Universitatea “Dunărea de Jos” din Galați

Departamentul pentru Învăţământ la Distanţă

şi cu Frecvenţă Redusă

Limba engleză contemporană

Semantică
Gabriela Dima

Facultatea de Litere
Specializarea:
Limba și literatu ra română – Limba și literatura engleză
Anul III, Semestrul 1
“Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati
Faculty of Letters

LIMBA ENGLEZĂ
SEMANTICA

Prof.dr. Gabriela Dima

 Cuprins

CUPRINS

OBIECTIVE ..................................................................................... 5
Chapter 1.
WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS................................................... 5
1.1. Word definitions ............................................................................... 5
1.2. Word meaning ................................................................................... 6
1.3. Dictionaries as repositories of words’ meanings.................... 9
Chapter 2.
ASPECTS CONCERNING THE DOMAIN OF SEMANTICS.......... 15
2.1. Definition and types of semantics ............................................. 15
2.2. Lexical semantics. Lexical fields ............................................... 16
Chapter 3.
SEMANTIC RELATIONS IN A LEXICAL FIELD ........................... 19
3.1. Denotation and connotation........................................................ 19
3.2. Synonymy......................................................................................... 20
3.2.1. Characteristic features of synonyms .................................... 20
3.3. Antonymy.......................................................................................... 23
3.4. Hyponymy......................................................................................... 24
Chapter 4.
EXERCISES .................................................................................. 27
REFERENCES .............................................................................. 31

Limba engleză. Semantica 3

4 Limba engleză. Semantica
 Obiective

OBIECTIVE

1. Aprofundarea cunoştinţelor teoretice şi a terminologiei de specialitate privind

studiul semanticii;
2. Studierea principalelor concepte şi relaţii semantice;
3. Rafinarea deprinderilor de analiză semantică a cuvintelor.

Tipuri si modalitati de activitate didactică: prelegerea, conversaţia

euristică, explicaţia, dezbaterea, studiul de caz, problematizarea, metode de
lucru în grup, individual şi frontal, studiul bibliografiei.

Limba engleză. Semantica 5

6 Limba engleză. Semantica
 Words and their meanings

Chapter 1.
WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS

The term word is very difficult to define, taking into account the
various domains where it can occur, making them function and develop. In
linguistics, it has received plenty of definitions corresponding to the area of
research and the linguistic objectives envisaged.

1.1. Word definitions

A good synthesis of the ways in which a word can be defined has

been provided by Crystal:
“a. A unit of expression which has universal intuitive recognition by
native speakers, in both spoken and written language.
b. The physically definable unit which one encounters in a stretch of
writing (bounded by spaces) or speech. The ‘word’ in this sense is often
referred to as the orthographic word or the phonological word.
c. A unit of meaning incorporating all the grammatical variations or
forms in which it is liable to occur, i.e. a lexeme, defined in its turn as the
minimal distinctive unit in the semantics of a language.
d. A linguistic unit that combines to form phrases, clauses and
sentences and is otherwise distinguished as the smallest possible
sentence unit.” (1995: 379)
Cruse also speaks about the difficulties of defining this concept and
in trying to explain it, he relies especially on some of its features: “[…] a
prototypical word has the following properties:
a. It is the smallest grammatical unit that can be moved around in a
sentence or be separated from its fellows by the insertion of new material.
b. It is the largest unit which cannot be interrupted and whose
elements cannot be reordered.
c. It consists of a single root, either alone or with one or more
affixes.“ (2006: 190).
Taking into account these remarks, we can speak about a
phonological word, an orthographic word, a grammatical word and a
lexical word.
The word identified in a stretch of speech is called a phonological
word. It is studied within the phonological system of each and every
language under the domain of phonology. It can be represented by a
range of sounds varying between different dialects, contexts and individual
speakers. The English phonological system is made up of 12 vowels, 8
diphthongs and 24 consonants. The standard pronunciation of the English
sounds is changed when registers, levels of formality and dialects are
taken into account. Such a treatment has been the subject of various
debates among both linguists and sociologists.

Limba engleză. Semantica 5

Words and their meanings

The word identified in a stretch of writing is called an orthographic

word. It is studied under the domain of orthography which specifies the
correct way of using a corresponding writing system to write a certain
natural language. The spelling of words is based upon the graphical rules
that exist in that language. In all European languages spelling systems are
based upon the use of the alphabet. The English language spelling system
is highly irregular, but still regular to some degree, its mastery only
requiring knowledge of the 26 letters of the alphabet.
Grammatical words are traditionally referred to as items which have
the capacity to fit certain types of linguistic environment according to some
patterns and to the kind of meaning associated with a particular class of
word. The canonical classes defined for the English language as parts of
speech are: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, articles, verbs, adverbs,
conjunctions, prepositions, interjections.
Lexical words are units of lexical meaning, i.e. of non-grammatical
meaning, which contribute to organizing our world experience into a wide
range of categories.
This classificatory capacity is illustrated by dividing the
lexicon/vocabulary of a certain language into lexical sets or fields: “The
diversity of approaches to the lexicon of a natural language emerges from
its dynamics manifested both at the synchronic level in form of variation
and at the diachronic level in form of change. The most complex way of
analyzing these coordinates is the ordering of the lexicon in lexical fields
considered as useful tools for the exploration of lexical meaning, providing
information about the form, meaning, usage, categorization and
relationships of words and phrases” (Dima 2011: 258)
Lexical fields are organized along a common dimension of meaning
which allows the occurrence of lexical relationships among words such as:
antonymy, synonymy, hyponymy, polysemy, homonymy. As examples of
lexical fields we can mention:
a. Board games: chess, draughts, go, Monopoly etc.
b. Parts of the body: arm, leg, head, finger etc
c. Cakes and pastries: almond cake, éclair, muffin, pie, tart etc
d. Chairs: stool, bench, pew, sedan chair etc
e. Sea mammals: dugong, sea lion, elephant seal etc
Lexical fields are studied within the domains of lexicology and
semantics, as branches of theoretical linguistics.

1.2. Word meaning

Robins states that “Meaning is everywhere understood as involving

the relation of language to the rest of the world, and such meaningfulness
is an essential part any definition of language.” (in Readings: 44). Keeping
in mind this remark, out of the many attempts to define, understand and
classify meaning, we have chosen Leech’s classification of meaning into
seven categories:

6 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Words and their meanings

a. Conceptual meaning
It is also called logical, cognitive or denotative meaning, being widely
assumed as the central factor in linguistic communication. In describing it,
Leech points out two structural principles, contrastiveness and structure.
For example, the conceptual meaning of a language can be studied in
terms of contrastive features, so that the meaning of the word ‘woman’
could be specified as + HUMAN, - MALE, + ADULT , as distinct from, say,
‘boy’, which could be defined as + HUMAN, + MALE, - ADULT. The
second principle, that of structure, is the principle by which larger linguistic
units are built up out of smaller units. (1981: 9)
b. Connotative Meaning
“Connotative Meaning is the communicative value by virtue of what it
refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content”, e.g. The world
woman is defined conceptually by three contrastive features, + HUMAN, -
MALE, + ADULT, which translated into real world terms, become attributes
of the referent. But there are also other additional, non-criterial properties
that we expect a referent of woman to possess. They include:‘biped’,
‘having a womb’, ‘gregarious’, ‘subject to maternal instinct’, ‘capable of
speech’, ‘experience in cookery’,’ skirt - or - dress wearing’, ‘frail’, ‘prone to
tears’, ‘cowardly’, ‘emotional’, ‘irrational’, ‘inconstant’, ‘gentle’,
‘compassionate’, ‘sensitive’, ‘hardworking’, ‘non-trouser wearing,’ etc.
These properties (physical, social, psychological, typical, putative,
imposed, etc.) may vary from age to age, society to society, person to
person, culture to culture. Thus, connotative meaning is not specific to
language, but it is shared by other communicative systems. It is
indeterminate and open ended in a sense in which conceptual meaning is
not. (1981: 12-13)
c. Social Meaning
This meaning is considered by Leech as: “that which a piece of
language conveys about the social circumstances of its use”. The direct
reference he makes to is the decoding of the social meaning of a text
through the recognition of different dimensions and levels of style within
the same language. The stylistic variations depend on dialect, time,
province, status, modality, singularity, etc., so, we can rarely find words
which could have both the same conceptual and stylistic meaning.
(1981:14)
d. Affective Meaning
“Affective meaning is often explicitly conveyed through the
conceptual or connotative content of the words used” and it deals with the
speaker’s / writer’s feelings and attitudes. It is largely a parasitic category
i.e. we rely upon the mediation of other categories of conceptual
connotative or stylistic.” (1981:15)

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Words and their meanings

e. Reflected Meaning
“This meaning arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when
one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense”. For
example, The comforter and The Holy Ghost, both referring to the Third
Person of the Trinity. Leech finds these terms conditioned by the everyday
nonreligious meaning of comfort and ghost. In poetry, reflected meaning
operates in less obviously favorable circumstances. “The case where
reflected meaning intrudes through the sheer strength of emotive
suggestion is most strikingly illustrated by words which have a taboo
meaning”. (1981:16)
f. Collocative Meaning
“It consists of the associations a word acquires on account of the
meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment.” The examples
that Leech selects are collocations with pretty and handsome which share
common ground in the meaning good looking, but may be distinguished by
the range of nouns with which they are likely to co-occur or collocate:
pretty girl handsome boy
boy man
woman car
flower vessel
garden overcoat
The ranges may overlap, handsome woman and pretty woman are
both acceptable, although they suggest a different kind of attactiveness
because of the collocative associations of the two adjectives. As Leech
concludes, collocative meaning is simply an idiosyncratic property of
individual words”. (1981:17)
g. Thematic Meaning
The seventh type of meaning distinguished by Leech is
“communicated by the way in which a speaker or writer organizes the
message, in terms of ordering, focus and emphasis. It is often felt, for
example, that an active sentence such as 1) has a different meaning from
its passive equivalent 2), although in conceptual content they seem to be
the same:
1) Mrs. Bessie Smith donated the first prize.
2) The first prize was donated by Mrs. Bessie Smith.
These have different communicative values in that they suggest
different contexts of situation”. (1981:19)

8 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Words and their meanings

1.3. Dictionaries as repositories of words’ meanings

Dictionaries are referential works which have communication-

orientated functions named after the target-user’ situations, as briefly
presented below, following Bergenholtz and Nielsen:
a) to assist the users in solving problems related to text reception/
production of texts in the native language
b) to assist the users in solving problems related to text reception/
production of texts in a foreign language
c) to assist the users in solving problems related to translation of
texts from the native /a foreign language into a foreign /the native
language (2006: 287)
The most frequently mentioned criteria in classifying dictionaries are:
- scope of coverage (e.g. the general or special dictionary, the
monolingual or bilingual dictionary);
- shape /size or content (e.g. the pocket , unabridged or desk
dictionary);
- manner of financing (e.g. the commercial dictionary or scholarly
dictionary);
- the complexity of the headword (e.g. the dictionary of idioms or
collocations, dictionary of phrasal verbs);
- the type of target user (e.g. the learner’s dictionary or dictionary for
native speakers; specialized dictionaries: legal, accounting, medicine,
mechanical engineering etc.);
- the nature of the dictionary seen as a product under various
formats : paper dictionaries, recorded dictionaries on CDs, internet
dictionaries and online dictionaries, computer corpora ( BNC, MICASE,
LOB, FROWN, etc.);
- other criteria refer to age ( children’s dictionaries); learners’
language level (dictionaries for advanced learners) the number of entries
etc.
Dictionaries can be defined through the elements they contain. A
look at any type will reveal a rather general, acknowledged structure,
including the entry, alphabetization, lexical and linguistic information
(phonology/pronunciation, spelling, morphology, syntax, semantics,
context/register, etymology, usage), illustrations, front and back matter.
The absence of one or more of these elements is a matter of choice
among the authors.
The entry represents the alphabetized headword by which the word
or expression being defined is identified. Most headwords are canonical
forms making up a paradigm and being representative of a certain natural
language in its standard. The standard here refers primarily to spelling and
pronunciation. Not all words count as entries.
In what follows we will briefly comment both upon the nature and
number of the entries as contained in the dictionaries in general and in
certain dictionaries in particular by having a look at what might be called

Limba engleză. Semantica 9

Words and their meanings

ways of counting the contents of a dictionary. Here I mention the criterion

of multiple (vs) single entry.
When a word belongs to more than one word-class there are two
possibilities: to use as many entries as the word-class the word belongs to
or to use only one entry for all the word-classes the word belongs to. For
example, heavy may be used as an adjective, adverb or noun: the
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995) contains three
headwords heavy in the specified order:
e.g. heavy1 / hevi/ adj. heavier , heaviest
1. <WEIGHT > weighing a lot: I can’t lift this case- it’s too heavy. /
The baby seemed to be getting heavier and heavier in her arms ‫ ׀‬how
heavy? (= how much does it weigh)
How heavy is the parcel? – opposite LIGHT3 (4)
heavy2 adv time hangs/lies heavy on your hands if time hangs or
lies heavy on your hands, it seems to pass slowly because you are bored
or have nothing to do.
heavy3 n [C] 1 informal [ usually plural] a large strong man who is
paid to protect someone or to threaten other people 2 a serious male
character in a play or film, especially by a bad character; VILLAIN (1) 3 the
heavies BrE large, serious newspapers. (Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English, 1995: 664)
The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1997) includes the
adjective, the adverb and the noun under a single entry.
e.g. heavy , hev’i adj. weighty: ponderous; laden: abounding….
- adv. heavily
- n. the villain on stage or screen
When a word has several/various meanings or senses, they are
separated under the same entry either by numbers, in the case of different
meanings or by letters, in the case of closely-related meanings, both
methods being in the practice of most dictionaries nowadays.
e.g. dip2 / dip/ n 1 [C] an act of dipping. 2[C] (infml) a quick BATHE(3)
in the sea: have/take/go for a dip. 3 [U] a liquid for dipping sheep in to
protect them from infection or insects. 4 [C,U] a thick mixture into which
biscuits or pieces of raw vegetables are dipped before being eaten, eg at
parties: a/some cheese dip. 5 [C] a downward slope: a dip in the road o a
dip among the hills. See also LUCKY DIP (OXFORD: 325)
e.g. ridge1 / ri dЗ/ n1 [C] a long area of high land, especially at the
top of a mountain: a windswept ridge – see picture on page 835. 2 a) a line
of something that rises above a surface: a ridge of boulders/ a sandy ridge
b) a long narrow raised part of a surface: The ridges on the soles give the
shoes a better grip 3 a ridge of high pressure technical a long area of
high ATMOSPHERIC pressure. (Longman: 1220).

10 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Words and their meanings

The method of counting by references has been designed by Landau

as a system used to maximize the number of entries in American
dictionaries. The following items are considered references:
“1. The main entry, or headword.
2. Any additional word class a word belongs to/ part of speech of the
headword, i.e. as a verb/noun/adjective. Some dictionaries allot separate
headword status to each part of speech, others do not.
3. Any inflected forms given such as optional presence of identical
past tense and past participle forms in -ed and -ing forms.
4. Run- on derivatives without definitions.
5. Run - in idioms or other fixed expressions included within an entry.
6. Variant spellings.
7. Words given in lists and derived by prefixation with common
prefixes, such as in,-non,- re,-un.
8. Anything in a bold typeface is counted as reference.” (1989: 84-85)
These references may overlap with the following “headwords”
contained in modern dictionaries: a. abbreviations; b. prefixes; combining
forms; e. open compounds; f. encyclopedic entries, neither in the specified
order or with the obligatory presence of all of them. The main entry form in
a dictionary serves a number of different purposes according to Landau
(1989: 87). It indicates the referred spelling, the usual printed form of the
lexical unit and syllabication.
When speaking about dictionaries, the usual question of how many
words they contain will surely arise, but the answer depends, not
surprisingly, upon the author’s choice to save space: “Every decision a
biographer makes affects the proportion of space his dictionary will allot to
each component. It is perfectly fair for critics to question his judgment, but
they must realize that the length of a dictionary is finite, and as large as it
may appear to them, it is never large enough for the lexicographer”.
(Landau 1987: 87)
Alphabetization in dictionaries concerns primarily the headwords,
thus enabling the user to quickly find the word that he is looking up. There
are two ways of alphabetizing: letter by letter and word by word.
Letter by letter arrangement is by far the most general method,
having the great advantage that users need not bother about knowing
whether a compound is spelled as one word, a hyphenated one, or as two
words, e.g. power, powerful, power of attorney.
Word by word arrangement seems rather complicated for the
average user but it might be of great use for specialists, e.g. power of
attorney comes before powerful. It is important to notice that few
dictionaries operate with a strict alphabetical order of the lexical items.
This is because all dictionaries use some degree of nesting where a lexical
item may be included within the entry of another lexical item which has
headword status.
This nesting policy or running-on refers to the arrangement of the
following categories of words: words derived by suffixation and prefixation;

Limba engleză. Semantica 11

Words and their meanings

fixed phrases; idioms; compound words. In general, some dictionaries

accord headword status only to those derivatives whose meaning has
diverged significantly from the root, others ordinarily give headword status
to any derivative that merits separate definition.
In the case of suffixation, run-ons do not need separate definitions,
since the user is assumed to be capable of deducing the meaning from the
headword and the suffix, e.g. cello - cellist.
A more strict selection is operated in the case of words derived by
prefixation which are always allotted separate headword status, because a
user would not otherwise be able to find them in the alphabetical listing,
e.g. believable/unbelievable. Fixed phrases and idioms are nested under
the headword of the first main word in the phrase (even if this is not always
very clear) so, by and large, no form of alphabetization can be fully
successful since there is not always clear whether the idiom should be
placed under the first word or under the most important word and
eventually decide upon which word is more important. As a conclusion,
most dictionaries prefer to list idioms under the first word, but there are
also exceptions, e.g. that one could cut with a knife could be entered either
under knife or under cut headwords.
In the case of compound words nesting depends primarily upon
spelling, since such category of words can be spelt either as solid, e.g.
landmark, hyphenated, e.g. land-law or open, e.g. land mass.
Some dictionaries (usually those which nest all suffixed derivatives)
nest all compounds. At the other extreme, there is the practice of
according headword status to all compounds, without nesting:”
Intermediate between these two extremes is the policy that accords
headword status to solid compounds but nests hyphenated and open
compounds or that nests only open compounds, treating them like phrases,
while giving headword status to solid and hyphenated compounds.
“(Landau 1987: 165)
Since dictionaries are printed, alphabetically ordered reference works,
spelling is a given. Deciding upon spelling is of a paramount importance
for the dictionary maker, “The first task of the editor of a dictionary is to
decide on the spelling of his word-entry. Usually on a modern dictionary
this affords no difficulty as usage has fixed a single spelling (Hulbert
1992)”.
In English, the standard (which here refers primarily to spelling and
pronunciation) which emerged during the fifteenth century, was that of the
East Midland district that included London, but it was not until Bailey’s
dictionaries of the 1730’s and more particularly Johnson’s Dictionary of
1755 that the spellings of many words became fixed.
There are two particular kinds of information about spelling that
dictionaries usually provide. The first concerns the spelling changes in the
root of a word when adding a suffix. As illustrations we can quote both
irregular and regular inflections for nouns, adjectives, verbs, e.g. country-
countries, bad-worse, reply-replied, sin-sinning.

12 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Words and their meanings

The second refers to alternative spellings: British and American

English e.g. travelling-traveling, centre-center, colour-color; alternatives in
British English only: systematic, e.g. the – ‘er’/ - or’ alternation in adviser or
– ie’/ - y’ alternation in words like auntie/y; idiosyncratic, e.g.
baloney/boloney, both/bodge. The desire for uniformity is so great that
popular variants are not welcomed. The graphic dress of the language is
now so repsected that dictionaries are used as authoritarian, “style
manuals” in matters of spelling, hyphenation and syllabification.
Besides spelling, dictionaries provide lexical and linguistic
information about: the pronunciation, morphology, syntax, semantics,
context/register, etymology of the word.

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Words and their meanings

14 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Aspects concerning the domain of semantics

Chapter 2.
ASPECTS CONCERNING THE DOMAIN OF SEMANTICS

Linguistics, as the scientific study of language, provides interesting

information about the way in which the linguistic system of any natural
language functions within the phonological, morphological, syntactic,
semantic etc. subfields, helping the users communicate successfully in
various contextual frames.

2.1. Definition and types of semantics

Semantics deals with the study of meaning at the level of words,

phrases, sentences, and larger units of discourse, in keeping with the
speaker’s communicative needs: “Studying the semantics of different
languages shows us the great variety of ways in which languages can
accomplish the task of talking about the world” (Portner 2006:140).
Previously considered the ‘Cinderella of linguistics’, semantics has
developed from a classical treatment of the meaning of words to more
elaborate approaches, as shown in what follows:
a. Cruse’s typology of semantics:
- “grammatical semantics which deals with the meaning conveyed
by grammatical means”;
- “lexical semantics, which deals with the meanings of words”;
- “historical/diachronic semantics, which deals with the ways in
which meanings change over time”;
- “formal semantics aims to explain and describe meanings using
the tools of logic”;
- “componential semantics tries to account for complex meanings as
being built up out of a limited number of semantic building blocks”;
- “cognitive semantics treats meanings as ‘things in the mind’, that
is as concepts”.
(2006: 3)
b. Crystal’s typology of semantics:
- “philosophical semantics examines the relations between linguistic
expressions and the phenomena in the world to which they refer,
and considers the conditions under which such expressions can
be said to be true or false, and the factors which affect the
interpretation of language as used”;
- “logical’ or ‘pure’ semantics (formal semantics) is the study of the
meaning of expressions in terms of logical systems of analysis”;
- “‘behaviourist’ semantics refers to the application of the techniques
of the behaviourist movement in psychology, restricting the study
of meaning to only observable and measurable behaviour”;

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Aspects concerning the domain of semantics

- “structural semantics, which displays the application of the

principles of structural linguistics to the study of meaning through
the notion of semantic relations”
- “cognitive semantics, drawing on psychology and focusing on the
role of conceptualization in interpretation”.
(2008: 428-429)

2.2. Lexical semantics. Lexical fields

Lexical semantics studies the meaning of the words and the relations
among them in a lexical field: “A ‘lexical field’ is a coherent subset of the
vocabulary whose members are interlinked by paradigmatic and
syntagmatic relations of sense”. (Cruse, 2006: 171)
Lexical fields are organized along a common dimension of meaning
which allow the occurrence of lexical relationships among words such as:
antonymy, synonymy, hyponymy, polysemy, homonymy. As examples of
lexical fields we can mention:
a. Board games: chess, draughts, go, Monopoly, etc.
b. Parts of the body: arm, leg, head, finger, etc
c. Cakes and pastries: almond cake, éclair, muffin, pie, tart, etc
d. Chairs: stool, bench, pew, sedan chair, etc
e. Sea mammals: dugong, sea lion, elephant seal, etc
Lexical fields are studied within the domains of lexicology and
semantics, as branches of theoretical linguistics.
The domain of lexical semantics has historically developed along two
coordinates: the semasiological one and the onomasiological one. In the
semasiological approach the research starts from the word towards the
concept, whereas in the onomasiological one, the concept comes first
before leading to the selection of the word and its meaning. As an
illustration, consider the scheme below:

e.g. cat semasiological coordinate 1. a: a carnivorous mammal (Felis

catus) long domesticated as a pet
and for catching rats and mice
b: any of a family (Felidae) of
carnivorous usually solitary and
nocturnal mammals
2: a malicious woman;
onomasiological coordinate
1. animal – domestic/wild
3: a strong tackle used to hoist an
anchor to the cathead of a ship

The meaning of words can be further analyzed into semantic

components by using componential analysis which claims that “ […] all
lexical items can be analyzed using a finite set of components (or
‘semantic features’) which may, it is felt, be UNIVERSAL.”

16 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Aspects concerning the domain of semantics

(Crystal 1995: 69). Such semantic features are [+ human] vs [-human]; [+

animate] vs [ -animate]; [+ male] vs [-male]; [+female] vs [-female];
[+concrete] vs [-concrete] which are represented in the semantic matrix of
a word. Apart from these universal features, there can occur additional
features which distinguish among the different members of the same
lexical field.
In a research devoted to a lexical interpretation and translation of the
lexical field of quantifiers in English, Dima 2011 analysed the case of
speck used in collocations with mass and substance nouns. The author
used componential analysis in order to delineate both the larger field and a
number of subfields by selecting the common semantic dimension: “The
term that captures the domain provides the semantic framework for the
lexical field and each member of this specific field must have a sense that
is compatible with the meaning of the domain term, i.e., has an identical to
or a more specific sense than the meaning of the term” (Lutzeier 2006: 80).
The dimension of ‘concreteness’ has established the subfields of
‘substance’ and ‘colour’ as shown in Table 1.

SUBSTANCE COLOUR
[+SOLID] [+LIQUID] [+GAS] [+WAVE] green
jelly blood carbon light yellow
dirt sauce orange
grime water
dust
grit
mud
talcum
powder
meat
rock

Table 1. The Subfields of ‘Substance’ and ‘Colour’

(Dima 2011: 258-264)

Cruse speaks about the fact that a word may belong to several
lexical fields, acquiring different semantic values: “First, a word in a
particular language that participates in a number of different lexical fields
will have a different semantic value in each of them. Take the word red in
English (in its ‘colour’ sense). This participates in at least three different
lexical fields: a default field in which it contrasts with orange, yellow, green,
blue, purple, brown, black, white, and grey; a field denoting types of wine,
in which it contrasts with white, and rosé; and a field denoting hair colours,
in which it contrasts with black, white, brown, blonde, fair, and grey. In the
default field, the range of colours denoted by red is limited by the ranges
Limba engleză. Semantica 17
Aspects concerning the domain of semantics

of purple, orange, and brown. In the ‘wine’ field, red has only two contrasts,
white and rosé.” (2006: 172)

18 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Semantic relations in a lexical field

Chapter 3.
SEMANTIC RELATIONS IN A LEXICAL FIELD

Lexical fields are repositories of semantic relations which best

specify the meaning of words and the relations that occur among them:
denotation and connotation; synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy;
selectional restrictions; taxonomic hierarchies, to quote just a few.

3.1. Denotation and connotation

Denotation is the primary meaning that a word can have, the

knowledge that the speaker/listener possesses about that word and its
appropriate usage in both spoken and written language. Cruse defines
denotation of a linguistic expression as “[…] that aspect of its meaning
which is involved in its potential for use in making true statements about
the world” (2006:45). The statement is true both for mono-semantic and
poly-semantic words. Consider some of the denotative meanings provided
for the word house by the online Merriam Webster Dictionary and their
illustrations in some examples:
(1) a. a place built for people to live in
e.g. They bought a house near the bank of a river.
b. something (as a nest or den) used by an animal for shelter
e.g. The stork’s house is newly-built.
d. a body of persons assembled to make the laws for a country
e.g. The United States Congress is made up of two houses.
e. a business firm
e.g. She works in a publishing house.
Connotation includes the affective or emotional associations
attributed to words by the speaker/writer in various contexts of situation.
We can, therefore, state that connotation is personal, varying according to
one individual’s experience to which it adds some flavour: “Connotation
represents the things we associate with a word; it is like an aura,
resonance, or electric field around that word. Poets in search of le mot
juste (the exact word) must weigh these associations that both complicate
and enrich” (Drury 2006: 66). As an illustration, look at the synonym essay
and text illustrations below:
(2) a. talkative, conversational, chatty, nosy
Talkative, chatty and conversational are positive connotations,
meaning that someone talks too much; nosy can mean that someone
asks too many questions, having a negative meaning.
b. All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays
many parts – from As you Like It by William Shakespeare.

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Semantic relations in a lexical field

In this example, stage connotes the world and players connote their
lives.
c. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day - Sonnet 18 - by William
Shakespeare.
In this example, a summer’s day connotes beauty.
In semantics, denotation is often paired with denotative meaning and
connotation with connotative meaning, as concerns meaning typology.
From a different perspective, Crystal signals the use of these terms in
philosophy: “The traditional philosophical use of ‘connotation’ and
‘denotation’ is quite different: here, the meanings involved largely
correspond to the distinction between sense and reference, the former
being concerned with the relationships of equivalence between terms and
propositions, the latter with their external-world status and truth-value.”
(2008: 108)

3.2. Synonymy

Synonymy is the relation that occurs among words with similar

meaning in a lexical field. Since there is no such thing as perfect
synonymy, linguists emphasize the role of context in deciding if two or
more words are synonymous: “Synonymy can be said to occur if items are
close enough in their meaning to allow a choice to be made between them
in some contexts, without there being any difference for the meaning of
the sentence as a whole” (Crystal 1995: 340), accordingly, synonyms are
one or two or more words or phrases having the same essential meaning,
but suitable to different contexts, as shown in the fragment:
“The men snub the boys and order them about; the carmen snub the
sweepers; the artisans snub the unskilled laborers; the foremen drive and
bully both the laborers and artisans; the assistant engineers find fault with
the foremen; the chief engineers drop on the assistants; the departmental
managers worry the chiefs; and the clerks have tall hats and hymnbooks
and keep up the social tone by refusing to associate on equal terms with
anybody”.
(G.B. Shaw, Major Barbara, act 3)

3.2.1. Characteristic features of synonyms

a. Although similar in meaning, synonyms are differentiated by

connotation, style, shades of meaning and semantic features, being
interchangeable according to context. Collinson, as cited by Ullman 1969
proposes nine possibilities to distinguish among synonyms:
1. “One term is more general than another: refuse-reject
2. One term is more intense than another: repudiate-refuse
3. One term is more emotive than another: reject-decline
4. One term may imply moral approbation or censure where another
is neutral: thrifty-economical

20 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Semantic relations in a lexical field

5. One term is more professional than another: decease-death

6. One term is more literary than another: passing-death
7. One term is more colloquial than another: turn down-refuse
8. One term is more local or dialectal than another: Scots flesher-
butcher
9. One of the synonyms belongs to child-talk: daddy-father”
(in Readings: 30)
b. Some of these features can be retrieved in the synonymic series
below, where the most general word is called headword and the
description of the members of the series, a synonym-essay, as shown in
the examples below:

(3) LOOK gaze glance glare peer stare

In this verb series, look is the most general and means to direct the
eyes or to communicate a feeling; gaze is to look long and steadily in
admiration, wonder, fascination; glance means to look briefly and in a
hurry; peer is look with a narrowing of the eyes, inquiringly or searchingly;
stare means gaze intently, with wide open eyes in amazement, admiration
or fear, sometimes connoting [ ± intentional] insolence; glare is to stare
fiercely or threateningly.
(adapted from Hayakawa 1987: 339)
e.g. She was looking out of the window to see the birds.
The public gazed at the comedians on the stage.
The old man glanced at the trees aligned along the road.
The little boy was peering through the keyhole when his mother
caught him.
George stared at the young woman in blue.
The cat glared at the small, white mouse under the door.

(4) PATTER chit-chat palaver small talk

These nouns refer to trivial discussion or conversation. Patter and

palaver are the most general: patter underlines rapidity and insincerity of
speech, mechanical reproduction of patterns, whereas palaver stresses
lack of content or the intent to flatter and deceive, can be characteristic for
an informal group talk; chit-chat and small talk are restricted to idle
conversation, resulting from inhibition, or breaking the ice to a more
interesting subject.
(adapted from Hayakawa 1987: 417)
e.g. His book patter was convincing.
Sometimes, I could here the palaver of the neighbours outside.
They were eager to go on with their chit-chat about the ball.
She preferred small talks to long conversations when she was
younger.

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Semantic relations in a lexical field

c. Another characteristic of English synonyms is their fuzzy

classification in several not very distinctive classes, as various linguists try
to clarify:
Lyons talks about full synonymy (when the words have identical
meanings), total synonymy (where the words are synonymous in all
contexts), and complete synonymy (where the words are identical on all
levels of meaning). He also considers "absolute synonyms" (full, total, and
complete synonyms), "partial synonyms" (one of the three mentioned
above) and "near synonyms" (not identical in meaning). (1995: 447)
Cruse uses different terms: absolute synonyms, propositional
synonyms, and plesionyms
“Absolute synonyms can be defined as items which are equinormal in
all contexts: that is to say, for two lexical items X and Y, if they are to be
recognized as absolute synonyms, in any context in which X is fully normal,
Y is, too; in any context in which X is slightly odd, Y is also slightly odd,
and in any context in which X is totally anomalous, the same is true of Y.”
The linguist provides the following examples, which he comments in terms
of choosing between the more formal (+) /vs / less formal (-) synonym:
“ (i) brave.courageous
Little Billy was so brave at the dentist's this morning. (+)
Little Billy was so courageous at the dentist's this morning. (-)
(ii) calm.placid
She was quite calm just a few minutes ago. (+)
She was quite placid just a few minutes ago. (-) “
The conclusion that he draws is that “[…] absolute synonyms are
vanishingly rare, and do not form a significant feature of natural
vocabularies” (2000:157).
Leviţchi draws a relevant scheme of the typology of synonyms
based on various criteria:

SYNONYMS

ABSOLUTE RELATIVE (PROPER)

LEXICAL GRAMMATICAL

IDEOGRAPHIC STYLISTIC IDEOGRAPHIC STYLISTIC

Absolute synonyms have the same semantic and stylistic value and
the same grammatical government: e.g. oak nut, oak-pear, oak-plum, oak-
apple, etc.

22 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Semantic relations in a lexical field

Ideographic lexical synonyms display either certain semantic

differences, or underline certain features of the entity described, as we
saw in b. above.
Stylistic lexical synonyms such as disguised synonyms (e.g. Louis
XIV - the Sun King, Venus planet- Morning star, etc) and euphemisms
( e.g. big-boned instead of heavy or overweight, between jobs instead of
unemployed, etc.)
Ideographic grammatical synonyms are characterized by semantic-
grammatical differences in point of aspect, duration, number, time, etc.
(e.g. He writes and He is writing; If Doris came now, I should be very glad
and If Doris should come now, I should be very glad, etc.).
Stylistic grammatical synonyms are differentiated in point of form and
function, due to their inclusion into functional styles or modality in
communication.
(adapted from Leviţchi 1970: 86-88)
By way of conclusion, we can state that synonymy is always related
to context, there is no such thing as absolute or total synonymy and that its
contribution to the structure of the vocabulary of any natural language is of
a particular importance:
“Synonymy demonstrates not only the originality of a given language,
but also the originality of those who use it. Synonymy is a mark of
progress in language, and enables us it to express the subtlest ideas in a
style appropriate to the context, the conditions or the aaim of
communication, the time, audiences, and the writer’s or speaker’s own
personality.” (Hulban 2001: 218).

3.3. Antonymy

Antonymy is another relation that may occur within a lexical field.

Unlike synonymy which denotes identity /sameness of meaning, antonymy
denotes oppositeness of meaning between two entities, e.g. small table-
large table, tall man-short man, dark-light, etc. or as found in the text
below: “ There were two figures walking in a side path; one was rather
short and stout; the other rather tall and slim. They were Mr. Tupman and
Mr. Jingle”. (Dickens, The Pickwick Papers)
The same as for synonyms, there are several classifications provided
for antonyms:
a. Gradable / graded antonyms where there are degrees of
difference, e.g. old-young, heavy- light, narrow-large, etc.
b. Non-gradable / ungraded antonyms where there are no degrees of
difference, e.g. day-night, asleep-awake, etc.
c. Converse antonyms which imply that if [a] is the X of [b], then [b] is
the Y of [a], e.g. left-right, before-after, etc.
(5) e.g. The ceiling is above the table.
The table is below the ceiling.

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Semantic relations in a lexical field

d. Contradictory antonyms which are “so opposed to each other that

they are mutually exclusive and admit no possibility between them”
(Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms), e.g. appear-disappear, like-dislike,
belief-disbelief, etc.
e. Contrary antonyms which are “so opposed in meaning that the
language admits no greater divergence”, e.g. reject-approve, give-take,
beginning –ending, etc.
f. Relative antonyms which consist of “pairs of words which indicate
such a relationship that one of them cannot be used without the other”, e.g.
parent-child, husband-wife, son-daughter, etc.
As far as the form of antonyms is concerned, we can notice that they
can be distinguished by using suffixation and prefixation:
(6) Suffixation, e.g. peaceful-peaceless, dutiful-dutiless, mindful-
mindless, etc.
Prefixation, e.g. dress-undress, load-unload, lucky-unlucky, etc.
In the well-known quote from Charles Dickens, we can observe
almost all the types of antonyms that we specified above, both in form and
content, proving that they constitute a rich stylistic resource:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the
epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had
everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to
Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was
so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted
on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of
comparison only”.
A Tale of Two Cities (by Charles Dickens)

3.4. Hyponymy

Crystal defines hyponymy as “[…] the relationship which obtains

between specific and general lexical items, such that the former is
‘included’ in the latter (i.e. ‘is a hyponym of’ the latter). For example, a cat
is a hyponym of animal, flute of instrument, chair of furniture, and so on. In
each case, there is a superordinate term (sometimes called a hypernym
or hyperonym), with reference to which the subordinate term can be
defined, as is the usual practice in dictionary definitions (‘a cat is a type of
animal . . .’). The set of terms which are hyponyms of the same
superordinate term are co-hyponyms, e.g. flute, clarinet, trumpet “(1995:
168).
Leech defines hyponymy as meaning inclusion, by using
componential analysis: “This relationship exists between two meanings if
one componential formula contains all the features present in the other
formula. Thus ‘woman’ is hyponymous to ‘grown up’, because the two
features making up the definition ‘grown up’ (+HUMAN + ADULT) are both

24 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Semantic relations in a lexical field

present in the definition ‘woman’: + HUMAN + ADULT - MALE. Woman is

also hyponymous to ‘female’ and ‘human being’[…]. One 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 superordinate term.”(1981: 92-93).
An interesting study of the relationship of hyponymy within the lexical
field of the names of spring bulb flowers in English can be found in Dima
2008, as the fragments below show.
The research started with the analysis of definitions of names of
spring bulb flowers in the following dictionaries: Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary 1996, Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary
1977, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. The Complete Guide
to Written and Spoken English 1995, Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary of Current English Oxford 1997. The lexical entries selected for
snowdrop, hyacinth, narcissus, daffodil and tulip were grouped so as to
provide a more complete lexicographic evidence of the taxonomic
phenomenon:“ Taxa are grouped for convenience of handling and there is
a recognized seniority in the major ranks from Kingdom through Phylum ,
Class, Order, Family, Genus to species.”(Morse et al 2003, web reference)
The research developed along the following coordinates:
- The componential analysis of the meanings contained in the entries
for names of spring bulb flowers;
- The analysis of the nature of the information in the entries for
names of spring bulb flowers;
- Identifying encyclopedic / taxonomic information, common
knowledge;
- The typology of the meaning representations in the entries.
Technicalities in structural semantics (Lyons 1977, Leech 1974,
Dima 2002) allowed to change the lexicographic information into a
semantic one by generalization and abstractization using both definitional
and associated components. The componential analysis applied led to
obtaining the results shown in Tables 1 and 2.
Flower/
Family Genus Plant Flower Season
Components
Dictionaries W L C O W L C O W L C O W L C O W L C O
snowdrop - - + - + - - - + + + - - - + + + + + +
hyacinth + - + - + - + - + + - + - - + - - - - +
narcissus + - + - + - + - + - - + - + - - - + - +
daffodil - - - - + - - - + - - - - + - + - + - -
tulip + - - - + - + + + - + + - + + - - + - +
Table 1. Taxa for some spring bulb flowers
The table illustrates the distribution of the definitional
components/taxa family, genus, plant, flower and season in the
lexicographic definitions of snowdrop, hyacinth, narcissus, daffodil and

Limba engleză. Semantica 25

Semantic relations in a lexical field

tulip. They are retrieved differently in the quoted dictionaries: the highest in
rank is plant with 12 occurrences followed by genus with 9 occurrences,
flower with 8 occurrences and family with 6 occurrences. Genus and family
are the most technical of all the terms, therefore they have got their best
numbering in Webster and Chambers, the most complex dictionaries of all
those consulted. Plant is more technical than flower, so reference is again
to the type of dictionaries and their target users, Longman and Oxford
addressing common advanced learners of English as a second language.
A second analysis referred to plant morphology, so a type of
meronymy relationship can be discussed with reference to the ordering of
plant parts. Table 2 is an illustration in point.
Flower/
Components Bulb Stem Leaf Corona/flower

Dictionaries W L C O W L C O W L C O W L C O
snowdrop + - - - - - - - - - - - + + - -
hyacinth - - + + - - - - - - - - + + + +
narcissus + - - + - - - - + - - + + - - +
daffodil - - - + - + - + - - - - + - - -
tulip + + + + - - - + + - - - + - + +
Table 2. Spring bulb flowers ‘taxon morphology’
The best lexicographic representation, 12 occurrences, respectively
10 occurrences, was registered for corona standing for the flower as a
whole, and bulb, as retrieved in all the dictionaries consulted. A reading of
the dictionary definitions also provided a description in terms of physical
perception including such associated components as size, shape, colour
and smell, but they were not included in the table.
Encyclopaedic information could be retrieved by means of the taxa
family, genus, bulb, stem which may satisfy both the need of common
readers eager to find out instances of scientific tips, and of the specialists
looking for a quick review of basic scientific knowledge with a view to ease
non-specialists scientific guidance.
The corpus of 5 words denominating spring bulb flowers, contains
on the whole 20 dictionary entries with the meaning definitions shaped as:
sentences of an attributive type introduced by which and that, or including
an -ing form: e.g. a plant, growing from a BULB( 1), that produces long
leaves and white or yellow flowers in spring; a small white flower
appearing at the end of winter or in early spring, etc.; noun- phrases, e.g.,
any plant or flower of the bulbous liliaceous genus Tulipa; a garden plant
with blue, pink or white bell-shaped flowers and a sweet smell, etc.;
synonyms, e.g. a yellow-flowered narcissus, etc. with hyponymic inclusion.
The demonstration has been meant to pinpoint the fact that
“Dictionaries seek to define objects with a summary of their properties, an
attributive definition, which delineates a boundary within which an object
must fall to warrant its use.”(Morse et al 2003, web reference).

26 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Exercises

Chapter 4.
EXERCISES

1. Choose between the denotative and connotative meaning of the words in italics
and use them in sentences of your own:
a. chocolate ice cream; to break the ice; on thin ice; to break the ice; ice Disney show
b. right hand; helping hand; clock hand; get out of hand; change hands
c. clean table; the Round Table; time-table; lay the table; table talk; to turn the tables
d. green house; be green with envy; green fingers; green dress; green stuff
e. much money; smart money; throw money away; Time is money
f. speck of light; speck of dust; a speck of jelly; a speck of luck; a speck of green;
a speck of accent; a speck of civilization; a speck of meat; a speck of trouble
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
..................................................................
2. Make up a list of connotations of the following words:
beautiful, thin, honey, young, child
. ................................................................
. ................................................................
. ................................................................
. ................................................................
. ................................................................
. ................................................................
. ................................................................
. ................................................................
3. Group the following words into synonymic groups, specify the part of speech and
underline the headword.
Model: Nouns: flame, fire, glow, blaze, brightness
flame, conquer, peer, subdue, see, allure, gape, captivate, punish, glow, look, fire, beat,
fascinate, struggle, gaze, ask, attract, blaze, glance, end, enchant, stare, brightness,
require, please, charm, sentence, discipline
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................
.................................................................

Limba engleză. Semantica 27

Exercises

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
4. Fill in the blanks with the corresponding synonyms:
a. get, acquire, gain, obtain, procure
1. She …...........back her lost purse.
2. They …..........two foreign languages at school.
3. He ….............much support in his struggle against the enemies.
4. The architect finally ….............. the manager’s signature on the project.
5. The headmaster was successful in …............ needed supplies.
b. happiness, bliss, felicity, gladness
1. The poet speaks about …..........of expression.
2. Full of ….............the cat was stretching in the sun.
3. The …in her eyes told everything about the miracle in her life.
4. Some cause ….............wherever they go; others whenever they go.
c. polite, civil, courteous, mannerly
1. John is not a very….............student.
2. The clerk tried hard to be …............
3. The old man was still….................to his wife.
4. The soldier was very …...................in his behavior.
5. Match the words from column A to those in B, so as to get antonymic pairs:
A. B.
old take
good short
beautiful finish
dark close
win lose
open young
true ugly
start false
give light
long bad
6. Fill in, so as to build up well-known phrases:
up and … trick or …
on and… in and…
do’s and… more or…
cops and… stop and…
in and… thick and…
lost and… come and …
back and… pros and…
rise and… give and take…
high and … all or…
war and… first and …

28 Limba engleză. Semantica

 Exercises

7. Read the texts below and comment on the typology of antonyms:

a. “If you ask me whom I mean by the plain man, my reply is that I mean almost
every man. I mean you. I certainly mean me. I mean… the successful and
the unsuccessful, the idle and the diligent, the luxurious and the austere.”
The Plain Man and His Wife (by Arnold Bennett)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................................
b. “Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors
of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same
measure as I have received and am still receiving.”
The World As I See It (by Albert Einstein)
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . .............................................................
c. “This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Hamlet (by William Shakespeare)
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . ............................................................
. . . . . .............................................................

Limba engleză. Semantica 29

Exercises

d. “That you are all lost here, black and white, rich and poor, the fools and the
wise!”
Lost in the Stars (by Maxwell Anderson)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................................ ..
e. “Your friends are all the dullest dogs I know. They are not beautiful: they are
only decorated. They are not clean: they are only shaved and starched. They are not
dignified: they are only fashionably dressed. They are not educated: they are only college
passmen. They are not moral: they are only conventional. They are not virtuous: they are
only cowardly. They are not even vicious: they are only “frail.” They are not artistic: they
are only lascivious. They are not prosperous: they are only rich. They are not loyal, they
are only servile; not dutiful, only sheepish; not public spirited, only patriotic; not
courageous, only quarrelsome; not determined, only obstinate; not masterful, only
domineering; not self-controlled, only obtuse; not self-respecting, only vain; not kind, only
sentimental; not social, only gregarious; not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, only
opinionated; not progressive, only factious; not imaginative, only superstitious; not just,
only vindictive; not generous, only propitiatory; not disciplined, only cowed; and not truthful
at all: liars every one of them, to the very backbone of their souls.”
Man and Superman (by George Bernard Shaw)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......................................
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......................................

30 Limba engleză. Semantica

 References

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32 Limba engleză. Semantica