lexemes. All
these lexemes, as it was mentioned above, are readily borrowed by many other languages, which accumulate an
international word stock characteristic to a great number of languages, facilitating the process of international
communication.
( D. Melenciuc. Comparativistics. USM, 2003.)
THE FORMATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL VOCABULARY
English, as a regional and global language of communication, is being learned by more and more people. Lately there
has been an intensive borrowing from English into Romanian and Russian (and other former socialist countries).
Before the beginning of the transition to the market economy the vocabulary borrowed from English was in a way
limited and specific to some domains like science, etc. Here are some examples belonging to the basic language,
borrowed (directly or indirectly) in the process of translating books, scientific works, etc. "trust, trenci, tramvai,
trampling, toast, tifon, tichet, test, sport, sportsmen, etc. Since the beginning of the transition there has been a
constant flow of English words accepted in Romanian (officially accepted or as potential words). Tens of thousands
of words have already been registered in usage both in Romanian (most of them are terms usually borrowed in
Romania and then used in Moldova as well) and Russian. A number of lexical units, found on the outskirts of the
word-stock in Romanian, began to be actively used in the literary language under the influence of English. For
example, words like: anxios (anxious); anxietate (anxiety); exhaustiv (exhaustive); exuberant (exuberant); formativ
(formative); tergiversare (tergiversation); a tergiversa (to tergiversate), fezibilitate (feasibility), discrepant
(discrepancy), etc. Another interesting phenomenon that we observe at present is the borrowing of English words
of the same origin with correspon-ding lexical units in Romanian. This results into formation of etymological
doublets or triplets, etc. Thus, for example, the English word "branch" was borrowed into Romanian as "bran" in
the meaning of "filial". "Branch" in its turn comes from the Italian "brnca", which has the same origin and
meaning like the Romanian "brnc". Our task in the future is to thoroughly investigate all the borrowings and
analyse them from the point of view of motivation and semantic structure, semiotic denotation and metasemiotic
connotation, further development or evolution of the borrowed meaning of the given lexical unit.
Analysing the flux of borrowings into the Romanian language we have observed that all the loans can be divided
into three groups: completely assimilated, partially assimilated and those, which have preserved their original form.
Let's compare the following examples: spicher, spiker, spicr (for speaker, hol, holl (for hali), chemping, kamping
(for camping - partially assimilated. The examples fault, corner, penalty, team, draw, know-how, week-end, t, pickup, judo - have preserved their original form. The lexical units gol, meci, fotbal, ofsaid, golgeter, driblin - roughly
have preserved only their sound shape. The majority of the loan words are still in the process of assimilation: jerseu,
crep, gri, chimonou, jaz, pocher, oranj, sandvi, cocteil. Proper names are written as in the native languages: Sarajevo,
Miinchen, Bordeaux, Washington, Schiller, Shakespeare, Racine, Bangkok, Kuwait, Hiroshima, New York.
When we start to confront lexical units which have identical forms both in English and Romanian we very often
have to conclude that in a lot of cases we have complete discrepancy in translation. Lexicography reveals the
semantic structure of a given lexeme and systematically confronts it with the language units; which should be
suggested for translation of all the meanings, submeanings, metasemiotic connotations, specific usages of the units of
the source language. The task of a bilingual and multilingual dictionary is to thoroughly confront the semantic
structure of the source language and the target language(s). Every language possesses its own specific semantic
structure and it chooses those aspects and characteristic features of the really different objects, phenomena,
processes, which semantically unite them and permit to denote it by a given lexical unit (lexeme). Due to the fact
that various linguistic communities differently segment the extralinguistic reality, semantic structures are created

corresponding to this or that language. When we confront languages it is important to observe the evolution of a
given lexeme not only in the literary language but also in dialects and even in other languages, where the given word
(borrowed from the same source) exists. All the modern (especially Europeans) languages, possess a common word stock,
which comprises scientific, technical and social-political terminology. These words are mostly of Latin and Greek, or
words formed by means of Latin and Greek elements: Greek: democracy, poem, poet, philosophy, asphalt, theatre,
tragedy, drama, lyric, sclerosis. Latin: 1) Medical terms as: tuberculosis, angina, furuncle; 2) Juridical words: advocate,
civil, appeal, jurist, justice; 3) Social-economic and political vocabulary: communism, proletariat, republic, constitution,
class, dictatorship. 4) School terminology: auditorium,' dean, discipline, institute, rector, student. Newly coined compounds
consisting of Latin and Greek roots formed by means of derivation and composition: telephone, kilometer, microscope,
locomotive. The formation of the international word stock is a positive process. It is a process of creating a future common
world language. Even now, in spite of the cases of "false friends", it is much easier to communicate or translate from one
language into another due to the existing common international word stock. International words getting into different
languages start developing there and gradually get specific semantic structures, some times considerably different in
meaning. Some of the meanings are quite different and they are usually called "false friends" which can present
difficulties for a translator. Compare, for example, the following words in English and Romanian: abstract - 1. abuz; 2.
jignire; vorbe de ocar; accent - 1. accent; 2. accent; pronuntie; 3. pi. vorbire, limb; actual - 1. real, autentic; adevrat; 2.
actual; actuality - 1. realitate; 2. realism (n art); actually - l. ntr-adevr, n mod real, realmente; 2. actualmente; adept - 1.
cunosctor, expert; 2. est. alchimist; 3. adept; aliment - 1. ntretinere (a cuiva); 2. aliment; alligator - 1. zool. aligator; 2.
tehn. Concasor; amplification - 1. amplificare; 2. rspndire; amplitude - 1. amplitudine; 2. abundent, belug; 3.
avnt, orizont; spatiu ntins, lrgime; apt - 1. potrivit, nimerit; 2. to ... posibil de, nclinat s ..., avnd tendinta s ... 3.
priceput, capabil; 4. amer. Probabil; brutal - 1. brutal; 2. vorb. scrbos, respingtor; camera - 1. aparat de fotografiat; 2.
constr. Camer; cataract - 1. cataract, cascad; 2. ploaie torential; 3. med. Cataract conse-quence - 1. consecint,
numare; 2. concluzie, numare; 3. semnificatie, important; character - 1.caracter; 2. reputatie; 3. recomandare scris,
caracterizare. Cases of "false friends" could be found in simple words with extended semantic structures, where the
component meanings get too far from the dominant. The international word stock should thoroughly be studied in order to
avoid frequent mistakes committed by students, and translators. We have observed that at present the greatest contribution
to the international word stock comes from English. At the same time a certain contribution to English and to the
international word stock have been made by many other languages: 1) Arabic: sheik, mufti, roc, sash, fakir, mohair,
sherbet, sofa, harem, minaret, almanac, alcohol, alchemy, algebra; admiral, assassin, carat, lemon, magazine, apricot,
giraffe, tariff, zenith, saffran, cotton, bedouin, emir, fakir, gazelle, giraffe, harem, hashish, Iute, minaret, mosque, myrrh,
salaam, sirocco, sultan, vizier, bazaar, caravan. 2) Persian: Julep, divan ("council"), caravan, bazaar, firman, carboy, shawl,
scarlet, check, checkmate, chess. 3) Turkish: dolman, coffee, caviare, caftan, kiosk. 4) Tibetan provides: lama. 5) Chinese:
japan (lacquer), ketchup, kaolin, chop suey, chow mein, dim sum, ketchup, tea, gin-seng, kowtow. 6) Japanese: kimono,
soy, mikado, geisha, hara kiri, judo, jujitsu, kamikadze, karaoke, kimono, samurai, soy, sumo, sushi, tsunami. 7) The
Malago-Polynessian: kris, paddy, orang-outang. 8) Russian: samovar, steppe, vodka, kvass, borsch, troika, sputnik,
presidium, soviet, czar, pogrom, tundra, bolshevik, commissar, perestroika. 9) Hebrew (most are 20* century borrowings):
bagel, Chanukkah (Hanukkah), chutzpah, dreidel, kibbitzer, kosher, lox, pastrami (orig. from Romanian), schlep, spiel,
schlep, schlemiel, schlimazel, gefiltefish, goy, klutz, knish, matzoh, schmuck, schnook. 10) Hindi: bandanna, bangle,
bungalow, chintz, cot, cummerbund, dungaree, Juggernaut, jungle, loot, maharaja, nabob, punch (the drink), shampoo, thug,
kedgeree, jamboree. 11) Dravidian: curry, mango, teak, pariah. 12) African languages: banana (via Portuguese), banjo,
boogie-woogie, chigger, goober, gorilla, gumbo, jazz, jitterbug, jitters, juke (box), voodoo, yam, zebra, zombie. 13)
Languages of the Pacific Islands: bamboo, gingham, rattan, taboo, tattoo, ukulele, boondocks. 14) Australia: boomerang,
budgerigar, didgeridoo, kangaroo,
The Romanian language has preserved the language very close to Latin in comparison with other Romance
languages. Thus, when we compare Latin words with Romanian ones we discover very close resemblance: biserica - Latin
basilica, Dumnezeu (Dominus Deus), altar, nger, idol, profet, psalm, templu and others. But as in the other Romance
languages a great number of Latin words with time modified their meanings. Thus, the Latin word cernere meant "to
separate ", now it means "a cerne" (to sift); civitas, designated the citizen's rights, now it means urbs, ora (city);
crapare meant "to resound", now it means "a crpa, a se sparge" (to crack); esca meant "hran, momeal"; now it
means "iasc" (tinder); frigus meant "rece", now it also means "friguri, febr" (fever); necare meant "a face s piar,

a ucide, a sugruma", now in Romanian language it exists as "a (se) neca" (to drawn), etc. As we see even in cases of
closely related languages we should look for "false friends", looking for words coming from the same source, but
developing in different speaking communities with different life experience, we should readily expect their respective
semantic structures not always to coincide, or to partially coincide or even to be completely different. In the course of
the last fifty years a great number of international words in different languages have been under a process of constant
change of their meanings in dependence and rhythm of development of f the given society, economic, political,
scientific and technological development. New meanings appeared, others were entirely dropped in some languages.
This process is going on and will go on. In some cases we can observe generalization of meaning, in others specialization of meaning. Some-times a borrowing acquires new meanings, which were uncharacteristic for its
former semantic structure. Due to the great amount of borrowings the English language more than any other
modern language, has borrowed foreign lexical units and elements into its vocabulary. The borrowings influence the
vocabulary of the language and in its turn is influenced and starts to change with the society. Another instance of
foreign influence upon the semantic structure of English words is semantic borrowing, i.e. the borrowing of a meaning
from a word in a foreign language. This usually takes place in case of international words. Thus, the word "frontier"
in English has acquired additional meanings: as a permanently moving frontier in the direct and transferred meanings.
The frontier in this case is permanently mobile, in state of change. The words pioneer and cadres, which are
international words have acquired new meanings under the influence of the Russian and . In the
translation process the translator should avoid misleading international counterparts. For instance, the Russian
a should not be translated into Romanian or English by "acurat" or "accurate" correspondingly, but by
"punctual", "neat", etc. The English "artist" is not translated into Romanian and Russian by "artist"/ "ap", but by
the lexemes "pictor, om de art" and "xy". From the point of view of the theory of the language loan
translation whish takes place under the influence of "translator's false friends" represents a particular case of
interference. Interference is an erroneous speech product, which was created either by extending the rules of one's
mother-tongue onto the foreign language or mixing up some similar things within the same language. In the first
case we deal with intralingual interference (interference within one language). Interference is inevitable to appear
because of a great number of differences existing in the systems of the mother-tongue and of the language studied
and, in particular, in the lexical systems). If the two lexical systems were identical the student could simply transfer
his knowledge of mother-tongue to the language studied without any mistakes. But due to various above mentioned
reasons these systems are different. When two languages contact, the student is liable to identify the phenomena of
the language studied with the phenomena of the mother-tongue. In such a way these phenomena form a system,
which is identical to the system of the mother-tongue and does not coincide with the actual system of the foreign
language31. We should keep in mind that 'International' words differ from other borrowings in that they reflect the
relations of a number of countries and not the relations between two countries as is the case with the borrowed words.
We should like to reiterate again, that the formation of the international word stock is a positive process, which
would help create a future common world language. Even now, in spite of the cases of "false friends", it makes it
easier to communicate or translate from one language into another due to the existing common international word
stock.
( D. Melenciuc. Comparativistics. USM, 2003.)

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC MOTIVATION

OF THE VOCABULARY
Bilingual or multilingual lelxicography reveal the semantic structure of a given lexeme and systematically confronts it
with the language units, which should be suggested for translation of all the meanings, submeanings, metasemiotic
connotations, specific usages of the units of the source language. The task of a bilingual and multilingual dictionary is
to thoroughly confront the semantic structure of the source language and the target language(s). Every language
possesses its own specific semantic structure and it chooses those aspects and characteristic features of the really
different objects, phenomena, processes, which semantically unite them and permit to denote it by a given lexical unit
(lexeme). Due to the fact that various linguistic communities differently segment the extralinguistic reality, semantic

structures are created corresponding to this or that language. When we confront languages it is important to observe
the evolution of a given lexeme not only in the literary language but also in dialects and even in other languages,
where the given word (borrowed from the same source) exists 34. Due to various sociolinguistic processes English and
Romanian have discovered a certain tendency to get closer together, especially concerning their word-stocks. Thus,
the Romanian language, which originates from Latin, appeared as a result of the disintegration of the Roman Empire
and at a given moment it lost a considerable amount of the original word-stock. The active reromanization process
began in XVI-XVII centuries by borrowings from French (about 40% of the words), Latin, Italian and other
languages. It is interesting to observe that lately (during the transition to the market economy) we have had a constant
stream of borrowed words from English, many of them being of Romance origin, and thus contributing to the further
reromanization of Romanian. As a result of this process now we detect quite a large number of etymological doublets,
triplets, etc. Historically, again due to numerous sociolinguistic events, English has undergone a considerable
romanization of its vocabulary (more than 65% of the word-stock). The borrowing of lexical units from the
abovementioned sources contributed to the formation of a considerable part of the vocabulary etymologically (directly
or indirectly) going back to the same source. The words, being borrowed from this or that language, continue to
develop their semantic structure under the influence of a given extralinguistic reality of the given linguistic
community: historic conditions, traditions, culture, development of science and technology, etc. This fact conditions
the difference in the semantic structure of lexemes, which is also connected with the fact that the borrowing of this or
that lexeme took place at different times, and that means that the semantic structure of the lexeme at the time was
different or could be different. Besides, the lexeme could be borrowed by different languages in different way: a)
borrowing the entire semantic structure of the given lexeme; b) borrowing by various languages of only part of the
semantic structure of the lexeme, and in this case they may borrow the same part (as being very important at the
moment) or every language could borrow different parts of the given semantic structure to be further developed in the
target languages.
Comparing the semantic structures of borrowed words in their evolution we can see that their
original meaning, sometimes has nothing in common with their modern meaning or meanings. Some of them have
even acquired an opposite meaning. Thus, the English nice in Latin meant ignorant, in Old French foolish and
in Modern English this word has a completely different meaning close to the meanings of such lexemes as good,
pleasant, lovely, smart. Compare the borrowings of such words as , from Slavic languages into
Romanian, where we now find the words obraznic, vrednic, possessing antonymous meanings to their equivalents
in the source language. The word legend used to mean a description of the life of saints, then the meaning changed
to unfeasible or incredible story. Let us give an example of a simple word available in both English and Romanian
and see the evolution it has undergone in the confronted languages. Thus, in Romanian the semantic structure of the
word car is usually given as follows: 1.A four wheeled animal driven vehicle; 2.The quantity of the material carried
in such a vehicle; 3.Part of a mechanic saw; 4.Part of typewriter. In English the following semantic structure is found:
1.Motor-car or train-car; 2.On a railway in Great Britain: coach, dinning car, sleeping car; in the USA also wagon for
goods, freight car; 3.The part of a balloon, airship, or lift used by passengers.
4.(poet.) Wheeled vehicle, chariot:
the car of the sun god. The only coincidence with the original meaning is found in the first meaning in Romanian and
the fourth meaning in English. The change in the field of usage brought to a gradual change in the semantic structure
of the given word, the original meaning is practically getting out of usage at the moment. Compare also the verbs
formed from this lexeme: to carry in English and a cra in Romanian. When we confront English and Romanian
we should take into consideration the literary variants and dialects. The American (USE) and British (BE) variants of
the English language can serve as a good example, because they both, for a period of time, have developed separately
and acquired certain specific features. At the beginning of the XVII century (1604) colonizers from Great Britain
started to arrive in North America and, thus, the English language began to spread there. The English language word
stock at the time was not so rich to express the multitude of phenomena, new objects and notions the immigrants had
to deal with. There was an urgent necessity of creating new words and they were being created by means of
composition, derivation, conversion, abbreviation, lexicalization of grammatical forms, change of grammatical forms,
change of the meaning of the words existing in English (and this lead to differences in the semantic structure of many
lexemes in American and British variants of English), etc. Most of the words to fill the gap were borrowed from the
Indian languages and languages of the people coming from different parts of the world. During the colonization of
North America English, French and Spanish colonizers contacted each other and as a result a lot of French and

Spanish words were borrowed into the USE. Here a some examples of words borrowed from French (Canada and
Lousiana): bayou, cache, depot, dime, bureau, armoire, dindon sauvage, barouche sauvage, aigle tte blanche; Names
of places: Detroit, Fond du Lac, Prairie du Chien, Eau Claire, Au Sable, Lousiana, etc. The number of borrowings
from French into USE is smaller than the one in the BE. The borrowings from Spanish have been and still are quite
considerable. There are more than 38 million Spanish speaking people in the USA. A Spanglish dialect has been
formed, i.e. a kind of mixture of English and Spanish. Here are some examples of Spanish borrowings: creole,
alligator, ranch, canyon, marihuana, plaza, tornado, bonanza, eldorado, wrangler, mosquito, hombre, amigo, pronto;
Names of places: Eldorado, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Pedro, Sacramento, Florida, Orlando, etc. We
should also distinguish direct borrowings from the indirect ones, and loan translations from the Indian languages of
North America. Many borrowed lexemes found their way not only into British English, but also into many other
languages due to the translation of many books all over the world. Lets give several examples: hominy, pone,
succotash, mackinaw, moccasin, wigwam, toboggan, tomahawk, sagamore, papoose; Indirect borrowings: coyote,
cannibal, canoe, chocolate, cocoa, potato, tomato, savannah; Loan translations: big chief, firewater, medicine man,
pale face, pipe of peace, war dance, war hatchet, war paint, to bury the hatchet, etc. A relative separation of the USE
and BE in their evolution has brought to certain phonologic, grammatical and lexical differences. The same
differences are observed in the semantic structures of many lexemes in both English variants, and in words of common
origin in English and Romanian. Thus, the lexeme bug in British English has a much narrower meaning (plonit)
than in the American variant, where it has acquired a wider meaning of insect, and also that of bacteria, fashion,
etc. The combination bed bug corresponds to the BE bug. Quite a number of the so called Americanisms can be
found in the archaic or dialectal British English, thus, the equivalent of the autumn in the USA is fall, which is
archaic in BE. The same lexeme may be used to express different meanings: Thus, pavement in the USA means
hard part of the street and the BE of the given lexeme is rendered in the US as sidewalk. In the XXth century,
especially after the Second World War, there was an active mutual influence between USE and BE. The fact that the
USA has become one of the leading political, military and economic power in the world and has made USE variant
preferable. Its influence on the BE has considerably increased due to modern communication means as well. Many
Americanisms are not rejected on the British Isles, especially among the young generation. Even in pronunciation of
words we can detect changes in the BE as a result of the USE influence. Thus, for example, one can hear on BBC the
same pronunciation of [t, d, s, z] in front of [r] [j] sounds (they existed in some British dialects): Glad to meet
you (t is pronounce like [t] in choice); Press report, Last year (s pronounced like [] in fish); It was
you (the sound [z] is pronounced like [] in garage or measure); Did you see him yesterday? (d in front
of y here is pronounced like [d] in George or in joy). Many new words and expressions are being borrowed
constantly due to television, cinema, radio, internet, tourism, business relations, economic, cultural, political and
military relations. Practically there is a process of leveling out of the variants and creating a kind of general or world
English. Still there are many words that the Americans and the British would recognize that they are not part of their
variant yet, but part of the world English: apartment flat; dormitory (fraternity, sorority) hostel; cereal porridge;
pants trousers; vacation holiday; campus grounds; accord agreement, etc. English, as a regional and global
language of communication, is being learned by more and more people. Lately there has been an intensive borrowing
from English into Romanian and Russian (and other former East European countries). Before the beginning of the
transition to the market economy the vocabulary borrowed from English was in a way limited and specific to some
domains like science, etc. Here are some examples belonging to the basic language, borrowed (directly or indirectly)
in the process of translating books, scientific works, etc. trust, trenci, tramvai, trampling, toast, tifon, tichet, test,
sport, sportsmen, etc. Some words are being borrowed and loan-translated. Thus, for example, the lexeme
bodyguard is found in Romanian colloquial speech as bodigard (sing.) bodigarzi (pl.), gard de corp, paz
de corp instead of the word combinations gard personal, paz personal. Since the beginning of the transition
there has been a constant flow of English words accepted in Romanian (officially accepted or as potential words).
Tens of thousands of words have already been registered in usage both in Romanian (most of them are terms usually
borrowed in Romania and then used in Moldova as well) and Russian. A number of lexical units, found at the outskirts
of the word-stock in Romanian, began to be actively used in the literary language under the influence of English. For
example, words like: anxios (anxious); anxietate (anxiety); exhaustiv (exhaustive); exuberant (exuberant); formativ
(formative); tergiversare (tergiversation); a tergiversa (to tergiversate), fezibilitate (feasibility), discrepant

(discrepancy), etc. Another interesting phenomenon that we observe at present is the borrowing of English words of
the same origin with corresponding lexical units in Romanian. This results into formation of etymological doublets or
triplets, etc. Thus, for example, the English word branch was borrowed into Romanian as bran in the meaning
of filial. Branch in its turn comes from the Italian branca, which has the same origin and meaning like the
Romanian brnc. Our task in the future is to thoroughly investigate all the borrowings and analyze them from the
point of view of motivation and semantic structure, semiotic denotation and metasemiotic connotation, further
development or evolution of the borrowed meaning of the given lexical unit. ( D. Melenciuc. Comparativistics.
USM, 2003.)

I.

THE BASIC METALANGUAGE OF LEXICOLOGY

The English Word-Stock. Working Definitions of Principal Concepts.
1.Language, a semiological system serving as the main and basic means of human communication.

2. Vocabulary, the totality of words in a language.

3. Diachrony, the historical development of the system of language as the object of linguistic investigation.
Diachronic, historical.
4. Synchrony, a conventional isolation of a certain stage in the development of language as the object of lin guistic investigation. Synchronic, representing one conventional historical stage in the development of language.
5. Semantic extension (widening of meaning), the extension of semantic capacity of a word, i. e. the expansion
of polysemy, in the course of its historical development.
6. Narrowing of meaning, the restriction of the semantic capacity of a word in the course of its historical
development.
7. Borrowing, resorting to the word-stock of other languages for words to express new concepts, to further
differentiate the existing concepts and to name new objects, phenomena, etc.
8. Loan translations (calques), borrowing by means of literally translating words (usually one part after another)
or word combinations, by modeling words after foreign patterns.
9. Hybrid, a word, different elements of which are of etymologically different origin.
10. Etymological doublet (triplet, etc.), one of a pair of (or several) words more or less similar in meaning and
phonation, appearing in language as the result of borrowing from the same source at different times.
11. Sociolinguistics, branch of linguistics studying causation between language and the life of the speaking
community.
12. Neologism, a word or a word combination that appears or is specially coined to name a new object or express a
new concept.
13. Occasional word, a word which cannot be considered a permanent member of the word-stock: although it is,
as a rule, formed after existing patterns, it is not characterized by general currency but is an individual innovation
introduced for a special occasion. Cf. nonce-word, ephemeral word.
(E.Mednikova. Seminars in English Lexicology. M., 1978).
II.
Problems of Terminology.
Working Definitions of Principal Concepts.
1. Term, a word or a word combination of a special (scientific, technical, etc.) language; a word or a word
combination which is created, borrowed, or adopted to exactly express the definite concepts specific for that science
and name its special objects. A term is a definitional word, i.e. it is not only directly connected with a scientific
definition but displays a relationship of one-to-one correspondence with it. 2. Terminology, the sum total of terms for
a specific branch of science, technology, industry, etc., forming a special layer in the word-stock of a language which
most readily yields to systematization, standardization, etc. Terminological, pertaining to terminology.
Terminologist, a researcher in the field of terminology.
3. Consubstantionalism, the phenomenon of a word o the general language and a term having the same material
form.
4. Metalanguage, a language of the second order, a specific semiological system which is used to speak about
language, i. e. a language the subject of which is the content and the expression of a human language. Metalinguistic,
pertaining to metalanguage. (E.Mednikova. Seminars in English Lexicology. M., 1978).

III. The Word

Working Definitions of Principal Concepts
1. Languagesee definition 1 in I.
2. Speech, the activity of man using language to communicate with other men, i. e the use of different linguistic
means to convey certain content.
3. Concept, a generalized reverberation in the human consciousness of the properties of the objective reality
learned in the process of the latter's cognition. Concepts are formed linguistically, each having a name (a word)
attached to it.
4. Word, the basic unit of language. It directly corresponds to the object of thought (referent) which is a
generalized reverberation of a certain 'slice', 'piece' of objective reality and by immediately referring to it names the
thing meant.
5. Referent, the object of thought correlated with a certain linguistic expression. Also: the element of objective
reality as reflected in our minds and viewed as the content regularly correlated with certain expression.
6. Lexical meaning, the material meaning of a word, i. e. the meaning of the main material part of the word (as
distinct from its formal, or grammatical, part), which reflects the concept the given word expresses and the basic
properties of the thing (phenomenon, quality, state, etc.) the word denotes.
7. Grammatical meaning, the meaning of the formal membership of a word expressed by the word's form, i.e. the
meaning of relationship manifested not in the word itself but in the dependent element which is supplementary to its
material part.
8. Paradigm, the system of the grammatical forms of a word.
9. Root, the semantic nucleus of a word, with which no grammatical properties of the word are connected.
10. Stem, that part of a word, which remains unchanged throughout its paradigm and to which grammatical inflexions and affixes are added. .
11. Reproducibility, regular use in speech as the principal form of existence of a linguistic unit.
12. Connotation see definition 15 in V.
13. Theory of isomorphism, a theory which postulates the absence of qualitative difference between different
levels of language making it possible to analyze and describe them by means of the same methods and principles.
14. Level, a stage in scientific investigation of language which is determined by the properties of the units singled
out' in a consistent segmentation of the flow of speech (from the lowest, to the highest).
15. Lexeme, a word in all its meanings and forms, i.e. a word as a structural element of language (invariant).
16. Allolex, a word as a member of speech, i. e. a variant of a lexeme in a given speech-event.
Note. Morphologically, we distinguish 1.monomorphemic, i. e. root-words, and 2.polymorphemic words, i. e.
derivatives, compounds, compound-derivatives (derivational compounds).
Semantically, we distinguish 1.monosemantic words, i. e. words having only one lexical meaning and denoting,
accordingly, one concept, and 2.polysemantic words, i. e. words having several meanings, thus denoting a whole set of
related concepts grouped according to the national peculiarities of a given language (see IV).
Syntactically, we distinguish 1.categorematic, i. e. notional words, and 2.syncategorematic, i.e. form-words.
Stylistically, we distinguish neutral, elevated (bookish), colloquial, substandard words, etc. Etymologically, we
distinguish native, borrowed, hybrid and international words. (E.Mednikova. Seminars in English Lexicology. M.,
1978).
IV. The Vocabulary of a Language as a System
Working Definitions of Principal Concepts
1.Parts of speech, classes into which words of a language are divided by virtue of their having a) a certain general
(abstract, categorial) meaning underlying their concrete lexical meaning; b) a system of grammatical categories
characteristic of this class; c) specific syntactic functions; d) special types of form-building and word formation.
2.Context, a) the linguistic environment of a unit of language, which reveals the conditions and the character-features
of its usage in speech; b) the semantically complete passage of written speech sufficient to establish meaning of a
given word (phrase).

3.Semantic field, part ('slice') of reality singled out in human experience and, theoretically, covered in language more
or less autonomous lexical microsystem. 4.Lexical set, 1) a group of words more or less corresponding in their main
semantic component, i. e. belonging to the same semantic field; 2) a group of words having the same generic meaning.
5. Synonymy, the coincidence in the essential meanings of linguistic elements, which (at the same time) usually
preserve their differences in connotations and stylistic characteristics.
6. Synonyms, two or more words belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly
identical denotational meanings, interchangeable in some contexts. These words are distinguished by differ ent shades
of meaning, connotations and stylistic features.
7. Ideographic synonyms, such synonyms, which differ in shades of meaning, i. e. between which a semantic
difference is statable.
8. Stylistic synonyms, such synonyms, which, without explicitly displaying semantic difference, are distinguished
stylistically, i. e. in all kinds of emotional, expressive and evaluative overtones.
9. Antonymy, semantic opposition, contrast.
10. Antonyms, a) words, which have in their meanings a qualitative feature and can therefore be regarded as
semantically opposite; b) words contrasted as correlated pairs.
V. The Semantic Structure of a Word
Working Definitions of Principal Concepts
1. Semasiology, the branch of linguistics, which studies the semantics of linguistic units.
2. Semantics, the meaning of words, expressions or grammatical forms.
3. Meaning, the reverberation in the human consciousness of an object of extralinguistic reality (a phenomenon, a
relationship, a quality, a process), which becomes a fact of language because of its constant indissoluble association
with a definite lunguistic expression.
4. Monosemy, the existence within one word of only one meaning.
5. Polysemy, diversity of meanings; the existence within one word of several connected meanings as the result of
the development and changes of its original meaning.
6. Lexical meaning, see definition 7 in III.
7. Context, see definition 2 in IV.
8. Synonymy, see definition 5 in IV.
9. Antonymy, see definition 9 in IV.
10.Paradigmatics, 1) associative (non-simultaneous) relationship of words in language as distinct from linear
(simultaneous) relationship of words in speech (syntagmatics); 2) an approach to language when the elements of its
system are regarded as associated units joined by oppositonal relationship.
11. Opposition, a difference between two (or more) homogeneous units, which is capable of fulfilling a
semiological function, i.e. a serniologically relevant difference.
12. Syntagmatics, linear (simultaneous) relationship of words in speech as distinct from associative (non-simultaneous) relationship of words in language (paradigmatics).
13. Main meaning of a word, meaning which to the greatest degree is dependent upon or conditioned by its
paradigmatic links, while such meanings as display a greater degree of syntagmatic ties are secondary.
14. Denotation, the expression of the main meaning, meaning proper of a linguistic unit in contrast to its connotation.
15. Connotation, supplementary meaning or complementary semantic and/or stylistic shade which is added to the
word's main meaning and which serves to express all sorts of emotional, expressive, evaluative overtones.
16. Combinability (occurrence-range), the ability of linguistic elements to combine in speech.
17. Word combination, a non-predicative unit (or elements) of speech, which is, semantically, both global and
articulated, or a combination of two or more notional words (with accompanying syncategorematic words or without
them) serving to express one global concept.
18. Phraseological unit, a word combination in which semantic unity (non-separability) prevails over structural
separability, or in which global nomination is expressed in a combination of different units.

19. Main nominative meaning, the main, direct meaning of a word, immediately referring to objects, phenomena,
actions and qualities in extralinguistic reality (referent) and reflecting their general understanding by the speaker.
20. Nominative-derivative meanings, other meanings in a polysemantic word, which are characterized by free
combinability and are connected with the main nominative meaning.
21. Collocation, such a combination of words, which conditions the realization of a certain meaning.
22. Colligation, morphosyntactically conditioned combinability of words as means of realizing their polysemy.
23. Homonymy, the coincidence in the same sound form (phonetic coincidence) and orthographic complex of two
(or more) different linguistic units.
24. Homonyms, two (or more) different linguistic units within one sound- and orthographic complex, i. e. displaying diversity on the content plane and identity on the expression plane.
25. Homophones, words with different morphonological structure, which coincide in their sound expression.
26. Homographs, different words coinciding in their orthographic expression.
27. Semantic level of analysis, that level of analysis on which linguistic units are studied biaspectually: both as
units of expression and units of content, i. e. in lexicology the direct relationship of a word and its referent is
investigated.
VI. The Morphological Structure of a Word.
Working Definitions of Principal Concepts
1. Word-formation, the process of forming words by combining root and affixal morphemes according to certain
patterns specific for the language.
2. Word-forming pattern, a structural and semantic formulae, displaying a sequence of elements, which is regularly reproduced in speech.
3. Derivation, such word-formation where the target word is formed by combining a stem and affixes.
4. Composition, such word-formation where the target word is formed by combining two or more stems.
5. Morpheme, the smallest (ultimate) recurrent unit of the system of expression directly related to a
corresponding unit of the system of content.
6. Lexical morpheme, generalized term for root and derivational morphemes, as expressing lexical meanings in
contrast to flexional (morphemes), that express grammatical meanings.
7. Root-morpheme, see definition 10 in III.
8. Derivational morpheme, an affixal morpheme, which, when added to the stem (see definition 11 in III) modifies the lexical meaning of the root and forms a new word.
9. Morphological segmentation (morphologic divisibility), the ability of a word to be divided into such elements as root, stem and affix (or affixes).
10. Conversion (internal derivation, derivation without affixation), a special type of derivation where the word
forming means is the paradigm of the word itself, i. e. derivation, which is achieved by bringing a stem into a
different formal paradigm.
11. Back-formation (regression), forming the allegedly original stem from a supposed derivative on the analogy
of the existing pairs, i. e. the singling-out of a stem from a word, which is wrongly regarded as a derivative.
12. Compound derivative (derivational compound), the result of parasynthetic word-formation, i. e. a word,
which is formed by a simultaneous process of derivation and composition.
13. Productivity, the ability of being used to form (after specific patterns) new, occasional or potential words,
which are readily understood by the speakers of a language.
Productive, able to form new words, which are understood by the speakers of a language.
14. Potential word, a derivative or a compound word which does not actually exist (i. e. has not appeared in any
text), but which can be produced at any moment in accordance with the productive word-forming patterns of the
language. Cf. occasional word (I, 12).
15. Text (corpus), an actually existing (in oral or written form) sentence, conglomeration of sentences, etc. (up to a
complete work of literature, etc.).
16. Abbreviation, the process and the result of forming a word out of the initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a
word combination.

17. Clipping, the process and the result of curtailing (the cutting off of a part) off a word to one or two, usually
initial, syllables.
18. Blending, combining parts of two words to form one word. Blend (blended or portamanteau word), the result
of blending.
19. Onomatopoeia, formation of words from sounds that resemble those associated with the object or action to be
named, or that seem suggestive of its qualities.
VII. Phraseology. Working Definitions of Principal Concepts
1. Semantic isolation, the loss by a word, or word combination, of productivity and the acquisition of idiomatic
qualities.
2. Word combination, a non-predicative unit of speech, which is, semantically, both global and articulated. It is
produced, not reproduced, in speech.
3. Phraseological unit, a complex word-equivalent in which the globality of nomination reigns supreme over the
formal separability of elements. It is reproduced in speech.
4. Productivity, capability of being brought together to form a word combination after a certain syntactic pattern.
5. Reproducibility, regular use in speech as the element's principal form of existence.
6. Idiomatic, having the qualities of a phraseological unit, i.e. when the meaning of the whole is not deducible
from the sum of the meanings of the parts.
7. Syntactic formula, a non-idiomatic sequence of words, which structurally resembles a set expression.
8. Cliche, a stereotyped expression mechanically reproduced in speech.
9. Idiom proper, a phraseological unit with pronounced stylistic characteristics owing to which an element of play
is introduced into speech.
10. Deformation of idiom, the violation of semantic integrity of a phraseological unit or idiom proper by
actualizing the potential meanings of its elements.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RECOMMENDED READING
Arnold I.V. The English Word. M., 1986.
Bloomfield, Leonard. Language. N. Y., 1935.
Bolinger, Dwight. Meaning and Form. London, 1977.
Ginsburg R. S. et at. A Course in Modem English Lexicology. M., 1979.
Jespersen, Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Oxford, 1982.
Kashcheyeva M.A. et al. Practical Lexicology. L., 1974.
Leech, Geoffrey N. Semantics. Penguin Books, 1974.
Leech, Geoffrey N. Principles of Pragmatics. London, 1985.
Lehrer A. Semantic Fields and Lexical Structure. Amsterdam London, 1974.
Lyons, John. Semantics. LondonCambridge, 1979. Vols. 1 and 2.
Marchand H. The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-Formation.
Wiesbaden, 1960.
McKnight C. English Words and their Background. New YorkLondon, 1931.
Mednikova E.M. Seminars in English Lexicology. M., 1978.
Melenciuc D. et al. The English Word-Stock. Exercises in English Lexicology. MSU, 1986.
Melenciuc D. et al. The Structure of English. Exercises in English Lexicology. MSU, 1986.
Melenciuc D. Seminars in English Lexicology. Vol. I , CE USM, Chiinu, 2000.
Melenciuc D. Seminars in English Lexicology. Vol II. CE USM, Chiinu, 2000.
Melenciuc D. Seminars in English Lexicology. Vol. I , CE USM, Chiinu, 2001.
Melenciuc D. Seminars in English Lexicology. Vol II. CE USM, Chiinu, 2001.
Melenciuc Dumitru. English Lexicology. CE USM, Chiinu, 2002..
Nida, Eugene. Componential Analysis of Meaning. An Introduction to Semantic
Structures. The HagueParis, 1975.
Ogden C. K., Richards I. A. The Meaning of Meaning. N. Y., 1970.

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Turner J. The English Language in Australia and New Zealand. London, 1972.
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CONTENTS
Introduction . 4

The Object of Lexicology. 5

The Connection of Lexicology with Phonetics,
Stylistics, History of the Language and Grammar. 5
Lexicology and Sociolinguistics6
The Sociolinguistic Process of Borrowing into the
British Variant of English..10
The Sociolinguistic Process of Borrowing into the
American Variant of English.11
Lexicology and Suprasegmental Phonology.21
Lexicological Phonetics....24
The Prosody of Enantiosemy....33
Word Meaning .36
Types of Meaning. .40
Word Meaning and Meaning in Morphemes .45
Word Meaning and Motivation. .48
Change of Meaning 51
Meaning and Polysemy.. 56
Polysemy and Homonymy . 62
Exercises 68
Word Meaning in Syntagmatics and Paradigmatics.. 72
Meaning Relations in Paradigmatics and Semantic
Classification of Words77
Exercises..80
Antonyms. 82
Exercises. 83
Synonymy 84
Exercises.. 83
Word-Groups and Phraseological Units 84
Some Basic Features of Word Groups. 94
Structure of Word Groups 97
Meaning of Word Groups98
Independence of Structure and Meaning
in Word-Groups. .102
Word-Building.. 123
Affixation.129
Conversion.. 143
Compounding. 155
Abbreviation, Clipping, Blending.. 172
Some of the Minor Types of Modern Word-building..175
Exercises.. 176
Phraseology.... 180
Phraseological Units (Set Expressions) 184
Exercises. 179
Stylistics of the Word... . 184
Exercises. 200
Stylistics of the Words 204
Exercises. 208
The Etymology of the English Vocabulary 213
Borrowings. 217
Interrelations Between Native and

Borrowed Elements.224
The Enrichment (Replenishment) of the
English Word-Stock228
Ways and Means of Enriching the Word Stock.. 234
Exercises. 231
Variants and Dialects of the English Language247
The Main Variants of the English Language239
The British and the American English Variants 253
Archaic Words...256
Exercises257
Neologisms... 258
Exercises259
English Lexicography. Types of Dictionaries...263
Terminology......270
Additional materials.
The Sociolinguistic Process of Borrowing273
The Formation of the International Vocabulary279
The Sociolinguistic Motivation of the Vocabulary..285
The Basic Metalanguage of Lexicology289
Bibliography and Recommended Reading298