Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary.

Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary.

Language is divided into literary and colloquial. The whole of the word-stock of the English language is divided into 3 main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer and the colloquial layer.

Neutral words are used in both literary and colloquial language. They are the main source of synonymy and polysemy. Neutral have the universal character. They are used in library and colloquial language. They are not syntactically coloured and suitable for any communicative situation. Common literary words are chiefly used in writing and in polished speech. They stand in opposition to colloquial words.

Common colloquial words have a spoken character. They are emotionally coloured and rather unstable.

Special literary vocabulary consists of terms, poetic words, archaic words, foreignisms, barbarisms. Terms are directly connected with the concept it denotes. Terms are mostly used in special works, dealing with the notions of some branches of science. The function of terms is either to indicate the technical peculiarities of the subject dealed with or to make some reference to the occupation of a character whose language would naturally contain special words and expressions. Poetic words form a rather insignificant layer of the special literary vocabulary. They are mostly archaic or very rarely used highly literary words which aim at producing an elevated effect. Barbarisms are words originally borrowed from a foreign language and usually assimilated into the native vocabulary, so as not to differ from its units in appearance or in sound.

Special colloquial vocabulary consists of vulgar words, jargonisms, professional words, dialectical words and slang. Professionalisms are words used in a definite trade, profession or calling by people connected by common interests both at work and at home. These words name a new already existing concepts, tools or instruments. Dialectical words are those which in the process of the interrelation of the English language remained beyond its literary boundaries and their use is generally confined to a definite locality. Dialect words are only to be found in the style of emotive prose, very rarely in other styles. Slang is the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or distribute character (slang never goes state, it’s replaced by new slaugism). Kinds of slang: cockney, commercial, military. Jargonisms is a group of words that exists in almost every language and those aim is to preserve secrecy within one or another social group. Vulgar words - the stylistically lowest group, consists of words which are considered to be offensive for polite usage.

 

Лексические средства создания образности и выразительности речи.

A word can be defined as a unit of language functioning within the sentence or within a part of it which by its sound or graphical form ex­presses a concrete or abstract notion or a grammatical...notion through "one of its meanings and which is capable of enriching its semantic struc­ture by acquiring new meanings and losing old ones.

It is now common knowledge that lexical meaning differs from grammatical meaning in more than one way. L e x i c a l meaning refers the mind to some concrete concept, phenomenon, or thing of ob­jective reality, whether real or imaginary. Lexical meaning is thus a means by which a word-form is made to express a definite concept.

G г а m m a t i с a l meaning refers our mind to relations be­tween words or to some forms of words or constructions bearing upon their structural functions in the language-as-a-system. Grammatical meaning can thus be adequately called "structural meaning".

Three types of meaning can be distinguished: logical, emotive and nominal.

LOGICAL meaning is the precise naming of a feature of the idea, phenomenon or object, the name by which we recognize the whole of the concept. This meaning is also synonymously called referential meaning or direct meaning. Referential meanings are liable to change. As a result the referential meanings of one word may denote different concepts. It is therefore nec­essary to distinguish between primary and secondary referential, or logical, meaning.

E.G. adverb inwardly has the primary logical meaning of ‘in­ternally', or ‘within'. Its secondary logical meanings are: 'towards the centre', 'mentally', 'secretly', which are to some extent derived from the primary meaning. Some dictionaries give a very extended list of pri­mary and secondary logical meanings, and it is essential for stylistic purposes to distinguish them, as some stylistic devices are built on the interplay of primary and secondary logical meanings.

All the meanings fixed by authoritative English and American dic­tionaries comprise what is called the semantic structure of the word. The meanings that are to be found in speech or writing and which are accidental should not be regarded as components of the semantic structure of the word. They may be transitory, inasmuch as they depend on the context. They are contextual meanings. Such meanings are therefore also called derivative meanings.

Imagery is mainly produced by the interplay of different meanings. Concrete objects are easily perceived by the senses. Abstract notions are perceived by the mind. When an abstract notion is by the force of the mind represented through a concrete object, an image is the result. Imagery may be built on the interrelation of two abstract notions or two concrete objects or an abstract and a concrete one.

A verbal image – is a pen picture of an object, person, idea, expressed in a figurative way by words, used in their contextual meaning.

The structure of a verbal image:

a) the tenor – the subject of a thought

b) the vehicle – the object, subject is being compared to

c) the ground of comparison – the common feature

d) the relation between tenor and vehicle

e) the type of a trope

E.g. The old woman a) is sly d) like a fox b).

Trope – is the figurative use of a word or a phrase that creates imagery.

Classification of LSD.

Group 1. Interaction of different types of lexical meaning:

· dictionary and contextual meaning (metaphor, metonymy, irony)

· primary and derivative (zeugma, pun)

· logical and emotive (oxymoron, epithet)

· logical and nominal (antonomasia)

Group 2. Intensification of a feature (simile, periphrasis, hyperbole)

Group 3. Peculiar use of set expressions (clichés, proverbs, epigrams, quotations, allusion, decomposition of set phrases)

LSD: set expressions.

Allusion is an indirect reference or a hint by a phrase or word to a historical, literary, mythological or biblical fact which is presumably known to the listener/reader. The function is to explain or clarify a complex phenomenon to make the reader become active by reflecting and to make the message stick in the reader’s mind.

It was his Achilles [ə'kɪliːz] heel

Decomposition of set phrases –consists in violation of set phrases with the aim to revive the independent meaning of each element and acquire new expressiveness. There are several types of violation of set expressions: prolongation, interaction, substitution.

A Cliché is a word or expression which has lost its originality because it has been used too often. The effects achieved using clichés includes expressing emotions and attitudes, evaluation and brevity.

Proverbs are short, well-known, wise sayings usually in a simple language. They are usually didactic and involve imaginary.

Epigram is a short clever amusing saying or a poem. In most cases they are witty statements by some individuals whose names we know.

Quotation – is a phrase or sentence taken from a work of literature or other piece of writing in order to prove a view point or support an argument.

The category of number

1. The use of a singular noun instead of an appropriate plural form creates a generalized, elevated effect often bordering on symbolization.

(The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes From leaf to flower and from flower to fruit And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire.)

2. The contrary device— the use of plural instead of singular —as a rule makes the description more powerful and large-scale.

The clamour of waters, snows, winds, rains... (Hemingway)

The lone and level sands stretch far away. (Shelly)

3. The plural form of an abstract noun, whose lexical meaning is alien to the notion of number makes it not only more expressive, but brings about what Vinogradov called aesthetic semantic growth.

Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meannesses, that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. (Green)

Thus one feeling is represented as a number of emotional states, each with a certain connotation of a new meaning. Emotions may signify concrete events, happenings, doings.

4. Proper names employed as plural lend the narration a unique gener­alizing effect:

If you forget to invite somebody's Aunt Millie, I want to be able to say I had nothing to do with it.

There were numerous Aunt Millies because of, and in spite of Arthur's and Edith's triple checking of the list. (O'Hara)

These examples represent the second type of grammatical metaphor formed by the transposition of the lexical and grammatical meanings.

The third type of transposition can be seen on the example of Personification. This is a device in which grammatical metaphor appears due to the classifying transposition of a noun, because nounsare divided into animate and inanimate and only animate nouns have the category of person(gender).

Personification transposes a common noun into the class of proper names by attributing to it thoughts or qualities of a human being. As a result the syntactical, morphological and lexical valency of this noun changes:

England's mastery of the seas, too, was growing even greater. Last year her trading rivals the Dutch had pushed out of several colonies... (Ru­therford)

The category of case (possessive case) which is typical of the proper nouns, since it denotes possession becomes a mark of personification in cases like the following one:

Love's first snowdrop Virgin kiss!

Abstract nouns transposed into the class of personal nouns are charged with various emotional connotations, as in the following examples where personification appears due to the unexpected lexico-grammatical valency:

The woebegone fragment of womanhood in the corner looked a little less terrified when she saw the wine. (Waugh)

The chubby little eccentricity, (a child)

The old oddity (an odd old person).

The emotive connotations in such cases may range from affection to irony or distaste.

Although the English noun has fewer grammatical categories than the Russian one, its stylistic potential in producing grammatical metaphor is high enough.

Arnold:

- neutral style

- colloquial style

- bookish style: scientific

official

publicistic

oratorical

lofty-poetical

The style of official doc. and its substyles.

1) Language of business letters;

2) Language of legal documents;

3) Language of diplomacy;

4) Language of military documents;

Л Е К С И К О Л О Г И Я

Lexicology – is the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the l-ge and the properties of words as the main units of the l-ge. Object: lexicon – word-stock in modern English. Aim: a study and systematic description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use.

Approaches to l-ge studies:

1. the synchronic approach (concerned with the vocabulary of a l-ge as it exists at a given time)

2. the diachronic approach (deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time)

Some basic notions

The most characteristic features of English is said to be its mixed character. While it is wrong to speak of the mixed character of the language as a while, the composite nature of the English vocabulary cannot be denied.

l) The term native in linguistic literature is used to denote word of Anglo-Saxon origin brought to the Britain from the continent in the 5th century by Germanic tribes (the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes). Practically, the term is often applied to words, whose origin cannot be traced to (прослеживаться, находить в) any other language, for example, the word path.

Features of native words:

1. developed polysemy

2. monosyllabic structure

3. high frequency value

4. wide spheres of application

5. great derivational potential

6. wide collocability (сочетаемость)

The term borrowing is used to denote the process of adopting the words from other languages and also the resulting of this process, the language material itself. Not only words, but also word-building affixes were borrowed into English such as -able, -ment, -ity, etc. As well as some word-groups: coup d'etat [1], vis-à-vis [2].

Borrowing (or loan word) is the word taken from another language and modified in phonetic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of English.

Distinction should be made between true borrowings and words made up of morphemes borrowed from Latin and Greek, e.g. telephone, phonogram. Such words were never part of those languages.

There is also certain confusion between the terms "source of borrowings" and "origin of borrowed words". The term " source of borrowing” should be applied to the language from which this or that particular word was taken Into English. So when describing words as Latin, French or Scandinavian borrowing we point out their source, but not their origin.

The term " origin of the word " should be applied to the language the word may be traced to. Thus the French borrowing table is Latin by origin (L. tabula), the Latin borrowing school came into Latin from the Greek language (Gr. scole - досуг).

Reasons for borrowing:

- to fill a vocabulary gap

- to represent another shade of smth or for emotional colouring

- high social prestige of a source l-ge

Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same l-ge. As a result we have 2 different words with different spelling and meaning, but historically they come back to one and the same word.

Etymological doublets – are words originating from the same etymological source, but different in phonemic shape and meaning. E.g. poison-potion (from Latin potio, a drink), example-sample (Latin exemplum)

International words – are words of identical origin that occur in several l-ges as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowing from one ultimate source. E.g. automobile, bank, bomb, college, football, minute, opera, etc.

 

Words of Native Origin

Words of native origin consist for the most part of very ancient elements (Indo-European, Germanic and West Germanic cognates). The bulk (a lot) of the Old English word-stock has been preserved, although some words have passed out of existence.

To assign the native element its true place it's not so im­portant to count the number of Anglo-Saxon words as to study their semantic and stylistic character, frequency value, collocability (сочетаемость), their word-building ability, the productivity of the word-building patterns.

As we know almost all words of Anglo-Saxon origin belong to very important semantic groups. They include:

Most of the auxiliary and modal verbs: shall, will, should, would, must, can, may, etc.

Pronouns: I, you, he, my, your, his, who, whose.

Prepositions: in, out, on, under, etc.

Numerals: one, two, three, four, etc.

Conjunctions; and, but, till, as, etc.

 

National words of Anglo-Saxon origin include: such groups as words denoting:

Parts of the body (head, hand, arm, back, etc.)

Members of the family and closest relatives (father, mother, brother, son, wife)

Natural phenomena and planets (snow, rain, wind, frost, sun, the Moon)

Animals (horse, cow, sheep, cat)

Qualities and properties (old, young, cold, hot, heavy, light, white, long, etc.)

Common actions (do, make, go, come, see, hear, eat, etc.)

Most of the native words have undergone striking transformation in semantic structure and as a result are nowadays highly polysemantic. E.g. the word " finger " does not only denote a part of a hand as in Old English, but also: 1) the part of a glove covering one of the fingers; 2) a finger-like part in various machines; 3) a hand of a clock; 4)an index; 5) a unit of measurement

Highly polysemantic are the words man, head, go, etc. Most native words are stylistically neutral.

Due to their semantic characteristic and great stability most native words possess a wide range of lexical and grammatical valence. Many of them enter a number of phraseological units, e. g. the word heel enters the following units: heel over head = upside down; cool one's heels=be kept waiting; heel of Achilles [3].

Assimilation of borrowing.

All the changes that borrowed words undergo may be divided into 2 groups:

1) Changes specific of borrowed words only. For example, the consonant combinations [pn], [ps], [pt] in the words: pneumatics, psychology, Ptolemy of Greek origin were simplified into [n], [s], [t] since they were never used in English, in the initial position. For the same reason the initial [ks] is changed into [z] as in Gr. Xylophone [‘zailefoun][15], Xerox.

2) Changes that are characteristic of both borrowed and native words. For example, early borrowing [straekt] (strect in Modern English), disk (Mn. Eng. dish) were adopted to the norms in Middle English.

Russians linguists distinguish phonetic, grammatical and lexical assimilation of borrowings. Phonetic assimilation means changes in sound form add stress. For instance, the long [e] and [ε] in recent French borrowings, quite strange to English speech rendered with the help of [ei]-communique, cafe, etc. The German spitz [spits], was turned into English [spits].

Grammatical assimilation -when borrowed words are acquired new grammatical categories and paradigms by analogy with the other English words: cf. Rus. sputnik,-s,sputnik's, etc. But, considerable group of words adopted in the 16th century preserved their original plural inflexion: phenomenon-phenomena (L.),addendum-addenda (L.),parenthesis— parentheses,(Gr.). Others have 2 plural forms vacuum (L.)- vacua, vacuums; etc.

Lexical assimilation - when semantic structure of the borrowed word undergoes some changes (it takes 50-100 years). Polysemantic words are usually adopted only in one or 2 of the meaning. Thus, the words cargo and cask[16], highly, polysemantic in Spanish were adopted in one of the meaning "the goods carried in a ship" and "a barrel for holding liquids" respectfully".

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. (e.g. «educate» is a verb, «educatee» is a noun, and «music» is a noun, «musicdom» is also a noun).

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 (уменьшит.-ласкат.), 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).

 

Suffixes can be polysemantic, such as: -er can form nouns with the following meanings: agent,doer of the action expressed by the stem (speaker), profession, occupation (teacher), a device, a tool (transmitter). While speaking about suffixes we should also mention compound suffixes which are added to the stem at the same time, such as -ably, -ibly, (terribly, reasonably), -ation (adaptation from adapt).

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.

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.

 

When we analyze such words as: adverb, accompany where we can find the root of the word (verb, company) we may treat ad-, ac- as prefixes though they were never used as prefixes to form new words in English and were borrowed from Romanic languages together with words. In such cases we can treat them as derived words. But some scientists treat them as simple words. Another group of words with a disputable structure are such as: contain, retain, detain and conceive, receive, deceive where we can see that re-, de-, con- act as prefixes and -tain, -ceive can be understood as roots. But in English these combinations of sounds have no lexical meaning and are called pseudo-morphemes. Some scientists treat such words as simple words, others as derived ones.

There are some prefixes which can be treated as 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.

 

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 hyphonated spelling, c) semantic unity, d) unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. These are charachteristic 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. The third pattern is easily mixed up with word-groups unless they have solid or hyphonated spelling.

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, iinsofar, underfoot can be spelt solidly and with a break. All the more so that there has appeared in Modern English a special type of compound words which are called block compounds, they have one uniting stress but are spelt with a break, e.g. air piracy, cargo module, coin change, pinguin suit etc.

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, to bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics etc.

English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in a 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, e.g. «a green-house» and «a green house». Whereas for example in Russian compounds the stems are bound morphemes, as a rule.

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, off-the-record, up-and-doing etc. The two-stem pattern distinguishes English compounds from German ones.

CONVERSION

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. The term «conversion» first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet «New English Grammar» in 1891. Conversion is treated differently by different scientists, e.g. prof. A.I. Smirntitsky treats conversion as a morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech by changing its paradigm, e.g. to form the verb «to dial» from the noun «dial» we change the paradigm of the noun (a dial,dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed, dialing). A. Marchand in his book «The Categories and Types of Present-day English» treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because we have not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of the syntactic function, e.g. I need some good paper for my room. (The noun «paper» is an object in the sentence). I paper my room every year. (The verb «paper» is the predicate in the sentence).

Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings because of that, e.g.

a) verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of a human body e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to shoulder etc. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to machine-gun, to rifle, to nail,

b) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf, to ape,

c) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to paper,

d) verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to corner, to pocket,

e) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end.

Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote the change of the state, e.g. to tame (to become or make tame), to clean, to slim etc.

Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs. Converted nouns can denote:

a) instant of an action e.g. a jump, a move,

b) process or state e.g. sleep, walk,

c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a help, a flirt, a scold,

d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase,

e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk.

Many nouns converted from verbs can be used only in the Singular form and denote momentaneous actions. In such cases we have partial conversion. Such deverbal nouns are often used with such verbs as: to have, to get, to take etc., e.g. to have a try, to give a push, to take a swim.

Minor types of word-formation.

Word-formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns. A distinction is made between two principal types of word-formation: word-derivation and word-composition.

The basic ways of forming words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion. Affixation is the formation of a new word with the help of affixes, e.g. heartless (from heart), to overdo (from to do). Conversion is the formation of a new word b> bringing a stem of this word into a different formal paradigm, e.g. a fall (from to fall), to slave (from a slave). The basic form of the original and the basic form of the derived words in case of conversion are homonymous.

Word-composition is the formation of a new word by combining two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms, e.g. doorhandle. house-keeper.

Араrt from principal there are some minor types of modern word- formation. i.e. shortening, blending, acronymy. sound interchange, sound imitation, distinctive stress, and back-formation.

Shortening is the formation of a word by cutting off a part of the word. According to the part of the word that is cut off (initial, middle or final) there are the following types of shortenings: 1) initial.fend (v) < defend, phone < telephone; 2) medial, specs < spectacles, fancy < fantasy, 3) final, ad. advert < advertisement, veg < vegetables.3)both initial and final, flu < influenza, fridge < refrigerator.

Blending is the formation of a new word by combining pans of two words. Blends may be of two types: 1) additive type that may be transformed into a phrase consisting of complete stems combined by the conjunction and, e.g. smog — sm(oke) 2) restrictive type that can be transformed into a phrase, the first element of which serves as a modifier for the second, e.g.: telecast television broadcast.

Acronymy - is the formation of a word from the initial letters of a word combination. There are two basic types of acronyms: 1) acronyms which are read as ordinary English words, e.g. UNESCO— the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization; 2) acronyms with the alphabetic reading, ВBС — the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Sound-interchange is the formation of a word due to an alteration in the phonemic composition of its root. 1) vowel-interchange: food — to feed. 2) consonant-interchange: advice — to advise.

Sound imitation (onomatopoeia) is the naming of an action or a thing by a more or less exact reproduction of the sound associated with it. cf.: cock-a-doodle-do (English) — ку-ка-ре-ку (Russian). chatter, babble,splash, clink. whip, swing.

Back-formation is the formation of a new word by subtracting a real or supposed suffix from the existing words. The process is based on analogy. For example, the word to butle ‘to act or serve as a butler' is derived by subtraction of -er from a supposedly verbal stem in the noun butler.

Clipping – shortening word of two or more syllables(us. nouns and adj.) without changing its class memebership.Clipped words function as independent lex. units with a certais phonetic shape and lex.m-ng of their own.Clipped words differ from other words in the emotive charge and stylistic reference,they are characreristics of colloquial speech.There do not seem to be any clear rules by means of which we might predict where a word will be cut,though there are several types of clipping;

words shortened at the end “pocope”(ad,lab,mike);

shortened at the beginning “aphaeresis”(car,phone,copter);

in which some syllables or sounds have been ommitted in the middle “syncope”(maths,pants,specs);

clipped both at the beginning and at the end(flu,tec=detective,fridge)

Acronyms and clippings are the main ways of w-creation in pres,day Engl.

 

Aspects of sound phenomena

· the articulatory aspect(comprises all the movements and positions of the speech organs necessary to pronounce a speech sound; studies respiration, phonation, articulation)

According to the main sound-producing functions, the speech organs can be divided into the following four groups:

(1) the power mechanism (regulates the force of the air stream);

(2) the vibration mechanism (vibrator function when producing voice);

(3) the resonator mechanism (principal resonators);

(4) the obstruction mechanism (forms obstructions).

· the acoustic aspect (presupposes that sounds exist in the form of sound waves and have the following physical properties:

- intensity (depends on the amplitude of vibrations);

- frequency (the number of vibrations of the vocal cords per second);

- duration (the time of vibrations)

- spectrum (the range of frequencies)

· the auditory (perceptive) aspect(analyses speech sounds from the point of view of perception)

· the linguistic (functional) aspect(segmental sounds and prosodic units are linguistic phenomena because they constitute meaningful units and perform

 

main linguistic functions:

ü Constitutive function: phonetic units constitute units of the upper levels of a language: morphemes, words, word-forms, utterances;

ü Distinctive function: phonetic units when opposed to each other differentiate lexical and grammatical meanings of other language units (e.g. ask – asks, man-men, eat-each, a name-an aim);

ü Identificatory (recognitive) function: the sound phenomena enable the listener to identify them as concrete words, word-forms or utterances.

 

Branches of Phonetics

v Articulatory Phonetics (studies the way in which the speech organs are used to produce single sounds and their combinations);

v Acoustic Phonetics (the study of the physical properties of speech sounds);

v Auditory Phonetics (studies the way people perceive speech sounds);

v Functional Phonetics (Phonology) (studies the linguistic aspect of speech sounds).

PHONOLOGY

PH. was founded in Prague by a group of linguists (N. Trubetskoy, R. Jacobson and oth.).

PH. discovers distinctive features of sound matter that have a differential value in a language.

PH. establishes the system of phonemes and prosodemes.

PH. studies the laws of distribution and grouping phonemes in syllables and words.

 

Types of Sound Variation

ü Idiolectal (is caused by genetic reason) (e.g. if a speaker lisps he says “thish ish” for “this is”)

ü Diaphonic (is caused by historical tendencies active in certain localities at a certain period of time) (e.g. /æ/ ranges from a front open [æ] in the southern part of England to [a] in Northern England map [æ] – map [a])

ü Allophonic (is caused by ph-c environment and ph-c position of sounds)

ü Individual (is caused by individual peculiarities of the speaker: age, gender, emotional state, social status, situation of communication)

 

Sound modifications – are allophonic variations of speech sounds caused by their position in a word.

· Reduction (weakening of articulation and shortening of duration of vowels in an unstressed position)

(e.g.so [səu], so late [so `leit], not so late [`not sə,leit]);

· Accommodation (the process of adapting the articulation of consonants to vowels or vice versa)

(e.g. the shortening of /i:/ in “cease” in comparison with “see”);

· Assimilation (the process of adapting the articulation of consonants to consonants)

(e.g. consonant may lose its plosion – “that time”);

· Elision (a complete loss of sound in the word structure in connected speech)

 

Consonant Elision

e.g. loss of [h] in he, his, her, hers, have (What has he done?);

loss of plosives in clusters followed by another consonant (next day, last time);

loss of [v] before consonants in rapid speech (give me your pen).

Vowel Elision (complete omission of the unstressed vowel)

e.g. history [histeri]-[histri];

correct [cerekt-krekt];

Has he done it? [zidan it].

Insertion is a process of sound addition to the word structure.

e.g.: linking [r] - car owner; intrusive [r] – Indiarand China; inserted [w]in going, allowing.

All-nic modifications are regulated by “the law of the stronger” (the stronger ph-me influences the weaker one) and are caused by “economy of efforts” (the speaker avoids articulatory movements which are not absolutely necessary for intelligibility of speech).

 

Problem of phonological analysis №1: to establish the list of ph-mes in a definite l-ge.

Methods to solve the problem:

o the distributional method (is based on the phonological rule that different ph-mes can freely occur in one and the same position, while all-nes of one and the same ph-me occur in different positions - rope [p] – robe [b])

o the semantic method (is based on the phonological rule that a ph-me can distinguish words when opposed to another ph-me or zero ph-me in an identical ph-c position)

If two speech sounds distinguish words with different meanings they form a phonological opposition (e.g. pack – tack).

The opposition of a phoneme versus zero phoneme is called a zero (phonological) opposition

(e.g. tray [t] – ray [-]).

The pairs of words which differ only in one speech sound are called minimal pairs (e.g. ship [i]- sheep [i:]).

The commutation test

Aim - to establish minimal oppositional pairs;

Definition: the systemic substitution of one sound for another in the same phonetic context in order to find cases in which such a replacement leads to the change in meaning.

e.g. pin – bin, sin, din, tin, win (diffr. m-gs, diffr. ph-mes)

It is not always a simple thing to identify all the ph-mes of a language. The question is:

whether sound [ə] is a separate ph-me or an all-ne;

whether [j] and [w] in English are all-nes of [i] and [u] or they are separate ph-mes.

There are cases when the establishment of phonological oppositions is not sufficient to determine the ph-mic status of a sound, especially when the sound is of a complex nature.

N. Trubetskoy worked out a number of rules which help to determine whether a sound of a complex nature is monophonemic:

a ph-me is indivisible, as no syllabic division can occur within a ph-me;

a ph-me is produced by one articulatory effort;

the duration of a ph-me should not exceed that of other ph-mes in a language.

According to these rules:

/tʃ/, /dȝ/ are monophonemic combinations

/ts/, /tz/, /tr/, /dr/ are biphonemic combinations

triphthongs are biphonemic combinations

In such a way it has been established that in the

English language there are 12 vowel phonemes:

/ i:, i, e, æ, o, o:, u, u:, a, ʌ, ɜ:, ə /

8 diphthongs:

3 glides to /i/ – / ei, ai, oi /

2 glides to /u/ – /ou, au /

3 glides to /ǝ/ – / iǝ, ɛǝ, uǝ/

24 consonant phonemes:

/ n, t, d, s, l, ð, v, m, k, w, z, r, b, f, p, h, η, g, ʃ, j, dȝ, tʃ, θ, ȝ /

Problem of the phonological analysis №2: the identification of the inventory of distinctive features on which all the phonological oppositions in a l-ge are based.

Each ph-me is characterized by a certain number of phonologically relevant features, which are its constant distinctive features and bring changes in meaning (occlusive – constrictive [d-z], labial – lingual [p-k]).

Each all-ne of a certain ph-me is characterized by definite phonologically relevant features (which are common to all its all-nes) plus a number of phonologicallyirrelevant features(articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning – aspiration, tenseness, lip rounding).

Problem of the phonological analysis №3: to describe the interrelationships among the ph-mes of a l-ge.

There are three views on this problem:

1. the morphological approach(R.Avanesov, P. Kuznetsov, A. Reformatsky…)

a ph-me in a weak position may lose one of its distinctive features and distinctive function;

one and the same sound may belong to one ph-me in one word and to another ph-me in another word:

e.g.луг – [лук] [k1] is an all-ne of a ph-me [г]

лук – [лук] [k2] is an all-ne of a ph-me [k]

2.the phonological approach (L. Shcherba, L.Zinder…)

speech sounds in a neutral position belong to that phoneme with whose principle variant they completely or nearly coincide:

e.g. [т] in кот-код belongs to ph-me [т].

3.the third approach(N. Trubetzkoy, R. Jakobson)

an archiph-me represents a combination of distinctive features common to two different ph-mes excluding their specific features:

e.g. both [к] and [г] in «лук» and «луг» are assigned to an abstract unit which is neither [к] nor [г].

All-nic differences are not observed by native speakers but all-nic modifications of different ph-mes completely change the meaning of morphemes, words and sentences.

Mistakes in the articulation of sounds:

phonological (an all-ne is replaced by an all-ne of a different ph-me) – affect the meaning of words (beat: [bi:t-bit]);

phonetic (an all-ne is replaced by another all-ne of the same ph-me) – the meaning does not change (the absence of aspiration in [pit]).

!!! Guide the students in order not to admit phonological mistakes. Ph-c mistakes are possible but not advisable, because they produce a foreign accent and may affect the listener’s perception.

 

Transcription -a visual system of phonetic notation organized as a set of symbols representing speech sounds; it solves the problem of representing the speech visually.

Types of transcription:

- phonemic, or broad transcription (special symbols for all ph-mes in a l-ge) used for practical experience;

- allophonic, or narrow transcription (special symbols adding some information about the articulatory activityof particular all-nic features) used for research work.

 

Слог как звуковой комплекс.

The Syllable as a Phonetic Unit – is the smallest articulatory and perceptible unit.

When we pronounce a syllable the speech organs, while producing a consonant (vowel), take all the positions necessary for the following vowel (consonant).

The listener can recognize the preceding sound only after he has analyzed the whole s-le. And it takes less time to identify a s-le than the isolated sounds it contains.

 

The Syllable as a Phonological Unit - is a structural unit which consists of a vowel alone or of a vowel (or a syllabic sonorant) surrounded by consonants in the numbers and arrangements permitted by a given language.

4 structural types of syllables:

Ø covered open (CV), when there is no consonant after the vowel (e.g. "no" ‑ [nəu])

Ø uncovered closed (VC), when the vowel is followed by a consonant (e.g. "odd" – [od])

Ø covered closed (CVC!!!), when the vowel is preceded by a consonant (e.g. "note" – [nəut])

Ø uncovered open (V), then there is no consonant before the vowel (e.g. “oh”– [əu])

 

Словесное ударение.

A word, as a meaningful language unit, has a definite phonetic structure:

Ø sounds that a word is composed of;

Ø syllabic structure that these sounds form;

Ø a definite stress pattern.

Word stress - the stress accent on the syllables of individual words either in a sentence or in isolation.

The auditory impression of stress is the effect of prominence. If a word is polysyllabic, the relative prominence of its syllables differs.

(e.g. [`plei], [,konsti`tju:∫n])

The correlation of degrees of prominence of syllables in a word forms the stress pattern of the wor d, which is often called the accentual structure of a word.

The stress patterns of different words may coincide (e.g. “`mother”, “`sister”‑ `__-__) or differ (“`prominent”, “`syllable”‑ `__-__-__).

Word Stress (word accent) - is a constituent feature of the phonetic structure of a word as a vocabulary item, which exists as such when it is pronounced in isolation (here we deal with a phonological word) ( e. g. 'well-`known).

Utterance Stress (sentence accent) - a constituent part of the phonetic structure of a spoken sentence and one of the components of intonation in the broad sense of the term, source of creating phonetic words (e.g. He is well-`known. He is a 'well-known `writer).

British phoneticians (D. Jones, R. Kingdon, etc.) consider that there are three degrees of W-S in English:

· primary (or strong stress);

· secondary (or partial stress);

· weak (the so-called "unstressed" s-les have weak stress) e.g. ‑e¸xami`nation, `hair-,dresser.

All these degrees of stress are linguistically relevant as there are words in English the meanings of which depend upon the occurrence of either of the three degrees in their stress patterns (e.g. "`import —im`port";,certifi`cation—cer,tifi`cation).

A ccording to the nature of word stress:

§ dynamic (force) -greater force of articulation of a stressed s-le (e.g. European languages).

§ tonic (musical) -uttering a stressed s-le on a different pitch level or with a different pitch direction than the other s-le or s-les of a word (e.g. Oriental l-ges, African l-ges).

§ qualitative- preserving the full quality of a V phoneme in the stressed s-le.

§ quantitative -uttering a V of the stressed s-le longer than another V or other V-s.

§!!! English W-S is of a complex nature. It is created by an interaction of four acoustic parameters: intensity (responsible for loudness), fundamental frequency (pitch), duration (length) and formant structure (quality).

 

According to the stability of its position:

n Free (the main accent may fall in different words on a s-le in any position in relation to the beginning or end of a word):

(1) a constant accent is one which remains on the

same morpheme in different grammatical forms of a word or in different derivatives from one and the same root ( e.g. wonder, wonderful, wonderfully);

(2) a shifting accent is one which falls on different

morphemes in different grammatical forms of a word or in different derivatives from one and the same root (e. g. active – activity);

§ Fixed (the main accent invariably falls on a syllable which occupies in all the words of a language one and the same position in relation to the beginning or end of a word (e.g. French, Check, Finnish, Polish).

English = free + fixed

Stress performs three basic functions:

1) constitutive, because it organizes a word as a complicated sound unit;

2) recognitive, as it helps to recognize words;

3) distinctive for it helps to distinguish words and their grammar forms

(import – import; produce – produce; perfect – perfect)

Просодия.

The term “ prosody ” embraces such notions as pitch, loudness, tempo and substitutes the term “intonation”.

Intonation (in a broad sense) – is a complex unity of 5 components, which enables a speaker to express his thoughts, emotions and attitudes towards the contents of an utterance and a hearer:

(1) speech melody (pitch)

(2) utterance stress

(3) tempo

(4) rhythm

(5) voice timbre.

Intonation (in a narrow sense) is reduced only to 1 component – speech melody (pitch).

Prosodic subsystems

v pitch (speech melody) - is the variations in the pitch of the voice which take place with voiced sounds.

 

the pitch level is determined by the pitch of the highest-pitched syllable in an utterance; in unemphatic speech most phoneticians distinguish 3 pitch levels: high, mid, low.

the pitch range is the interval between the highest-pitched and the lowest-pitched syllable in an utterance.

the rate of speech variations may be different depending on the time during which these variations take place and on the range of the variations.

 

The basic unit used to describe the pitch component is the tone depending on whether the pitch of the voice varies or remains unvaried.

Tones are divided into:

static:

*high

*mid

*low

Kinetic (terminal)

*simple (falling (F), rising(R)

*complex (R-F, F-R, R-F-R)

v utterance stress is the special prominence given to one or more words in an utterance by means of variations of pitch, loudness, length and quality. The subsystem of English utterance stress includes three basic subtypes: *nuclear, *non-nuclear, * partial.

The distribution of stresses in an utterance depends on several factors: semantic, grammatical and rhythmical. Stress in an utterance fulfills the same three functions as other components of prosody: constitutive, distinctive, identificatory.

v rhythm is regularity or periodicity in the occurrence of a particular phenomenon in an utterance.

According to the rhythm:

SYLLABLE-timed languages (French, Spanish) – the speaker gives approximately equal period to each s-le (stressed or unstressed);

STRESS-timed languages (English, German, Russian) - the utterance stress serves as a basis for the rhythmical organization of speech and stresses segment the speech continuum into rhythmic units of more or less equal length.

Acoustically, rhythm is a complex of variations in frequency, intensity and duration.

v tempo is the rate at which utterances and their smaller units are pronounced.

On the acoustic level tempo is generally measured by the number of syllables per second. Tempo of speech may be determined by different factors: the size of audience, the acoustic qualities of the room, the individuality of the speaker.

Speech has some norm of tempo, so phoneticians generally distinguish normal tempo and two deviations from it: fast and slow.

v pauses divide the speech continuum into units of different length and size.

The main function of a pause is to segment connected speech into utterances and intonation groups and to delimit one utterance or intonation group from another.

Phoneticians distinguish 3 main types of pauses:

§ silent pauses (a stop in the phonation);

§ pauses of perception (a sharp change of pitch direction or variations in duration, or both);

§ voiced (filled) pauses (hesitation pauses) (are used in spontaneous speech to think over what to say next).

 

 

Functions of Prosody

1. The Constitutive Function (unifies words into utterances, the main communicative units)

Constituting an utterance prosody at the same time performs the segmentative and delimitative function (segments connected discourse into utterances and intonation groups, simultaneously delimits utterances and intonation groups one from another showing relations between them and signals the semantic nucleus and other semantically important words of an utterance or an intonation group).

2. The Distinctive Function ( manifests itself in several particular functions depending on the meaning which is differentiated):

*communicative-distinctive (prosody differentiates the communicative types of utterances, statements, questions, exclamations, imperatives

e.g. ̀Fire! (statement)

́Fire? (question)

* modal (attitudinal)-distinctive (prosody differentiates modal meanings of utterances and the speaker’s attitudes

e.g. ٧ Thank you! (friendly attitude)

* culminative (logical)-distinctive (prosody differentiates the location of the semantic nuclei of utterances and other semantically important words; prosody indicates the “theme-rheme” organization of an utterance):

e.g. The 'teacher (theme) has ̀come (rheme)

The ̀teacher (rheme) has ֽ come (theme)

*syntactical-distinctive (prosody differentiates syntactical types of sentences and syntactical relations in sentences):

e.g. Smiling (attribute) Tom ǁ entered the room

Smiling (adverbial modifier of manner) ǁ Tom entered the room

*stylistic-distinctive (prosody differentiates pronunciation (phonetic) styles, determined by extra linguistic factors)

3. The Identificatory Function of Prosody (prosody provides a basis for the hearer's identification of the communicative and modal type of an utterance, its semantic and syntactical structure with the situation of the discourse)

Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary.

Language is divided into literary and colloquial. The whole of the word-stock of the English language is divided into 3 main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer and the colloquial layer.

Neutral words are used in both literary and colloquial language. They are the main source of synonymy and polysemy. Neutral have the universal character. They are used in library and colloquial language. They are not syntactically coloured and suitable for any communicative situation. Common literary words are chiefly used in writing and in polished speech. They stand in opposition to colloquial words.

Common colloquial words have a spoken character. They are emotionally coloured and rather unstable.

Special literary vocabulary consists of terms, poetic words, archaic words, foreignisms, barbarisms. Terms are directly connected with the concept it denotes. Terms are mostly used in special works, dealing with the notions of some branches of science. The function of terms is either to indicate the technical peculiarities of the subject dealed with or to make some reference to the occupation of a character whose language would naturally contain special words and expressions. Poetic words form a rather insignificant layer of the special literary vocabulary. They are mostly archaic or very rarely used highly literary words which aim at producing an elevated effect. Barbarisms are words originally borrowed from a foreign language and usually assimilated into the native vocabulary, so as not to differ from its units in appearance or in sound.

Special colloquial vocabulary consists of vulgar words, jargonisms, professional words, dialectical words and slang. Professionalisms are words used in a definite trade, profession or calling by people connected by common interests both at work and at home. These words name a new already existing concepts, tools or instruments. Dialectical words are those which in the process of the interrelation of the English language remained beyond its literary boundaries and their use is generally confined to a definite locality. Dialect words are only to be found in the style of emotive prose, very rarely in other styles. Slang is the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or distribute character (slang never goes state, it’s replaced by new slaugism). Kinds of slang: cockney, commercial, military. Jargonisms is a group of words that exists in almost every language and those aim is to preserve secrecy within one or another social group. Vulgar words - the stylistically lowest group, consists of words which are considered to be offensive for polite usage.