Canadian, Australian English.

CANADIAN, AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH.

It should of course be noted that the American English is not.the only existing variant. There are Australian and Canadian English. Each of these has developed a literature of its own, and is charac­terized by peculiarities in phonetics, spelling, grammar and vocabu­lary. Canadian English is influenced both by British and American English but it also has some specific features of its own. Specifically Canadian words are called Canadianisms. They are not very frequent outside Canada, except shack 'a hut' and to fathom out 'to explain'. The vocabulary of all the variants is characterized by a high percentage of borrowings from the language of the people who in­habited the land before the English colonizers came. Many of them, local animals, plants or weather conditions, new social relations, new trades and conditions of labour. The term international words is used to denote words borrowed from one language into several others simul­taneously or at short intervals one after another. Similar examples, though perhaps fewer in number, such as boomerang, dingo, kangaroo are all adopted into the English language through its Australian variant. They denote the new phenomena found by English immigrants on the new continent. A high percent­age of words borrowed from the native inhabitants of Australia will be noticed in the sonorous Australian place names. Otherwise an ample use was made of English lexical material. An intense development of cattle breeding in new conditions necessi­tated the creation of an adequate terminology. It is natural there­fore that nouns like stock, bullock or land find a new life on Austra­lian soil: stockman 'herdsman', stockyard, stock-keeper 'the owner of the cattle'; bullock v means 'to work hard', bullocky dray is a dray driven by bullocks; an inlander is a stock-keeper driving his stock from one pasture to another, overland v is 'to drive cattle over long distances'. At present there is no single "correct" English and the American, Canadian and Australian English have developed standards of their own. It would therefore have been impossible to attempt a lexicological description of all the variants simulta­neously: the aim of this book was to describe mainly the vocabu­lary of British English.

 

Semantic changes, metaphor.

Have been variously classified into such categories as: narrowing, extension, generalization, specialization, transfer, amelioration, pejoration, irradiation and many others. Metaphor - is a deep semantic transformation of a word going far beyond its primary semantic range. -speech: the door is singing; - language: the foot of the hill, the foot of a man. 1. living: the door is singing, 2. trite (faded): the foot of the hill, 3. dead: hooligan. Metaphor forms part of our way of thinking, of understanding the world. At times, it lexicalises (that is, it becomes very common), and we are not aware that we are using a metaphor: Life is not a bed of roses. We base on previous models to produce communicative units, and a transmitter, a receiver and a channel are necessary. Nevertheless, it doesn’t imply that these units are not creative. A metaphor can be defined as an incomplete simile. - She is (as pretty as) a rose. - My friend is (as strong as) an ox. In a metaphor there are two terms: the real one (my friend) and the evoked or imaginary one (ox). There is, then, some similarity between the two terms. If only the evoked term appears, we have a pure metaphor. 1) similarity of shape: head of a cab­bage, nose of a plane; 2) similarity in function or use: hand of a clock, finger on the balance, wing of a plane; 3) similarity in temperature: hot scent, cold reason, warm heart; 4) likeness in colounorange for colour and for fruit; 5) analogy between d ration of time and space: long distance vs long speech; 6) transition of proper? imes into com­mon ones: an Adonis, a C:ero, a Don Juan; 7) likeness in position: foot of a man vs foot of a hill; 8) Zoosemy- used when names of animals are used metaphorically to denote human qualities (he is such a bear, a pig of a friend, a tiger (cruel fellow)).

 

DIALECTS in English

Standard English - the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, sub­stantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms belonging to various local dialects. Local dialeсts - are varieties of the English language peculiar to some dis­tricts and having no normalized literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants.In Great Britain there are two variants, Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group contains several (up to ten) dialects. One of the best known Southern dialects is Cockney, the regional dialect of London. This dialect exists on two levels. As spoken by the educated lower middle classes it is a regional dialect marked by some deviations in pronunciation but few in vocabulary and syntax. As spoken by the uneducated, Cockney differs from Standard English in pronunciation, vocabulary, morphology and syntax. Dialects are now chiefly preserved in rural communities, in the speech of elderly people. Their boundaries have become less stable than they used to be; the distinctive features are tending to disappear with the shifting of population due to the migration of working-class families in search of employment and the growing influence of urban life over the countryside. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cin­ema. Words from dialects and variants may penetrate into Standart English.

 

Metonymy

The transfer based upon the associa­tion of contiguity. It is the device in which the name of one thing is changed for that of another to which it is related by association of ideas, as having close relationship to one another. (I had no head for names, I have an ear for music, She’s the hope of the family).1) giving the part for the whole (synec­doche): house may denote the Members of the Parliament; The White House, The Pentagon can mean its staff and policy; 2) the sign for the thing signified: 'gray hair' - old age; 3) the instrument for the agent: the best pens of the day (best writers); 4) the container for the thing con­tained: the kettle is boiling (water); 5) geographical names turning into common nouns (to name the goods ex­ported or originating there): china, cham­pagne, burgundy, cheddar; 6) the material substitutes the thing made of: glass, iron, copper, nickel; 7) symbol for thing symbolized: 'the crown' for monarchy.

 

Type of word meaning

Lexical - is the mean­ing proper to the given lin­guistic unit in all its forms and distributions. L. meaning is the realiza­tion of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system. L. meaning is the same in different gram­matical forms of the same word: Listen, listens, listening, listened, listener, listeners, listerner's, lis­teners'. Two components of lexical meaning: Denotative - part of meaning gives objective information about an object, it is the con­ceptual content of a word: terms (nudeous, para­digm). Connotative - part of the lexical meaning is what the word con­veys about the speaker's atti­tude to different situations: stomach vs belly. Four types of connotative meaning: Stylistic - connotation is what the word conveys about the speaker's usage of a certain functional style, situation, re­lationships between inter­locutors, purpose of commu­nication: house (neutral), resi­dence (formal), hut (in­formal); Evaluative - connotation is about the speaker's approval or disapproval of the object spoken: catholics vs papists. Emotional - connotation is what the word conveys about the speaker's emotions: cold weather - beastly weather; Intensifying - connotation ex-presses degree or intensity of lexical meaning: splendid vs gorgeous, magnificent; Grammatical - meaning is ab­stract and generalized, it is recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words: the common element in the words 'kids, tables, types' is the grammati­cal meaning of plurality; Lexico-grammatical meaning is common for all the mean­ings of words belonging to a lexico-grammatical class of words, it is the feature ac­cording to which they are grouped together: the words 'team, crew, staff, brigade' have common lexico-gram­matical meaning of 'group'; Implicational - meaning is the implied information associ­ated with the speaker's knowl­edge about the referent: in the utterance “This classy woman has long been a Hollywood staple' the word 'staple' has an implicational meaning; Direct - meaning nominates the referent in isolation, without certain context: pig's head; Figurative - meaning nominates the referent giving some addi­tional characteristics: He is pig-headed; Primary /main - meaning stands first, usually it is the earliest: 'Field⁷ primary meaning as in 'green fields'; Secondary / de­rived - meaning is formed from the primary: field"derived meaning (secondary) as in "in the field of our history; in the field of physics'.

 

NON-SEMANTIC GROUPING

For different purposes of study different types of grouping may prove effective: synchronic or diachronic, semantic or formal, depending on possible distribution or taking words as isolated units. The simplest, most obvious non-semantic grouping, extensively used in all branches of applied linguistics is the alphabetical organ­ization of written words, as represented in most dictionaries. It is of great practical value as the simplest and the most universal way of facilitating the search for the necessary word. The rhyming, i. e. inverse, dictionary presents a similar non-semantic grouping of isolated written words differing from the first in that the sound is also taken into consideration and in that the grouping is done the other way round and the words are arranged according to the similarity of their ends. The practical value of this type is much more limited. These dictionaries are intended for poets. They may be also used, if but rarely, by teachers, when making up lists of words with similar suffixes. A third type of non-semantic grouping of written words is based on their length, i. e. the number of letters they contain. This type, worked out with some additional details, may prove useful for communication engineering, for automatic reading of messages and correction of mistakes. The shorter words occur more frequently and accumulate a greater number of meanings. Finally, a very important type of non-semantic grouping for isolated lexical units is based on a statistical analysis of their frequency. Frequency counts carried out for practical purposes of lexicography, language teaching and shorthand enable the lexicographer to attach to each word a number showing its importance and range of occurrence. Large figures are, of course, needed to bring out any inherent regularities, and these regularities are, naturally, statistical, not rigid. But even with these limitations the figures are fairly reliable and show important correlations between quan­titative and qualitative characteristics of lexical units, the most frequent words being polysemantic and stylistically neutral.

 

Russian borrowings.

There were constant contacts between England and Russia and they borrowed words from one language into the other. Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rouble, copeck, pood, sterlet, vodka, sable, and also words relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe. There is also a large group of Russian borrowings which came into English through Rushian literature of the 19-th century, such as: Narodnik, moujik, duma, zemstvo, volost, ukase and also words which were formed in Russian with Latin roots, such as: nihilist, intelligenzia, Decembrist etc. After the Great October Revolution many new words appeared in Russian connected with the new political system, new culture, and many of them were borrowed into English, such as: collectivization, udarnik, Komsomol and also translation loans, such as: shock worker, collective farm, five-year plan. One more group of Russian borrowings is connected with perestroika, such as: glasnost, nomenklatura, apparatchik.

Homonyms - in case of homonymy the different meanings of words are mutually independent, there is no connection between such words, they have only the same pronunciation and spelling. (son-sun, bear-bear, ear-ear, meet-meat, piece-peace). The classify:1) perfect homonyms (or words identical both in pronunciation, spelling but different in meaning): bear-bear. 2) homographs or heteronyms (identical in spelling but different in sound and meaning):row-row. 3) homophones (words identical in sound but different in spelling and meaning):son-sun, pair-pear. 4) homoforms (different in meaning but identical in some of their grammatical forms): found (find) - to found. Characteristics: Lexical - differ in their lexical meaning but belong to the same part of speech (to lie - to lye); Grammatical - differ in their grammatical meaning and forms if any. They are different grammatical forms of the same word (two sisters /plurality/ - my sister's book /posessivity/. Lexico - grammatical - differ in lex.-gram. meaning that is they belong to different parts of speech. The are partial, but they may be also complete if these parts of speech have no paradigme (nose - knows, may /v./ - May). Sources of hom.: 1) diverging meaning development: story - store, case - case); 2) converging sound development. The coinsidence of the sounding of words is the course of their historical development (seon - see, eazan - eye); 3) borrowings (bark - barque); 4) word - building (pop - pop /popular/).

 

French borrowings

The largest group of borrowings are French. Most of them came into English during the Norman conquest. Fr. influenced not only the vocabulary of English but also its spelling, because documents were written by Fr. scribes as the local population was mainly illiterate. Runic letters remaining in English after the Latin alphabet was borrowed were substituted by Latin letters and combinations of letters, e.g. «v» was introduced for the voiced consonant /v/ instead of «f» in the intervocal position /lufian - love/, the digraph «ch» was introduced to denote the sound /ch/ instead of the letter «c» / chest/ before front vowels where it had been palatalized, the digraph «sh» was introduced instead of the combination «sc» to denote the sound /sh/ /ship/, the digraph «qu» substituted the combination «cw» to denote the combination of sounds /kw/ /queen/, the digraph «ou» was introduced to denote the sound /u:/ /house/. There are the following semantic groups of French borrowings: a) words relating to government: administer, empire, state, government; b) to military affairs: army, war, banner, soldier, battle; c) to jury: advocate, inquest, sentence; d) to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, pleat, embroidery; e) to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl; f) to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew. Words were borrowed from French into English after 1650, mainly through French literature, but they were not as numerous and many of them are not completely assimilated. There are the following semantic groups of these borrowings: a) relating to literature and music: belle-lettres, conservatorie, brochure, nuance, piruette, vaudeville; b) to military affairs: corps, echelon, fuselage, manouvre; c) to buildings and furniture: entresol, chateau, bureau; d) to food and cooking: ragout, cuisine.

 

AMERICAN ENGLISH

American English begins its history at the beginning of the 17-th century when first English-speaking settlers began to settle on the Atlantic coast of the American continent. The language which they brought from England was the language spoken in England during the reign of Elizabeth the First. In the earliest period the task of Englishmen was to find names for places, animals, plants, customs which they came across on the American continent. They took some of names from languages spoken by the local population - Indians, such as:chipmuck/an American squirrel/, igloo /Escimo dome-shaped hut/, squaw / an Indian woman/, wigwam /an American Indian tent made of skins and bark/. The second period of American English history begins in the 19-th century. Immigrants continued to come from Europe to America. When large groups of immigrants from the same country came to America some of their words were borrowed into English. Italians brought with them a style of cooking which became widely spread and such words as: pizza, spaghetti. From the great number of German-speaking settlers the following words were borrowed: delicatessen, hamburger, noodle, schnitzel. During the second period of A.E. history there appeared quite a number of words and word-groups which were formed in the language due to the new political system, liberation of America from the British colonialism, its independence: USA, assembly, congress, Senate, congressman, President, senator. Besides these political terms many other words were coined in American English in the 19-th century: influential, department store, telegram, telephone. Differences of spelling. a) the delition of the letter «u» in words ending in «our», e.g. honor, favor; b) the delition of the second consonant in words with double consonants, e.g. traveler, wagon, c) the replacement of «re» by «er» in words of French origin, e.g. theater, center, d) the delition of unpronounced endings in words of Romanic origin, e.g. catalog, program, e) the replacement of «ce» by «se» in words of Romanic origin, e.g. defense, offense, d) delition of unpronounced endings in native words, e.g. tho, thro.

 

ANTONYMS

Words belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style, expressing contrary or contradictory notions. (young - old, early - late, good - bad). A. may denote: 1) quality (good - bad), 2) state (clean - dirty, health - illness), 3) manner (quickly - slowly, well - badly), 4) direction (up - down, forward - back), 5) position (top - bottom, here - there), 6) features (tall - short, thick - thin). May be divided: 1) which formed with the help of negative affixes: (unhappy, unimportant, impossible, disappear, misunderstanding, hopeful, hopeless, useful, useless). 2) which are of different roots: (day - light, rich - poor, hot - cold). May also be divided: absolute, phraseological, complex. Absolute: are diametrically opposite in meaning and remain antonyms in any word - combinations. These are mostly found among negative affix - formed antonys: (fruitless - fruitful, happy - unhappy).

 

AFFIXATION

Is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

Suffixation. There are different classifications of suffixes: 1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes which can form different parts of speech are given here: a) noun-forming suffixes, such as: -er (criticizer), -dom (officialdom), -ism (ageism), b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as: -able (breathable), less (symptomless), -ous (prestigious), c) verb-forming suffixes, such as -ize (computerize), -ify (micrify), d) adverb-forming suffixes, such as: -ly (singly), -ward (tableward), e) numeral-forming suffixes, such as -teen (sixteen), -ty (seventy).

2. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can denote: a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent (student), b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English), c) collectivity, e.g. -dom (moviedom), -ry (peasantry, -ship (readership), -ati (literati), d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -ling (gooseling), -ette (kitchenette), e) quality, e.g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability).

3. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes which can be added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into:  a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as: -er (commuter), -ing (suffering), - able (flyable), -ment (involvement), -ation (computerization), b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as: -less (smogless), ful (roomful), -ism (adventurism), -ster (pollster), -nik (filmnik), -ish (childish), c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as: -en (weaken), -ly (pinkly), -ish (longish), -ness (clannishness).

4. Origin of suffixes. Here we can point out the following groups:  a) native (Germanic), such as -er,-ful, -less, -ly. b) Romanic, such as: -tion, -ment, -able, -eer. c) Greek, such as: -ist, -ism, -ize. d) Russian, such as -nik.

5. Productivity. Here we can point out the following groups:  a) productive, such as: -er, -ize, --ly, -ness. b) semi-productive, such as: -eer, -ette, -ward.  c) non-productive, such as: -ard (drunkard), -th (length).

Prefixation 1. Semantic classification:a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as: in- (invaluable), non- (nonformals), un- (unfree) etc,   b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: de- (decolonize), re- (revegetation), dis- (disconnect),c) prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as: inter- (interplanetary), hyper- (hypertension), ex- (ex-student), pre- (pre-election), over- (overdrugging) etc.

2. Origin of prefixes:a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under- etc. b) Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, re- etc. c) Greek, such as: sym-, hyper-.

 

Polysemy - it is a means of qualitative enrichment of the vocabulary. There are two types of polysemy: 1) radiation, in which the primary meaning is at the centre and secondary meanings come out it like rays (paper - document, wall paper, bills, scientific paper). Secondary meaning may drop out of use and it doesn’t affect the primary meaning. 2) chain in which each secondary meaning depends on the previous one and it intermediate meanings drop out of use, then the first and the last meanings may become homonyms. (game (дичь) - game as an object of huntig - hunting - hunting as entertainment - entertaining game). Each of the meanings of the polysemantic word is called a lexical semantic variant.

The sources of Phraseology.

In etymological classification of idiomatic phrases by L.P. Smith in his book “Words and Idioms”, the author points out the following sources of phraseology:

1. Ph. Units built around the names of different parts of the body: soft in the head, to have an open hand, to have a good head on one’s shoulders.

2. Ph. Units from sport life: straight from the shoulder, to keep the ball rolling, to back up(support).

3. Set expressions from art: to play the first fiddle, out of tune, to make a scene, to change one’s tune.

4. Phrases from Shakespeare writing: to be or not to be, to make sure double sure, the beginning of the end, to the heart’s content.

5. Biblical expressions: safe and sound, dairy bread, to be a proverb and a byword.

 

Greek borrowings.

A great many Greek words introduced into Eng­lish came in chiefly through the medium of Latin, for the Latin language itself was largely indebted to Greek. Borrowings from Greek like those from Latin go back to an early period. These are mostly bookish borrowings. Here are a few of the hundreds of  Greek terms used in modern medicine: adenoids,pediatrics, psychiatry, psychoanalysis. Greek borrowings were more or less latinized in form. They are spelt and pronounced not as in Greek but as the Romans spelt and pronounced them. Among numerous Greek borrowings in the Eng­lish vocabulary we find the following: analysis,botany,comed,ydemocrat,democracy, dialogue, philosophy,problem,rhythm. Quite a number of proper names are also Greek in origin, e. g. George, Eugene, Helenw, Sophie, Peter, Nicholas, Theodor. Here are some loan-words which linguistics owes to Greek: antonym, dialect, etymology, euphemism, homonym, metaphor, metonymy, neologism, poly­semy,synonym, etc. A lot of English terms In rhetoric and grammar originated in Greece. The punctuation mark called a comma originates from the Greek word. There are numerous English compounds coined from such Greek roots, as: autos - self, chroma - colour, ge - earth, logos - dis­course, phone - voice, e.g. autograph, geography, geo­logy, phonograph, telegraph, telephone.

 

PREFIXATION

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English it is characteristic for forming verbs. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead) (cf over the table). The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. But the recent research showed that about twenty-five prefixes in Modern English form one part of speech from another (bebutton, interfamily, postcollege etc).

Prefixes can be classified according to different principles:

1. Semantic classification:

a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as: in- (invaluable), non- (nonformals), un- (unfree) etc,

b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: de- (decolonize), re- (revegetation), dis-(disconnect),

c) prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as: inter- (interplanetary). hyper-Hypertension), ex- (ex-student), pre- (pre-election), over- (overdrugging) etc.

2. Origin of prefixes:

a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under- etc.

b) Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, re- etc.

c) Greek, such as: sym-, hyper- etc.

There are some prefixes which can be treated qs root morphemes by some scientists, e.g. after- in the word afternoon. American lexicographers working on Webster dictionaries treat such words as compound words. British lexicographers treat such words as derived ones.

Word meaning

Every word has two aspects: the outer aspect (its sound form) and the inner aspect (its meaning). Sound and meaning do not always constitute a constant unit even in the same language. One and the same word in different syntactical relations can develop different meanings, e.g. the verb «treat» in sentences: a) He treated my words as a joke. b) The book treats of poetry. c) They treated me to sweets. d) He treats his son cruelly. In all these sentences the verb «treat» has different meanings and we can speak about polysemy. Approaches: 1) referential (onomasiological) - it studies various names which nominated extralinguistic objects. The central conception within this approach is the theory of nomination. It shows how referent (object of reality) is named in a certain language: man - hero - winner - fellow - superman - partner; 2) functional - studies syntagmatic (within context) and paradygmatic relation; 3) extralinguistic - which studies the influence of the objective reality on the language; 4) semantic - shows the semantic structure of a word (all meanings taken together): lion - animal, proper name, emblem of the British flag.

SUFFIXATION

The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. There are different classifications of suffixes:

1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes which can form different parts of speech are given here:

a) noun-forming suffixes, such as: -er (criticizer), -dom (officialdom), -ism (ageism),

b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as: -able (breathable), less (symptomless), -ous (prestigious),

c) verb-forming suffixes, such as -ize (computerize). -ify (micrify),

d) adverb-forming suffixes, such as: -ly (singly), -ward (tableward),

e) numeral-forming suffixes, such as -teen (sixteen), -ty (seventy).

2. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can denote:

a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent (student),

b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English),

c) collectivity, e.g. -dom (moviedom), -ry (peasantry, -ship (readership), -ati (literati),

d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -ling (gooseling), -ette (kitchenette),

e) quality, e.g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability).

3. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes which can be added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into:

a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as: -er (commuter), -ing (suffering), - able (flyable), -ment (involvement), -ation (computerization),

b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as: -less (smogless), ful (roomful), -ism (adventurism), -ster (pollster), -nik (filmnik), -ish (childish),

c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as: -en (weaken), -ly (pinkly), -ish (longish), -ness (clannishness).

4. Origin of suffixes. Here we can point out the following groups:

a) native (Germanic), such as -er,-ful, -less, -ly.

b) Romanic, such as: -tion, -ment, -able, -eer.

c) Greek, such as: -ist, -ism, -ize.

d) Russian, such as -nik.

5. Productivity. Here we can point out the following groups:

a) productive, such as: -er, -ize, --ly, -ness.

b) semi-productive, such as: -eer, -ette, -ward.

c) non-productive, such as: -ard (drunkard), -th (length).

There are also disputable cases whether we have a suffix or a root morpheme in the structure of a word, in such cases we call such morphemes semi-suffixes, and words with such suffixes can be classified either as derived words or as compound words, e.g. -gate (Irangate), -burger (cheeseburger), -aholic (workaholic) etc.

 

COMPOSITION

Composition is the way of wordbuilding when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends upon: a) the unity of stress, b) solid or hyphenated spelling, c) semantic unity, d) unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. These are characteristic features of compound words in all languages. For English compounds some of these factors are not very reliable. As a rule English compounds have one uniting stress (usually on the first component) e.g. hard-cover, best-seller. We can also have a double stress in an English compound, with the main stress on the first component and with a secondary stress on the second component, e.g. blood-vessel. The third pattern of stresses is two level stresses, e.g. snow-white,sky-blue. Spelling in English compounds is not very reliable as well because they can have different spelling even in the same text, e.g. war-ship, blood-vessel can be spelt through a hyphen and also with a break. The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. In such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain-drain etc. In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. g., airbus, astrodynamics etc.

English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in sentence as one part of it and only one component changes grammatically, e.g. These girls are chatter-boxes «Chatter-boxes» is a predicative in the sentence and only the second component changes grammatically.

There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

a) Both components in an English compound are free stems, that is they can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The sound pattern will be the same except for the stresses.

b) English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g. middle-of-the-road,up-and-doing.

AFFIXATION

Is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation. Affixes - words which have particles at the beginning or end of the words which modify the meaning of the root in some way. may be: derivational - suff., prefix.; functional - they convey grammatical meaning: -s /verbs of 3 person singul./, degrees of comparison /er, est/, tenses of verbs /ed, ing/. The newest formation of affixes from independed words are called semi - affixes: she is a postman (s.-a.: -man /postman/, -proof /waterproof, kissproof/, -tight, -wise, -monger /warmonger, gossipmonger/, -like /moonlike/. Classification of aff.: 1) highly - producted, 2) semi - producted, 3) productive, 4) unproductive, 5) dead.; Semi - preffixes: - fellow /fellowstudent/, - ill /ill-breed/, -mini, -maxi, -out /outcome/, -under /underline/. Synonyms: - nationalities: -ish, -ian /Ukrainian, russian, british/; -professions: -ist /botanist/, -er /driver/; - negative meaning: - un, -ill, -im, -ie, -dis, -mis, -in, -let /booklet, cloudlet/. Polysemy: -y /full of smth. bony, stony, bushy/.

Compounding (word-composition)

is one of the productive types of word formation in modern English. Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units. Structurally compound words are characterized by the specific order and arrangement in which bases follow one another. Compound words have three stress patterns: a) a high or unity stress, on the first component as in (honeymoon, doorway); b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and a weaker, secondary stress on the second component (blood - essel,mad - doctor); c) it is not infrequent for compound words to have level stress (arm - chair). Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling - they are spelt either solidly or with a hyphen. It is true that hyphenated spelling by itself may be sometimes misleading, it may be used in word - groups to emphasize their phraseological character as in: (daughter - in - law, man - of - war) or in longer combinations of words to indicate the semantic unity of astring of words used attributively as:)we - are - in - the - know jargon). The two types of spelling typical of compounds are not rigidly observed. The spelling of these compounds varies from author to author and from dictionary to dict. (war - path, war - time - are spelt both with a hyphen and solidly. Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Taditionally 3 types are distinguished: neutral, morphological, syntactic. In neutral compounds the process of compounding is realized without any linking elements, as in (blackbird, shop - window, bedroom). Compounds which have affixes in their structure are called derived or derivational compounds (blue - eyed, music - lover, newcomer). Contracted compounds have a shortened stem in their structure: TV - set, V - day (victory day), T - shirt. Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non - productive. Here two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant: Anglo - Saxon, handiwork. In syntactic compounds words are formed from segments of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs,as in the nouns: lily - of - the - valley, mother - in - law.

 

Conversion

is one of the most productive ways of modern English word - building. C. consists in making a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. The new word has a meaning which differs from that of the original one though it can more or less be easily associated with it: (yellow leaves and the leaves were turning yellow (adj. denote colour), but - in the leaves yellowed - the converted unit no longer denotes colour. Conversion is an easily way of enriching the vocabulary with new words. The two categories of parts of speech especially affected by conversion are nouns and verbs: face - to face, to hand; He has still plenty of go at his age (go - energy). Verbs can also be made from adj.: to pale, to yellow, to cool. Verbs made from nouns: - v. denote an action performed by the tool: to hammer, to nail, to comb, to pencil, to brush; - noun is the name of an animal: to dog, to monkey, to fox. to rat; - name of a part of the human body: to hand, to eye, to leg: - name of profession, occupation: to nurse, to cook, to maid: - name of a meal: to lunch, to supper.

 

Cockney

Dialect or accent used among natives of London, esp. of the East End. There are two kinds of ordinary cockney: 1) the variety of Modified Standart speech which is the typical Cockney English of London, as spoken by educated Middle - Class people; 2) the variety of Modified Standart which is also heard in London but which is spoken by the semi - literate and the quite illiterate. The expression “cockney” was a name applied by country people to those who dwelt in cities. In the 17^th century the word “cockney” was applied to the inhabitants of London. Cockney English as it was spoken at one time is seldom heard now, except in a certain very limited area of the East End of London. Peculiarities: In pronunciation the cockney is very partial to the following vulgarisms. He consistently drops his h’s, that is he doesn’t sound the h where it ought to be heard and puts in an h where there is none (ham and eggs - ‘am an’ heggs). The dropping of the g is a frequent vulgarism even among people who are higher up in the social scale: mornin’, goin’. The sound d and t are also frequently dropped as in: an’ (and), I don’ know (don’t). Vowel sound of long i (mine) given to the stressed long a, the sound of oi in cases which require a long i sound and that of ow (how) instead of a long o.: toim - time, plice - place, sow - so, rowd - road. The differences between the two varieties of English are immediately noticeable in the field of phonetic. All lexical units may be subdivided into general English, Americaniams, Briticisms. the bulk of the vocabulary belongs to general English. In the pair: post - mail the first word is more frequent in Britain, the second - in America. Americanisms - mailbox, supermarket. There may be Lowland (Scottish or Scots, North of the river Tweed), Northern (between the rivers Tweed and Humber), Western, Midland, Eastern, Southern (South of the Thames).

 

Phraseology.

Phraseology is known in the narrow sense as a branch of Linguistics. In the lexicological aspect Phraseology studies the meaning of set expressions and idioms. As a linguistic science Phraseology investigates semantic patterns possessing different degrees of structural and semantic integrity. Turning of Phraseology from a part of Lexicology into a full-fledged branch of Linguistics was grounded by the works of academician V.V. Vinogradov. In the English and American Linguistics Phraseology doesn't exist as a branch of study. Idioms are considered there the subject of study of stylistics, folklore and lexicography. Absebce of profound phraseological researches in Great Britain and the USA is probably motivated by thelow frequency of idioms in the speech of native speakers. Traditionally, for English-speaking educated people idioms signal stereotyped thinking & inability to express one's thoughts spontaneously. A Phraseological Unit & its definition. The combinations of words maybe divided into free and set phraseology studies, set combinations of words.   Free word-combinations comprise two or more notional words combined in accordance with grammar rules. Each component preserves its individual lexical and grammatical meanings, stylistic colouring and syntactical function: to break a match (2 matches): to change a plan (a programme); Set expressions are word combinations characterized by structural, semantic, functional, stylistic integrity, i.e. neither the forms nor the order of the components may be changed, no words can be inserted into PhUs, the meaning of the whole structure is not the sum of the meaning of PhU components, the components are united by one syntactic function and stylistic colouring.

Comparison

Free combinations:  - have insertions to take a book, to receive the books; - each component preserves an independent meaning: to take, to grasp, to snatch a book; - each component has its own stylistic colouring: to help - neutral style; daddy - colloquial. - free word combinations are formed in speech when a necessity arises

Set expressions: - stable grammatical structures: to rain cats and dogs, to snow black a cat or hounds; - the meaning of the components put together isn't adequate to the meaning of the whole PhU: to rain cats & dogs; - one logically possible component: profound, thorough, considerable deep gratitude: - the PhU has one stylistic colouring - colloquial: to kick the bucket - colloquial style: - we don't create but use PhU by tradition the usage of a PhU is programmed for effect.

 

Word structure

Word - the basic unit of language, a minimum meaningful free form. It is a two - faced unity of form (phonetic, graphic) and content (meaning). These 2 facets are inseparable for a definite period of language development, but historically they are changeable. The form of the words is devisible into elements. Phoneme - is a minimum form. Morpheme - it is a minimum lexico - grammatical meaningful form. When a morpheme becomes free it turns into a word if only occasional. May be free - can act as separate word: day, type, way; bound - can't act as a separate word: receive, deceive. Root morpheme - is the semantic nuclear of a word. It has a very general and abstract lexical meaning which is common to one word family: water - watery - to water - water - melon. Roots have no part of speech meaning. Affixes - words which have particles at the beginning or end of the words which modify the meaning of the root in some way. may be: derivational - suff., prefix.; functional - they convey grammatical meaning: -s /verbs of 3 person singul./, degrees of comparison /er, est/, tenses of verbs /ed, ing/.

 

 

Kinds of morphemes.

Morpheme - it is a minimum lexico - grammatical meaningful form. When a morpheme becomes free it turns into a word if only occasional. Root morpheme - is the semantic nuclear of a word. It has a very general and abstract lexical meaning which is common to one word family: water - watery - to water - water - melon. 1) May be free - can act as separate word: day, type, way, winter, table, red; bound - can't act as a separate word: receive, deceive, conceive. 2) Affixational morph.: - derrivational: suff., preff. /worker, botanist/; - functional (grammatical): /n./ -s,'s - goods; /adj./ -er, est - deeper, deepest; /v./ - s,-ed,-ing - helps, helped, helping.; 3) Allomorphs - are positional variants of morph.: -root allomorph: please, pleasure, pleasant; - affixal: eatable, addable, -ir, -im, -ill: impossible, irregular.

 

Narrowing (specializa­tion)

A lexeme be­comes more specialized in meaning: 'Room' originally meant 'any space', now it has specialized only to a particular space; 'meat'- food and drink in general; 'bread' - a small piece of anything; 'fruit' - product or something enjoyed; 'wife' - woman; 'worm' - any kind of reptile or insect; 'garage' - any safe place; 'grocer' - a wholesale dealer; 'engine' - anything used to do something; Extension (generaliza­tion) - A lexeme wid­ens its mean­ing: 'Salon' meant aristocratic social interac­tion, now it means more like in 'cosmetics salon, hairdressing salon, beauty salon; 'manuscript' meant something handwritten; 'picture' - something painted; 'foreigner' - one who lives out of doors; 'pipe' - a simple musical instrument; 'ready' - prepared for a ride; 'to fly" - to move by wings as a bird. Amelioration (elevation) - a lexeme develops a positive meaning (approval): nice - earlier meant foolish or simple; fame - rumour; splendid - bright; knight - a boy. Pejoration (degradation) - a lexeme develops a negative meaning (disapproval): sly - earlier meant wise; vulgar - common, ordinary; gossip - a god parent; silly - happy; insane - not well; idiot - a private person; clown - a farmer.

 

CANADIAN, AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH.

It should of course be noted that the American English is not.the only existing variant. There are Australian and Canadian English. Each of these has developed a literature of its own, and is charac­terized by peculiarities in phonetics, spelling, grammar and vocabu­lary. Canadian English is influenced both by British and American English but it also has some specific features of its own. Specifically Canadian words are called Canadianisms. They are not very frequent outside Canada, except shack 'a hut' and to fathom out 'to explain'. The vocabulary of all the variants is characterized by a high percentage of borrowings from the language of the people who in­habited the land before the English colonizers came. Many of them, local animals, plants or weather conditions, new social relations, new trades and conditions of labour. The term international words is used to denote words borrowed from one language into several others simul­taneously or at short intervals one after another. Similar examples, though perhaps fewer in number, such as boomerang, dingo, kangaroo are all adopted into the English language through its Australian variant. They denote the new phenomena found by English immigrants on the new continent. A high percent­age of words borrowed from the native inhabitants of Australia will be noticed in the sonorous Australian place names. Otherwise an ample use was made of English lexical material. An intense development of cattle breeding in new conditions necessi­tated the creation of an adequate terminology. It is natural there­fore that nouns like stock, bullock or land find a new life on Austra­lian soil: stockman 'herdsman', stockyard, stock-keeper 'the owner of the cattle'; bullock v means 'to work hard', bullocky dray is a dray driven by bullocks; an inlander is a stock-keeper driving his stock from one pasture to another, overland v is 'to drive cattle over long distances'. At present there is no single "correct" English and the American, Canadian and Australian English have developed standards of their own. It would therefore have been impossible to attempt a lexicological description of all the variants simulta­neously: the aim of this book was to describe mainly the vocabu­lary of British English.

 

Semantic changes, metaphor.

Have been variously classified into such categories as: narrowing, extension, generalization, specialization, transfer, amelioration, pejoration, irradiation and many others. Metaphor - is a deep semantic transformation of a word going far beyond its primary semantic range. -speech: the door is singing; - language: the foot of the hill, the foot of a man. 1. living: the door is singing, 2. trite (faded): the foot of the hill, 3. dead: hooligan. Metaphor forms part of our way of thinking, of understanding the world. At times, it lexicalises (that is, it becomes very common), and we are not aware that we are using a metaphor: Life is not a bed of roses. We base on previous models to produce communicative units, and a transmitter, a receiver and a channel are necessary. Nevertheless, it doesn’t imply that these units are not creative. A metaphor can be defined as an incomplete simile. - She is (as pretty as) a rose. - My friend is (as strong as) an ox. In a metaphor there are two terms: the real one (my friend) and the evoked or imaginary one (ox). There is, then, some similarity between the two terms. If only the evoked term appears, we have a pure metaphor. 1) similarity of shape: head of a cab­bage, nose of a plane; 2) similarity in function or use: hand of a clock, finger on the balance, wing of a plane; 3) similarity in temperature: hot scent, cold reason, warm heart; 4) likeness in colounorange for colour and for fruit; 5) analogy between d ration of time and space: long distance vs long speech; 6) transition of proper? imes into com­mon ones: an Adonis, a C:ero, a Don Juan; 7) likeness in position: foot of a man vs foot of a hill; 8) Zoosemy- used when names of animals are used metaphorically to denote human qualities (he is such a bear, a pig of a friend, a tiger (cruel fellow)).