Synonymic condensation is typical of the English language

Total synonyms

  • an extremely rare occurence
  • Ulman: “a luxury that language can hardly afford.”
  • M. Breal spoke about a law of distribution in the language (words should be synonyms, were synonyms in the past usually acquire different meanings and are no longer interchangeable).
  • Ex.: бегемот – гиппопотам

Ideographic synonyms.

  • They bear the same idea but not identical in their referential content.
  • Ex.: to ascent – to mount – to climb
  • To happen – to occur – to befall – to chance
  • Look – appearance – complexion – countenance

Dialectical synonyms.

  • Ex.: lift – elevator
  • Queue – line
  • Autumn – fall

Contextual synonyms.

  • Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades & suppress other semantic trades; words with different meaning can become synonyms in a certain context.
  • Ex.: tasteless – dull
  • Active – curious
  • Curious – responsive
  • Synonyms can reflect social conventions.
  • Ex.:
clever bright brainy intelligent Dever-clever
neutral Only speaking about younger people by older people Is not used by the higher educated people Positive connotation Stylistically remarked

Stylistic synonyms.

  • Belong to different styles.
child Infant Kid
neutral elevated colloquial
To die To kick the bucket

Synonymic condensation is typical of the English language.

It refers to situations when writers or speakers bring together several words with one & the same meaning to add more conviction, to description more vivid.

Ex.:

  • Safe & sound
  • Lord & master
  • First & foremost
  • Safe & secure
  • Stress & strain
  • By force & violence


It is deeply rooted in the history of English language

It was customary to use French borrowings together with their native synonyms. They are very often characterized by alliteration, rhymes, idioms, etc.

Synonymy – the coincidence in the essential meanings of linguistic elements which (at the same time) usually preserve their differences in connotations and stylistic characteristics.

Synonyms – two or more words belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable in some contexts. Their distinctive features can be connotations, stylistic features, distributional or depending on valency. The difference between some synonyms can be marked for register subject-field, mode, and style (tenor) or their combinations.

Typology of synonyms:

  • - cognitive synonyms – s. which differ in respect of the varieties of discourse in which they appear; the distinction between such items lies not so much in their inner lexical meaning, but in the sphere of their actual application or usage, as besides the referential basis (referential meaning – q.v.) the actual meanings of the words as found in utterances reflect relations which hold between lexical items within the communicative space, i.e. the functional differentiation of discourse.
  • - contextual/context-dependent synonyms – similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions, when the difference between the meanings of two words is contextually neutralized: e.g. buy and get;
  • - dialectal synonyms – pertaining to different variant of language from dialectal stratification point of view;
  • - functional synonyms– the term is not lexicological proper as it refers to different syntactic units capable of performing one and the same syntactic function (e.g. Subordinate Object Clause and Complex Object constructions are functional synonyms;
  • -ideographic synonyms – differ in shades of meaning, i.e. between which a semantic different is statable;
  • - stylistic synonyms– are distinguished stylistically, i.e. in all kinds of emotional, expressive and evaluative overtones without explicitly displaying semantic difference;
  • - referential synonyms – a vague term, concerns coreferential expressions, when one denotatum can be defined differently from different points of view and in different aspects: e.g. names Walter Scott and the author of 'Ivanhoe' are coreferential because they refer to one and the same denotatum – Sir Walter Scott;
  • - terminological synonyms – two existing terms for one denotatum: e.g. borrowing and loan-word; concept and notion (the difference between them is not discriminated by some linguists);
  • - total synonyms -can replace each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning and connotations (e.g. noun and substantive, functional affix, flection and inflection); is a rare occasion.

51. Homonyms. Classification of homonyms.Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning. Traditional classification includes 3 types of homonyms:
1. homonyms which are the same in sound and spelling are traditionally termed homonyms proper (bank – a shore; bank-an institute for receiving, lending, exchanging and safeguarding money; school-косяк рыбы; school - школа).
2. homophones – they are the same in sound but different in spelling (night-knight; piece –peace).
3. homographs – these are words which are the same in spelling but different in sound (bow [bau]-поклон; bow [bэu]-лук; to lead [ li:d] – to conduct on the way, go before to show the way; lead [led] – a heavy, rather soft metal)
Homonyms should be distinguished from polycemantic words, because homonyms – we discuss 2 different forms with their own lexical and semantic structure, polycemantic – only one word (homonyms – 2 different words, polycemantic – 2 different meanings).
Classification:
1. lexical homonyms – differ in lexical meaning only, grammatical meaning is the same (one and the same part of speech)
2. lexico-grammatical homonyms – differ both lexical and grammatical meanings (different parts of speech) Ex: pale, adj – to pale , verb; reading- {Present Participle, gerund, Verbal noun.
3. grammatical homonyms – differ in grammatical meaning only, the lexical meaning is the same (brothers – plural; brother’s – possessive case)
Partial Homonyms –are those one which are the same only in one form of their grammatical paradigm (mine – шахта; mine – possessive noun (first form is my)).
Sources of Homonyms
- phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words which were formerly pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms - Night and knight, to knead (О.Е. cnēdan) and to need (О.Е. nēodian).
- Borrowing is another source of homonyms. Match, n. ("a game; a contest of skill, strength") is native, and match, n. ("a slender short piece of wood used for producing fire") is a French borrowing.
- Word-building
conversion - comb, n. — to comb, v., pale, adj. — to pale, v., to make, v. — make, n. they are the same in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of speech, are called lexico-grammatical homonyms
Shortening fan, n. in the sense of "an enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer, etc." is a shortening produced from fanatic. Its homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, n. which denotes an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air. The noun rep, n. denoting a kind of fabric (cf. with the R. репс) has three homonyms made by shortening: rep, n. (< repertory), rep, n. (< representative), rep, n. (< reputation)'', all the three are informal words.
- sound-imitation - bang, n. ("a loud, sudden, explosive noise") — bang, n. ("a fringe of hair combed over the forehead"). Also: mew, n. ("the sound a cat makes") — mew, n. ("a sea gull") — mew, n. ("a pen in which poultry is fattened") — mews ("small terraced houses in Central London").
- Two or more homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when, for some reason, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts. This type of formation of homonyms is called split polysemy.
board, n. — a long and thin piece of timber
board, n. — daily meals, esp. as provided for pay,
e. g. room and board board, n. — an official group of persons who direct
or supervise some activity, e. g. a board
of directors

52. Lexicography. Classification of dictionaries.Lexicography is the study of the meaning, evolution, and function of the vocabulary units of a language for the purpose of compilation in book form-in short, the process of dictionary making.

The classification of dictionaries is a very important aspect of lexicography "bearing a direct practical significance" (Shcherba in Srivastaba 1968, 119) to the preparation of dictionaries. The entire work of dictionary making from the planning stage to the preparation of press copy, at its different stages, viz. collection of materials, selection and setting of entries and arrangement of entries and their meanings is largely governed on the basis of which the dictionary is classified.

Dictionaries can be classified into different types on the basis of several criteria, varying from the nature of the lexical entry to the prospective user of the dictionary. Below are presented some main criteria for the classification of dictionaries.2

Density of entries: whether the word list is general or restricted and special? Does it also cover regional and social dialects, jargons and slangs and archaisms?
(2) The number of languages involved: monolingual, bilingual, multilingual etc.
(3) The nature of entries: whether lexical only or also encyclopaedic, the degree of concentration on strictly lexical data.
(4) Axis of time: whether diachronic (dynamic) or synchronic (static).
(5) Arrangement of entries: alphabetical or semantic or causal.
(6) Purpose: whether normative or referential.
(7) The prospective user: whether meant for the general reader to find out general linguistic information or for special users to know some special aspects of the lexical unit say etymology etc.? Is it meant for the general language or only for the language of literature, there too, the language of some author, here again the language of some of his works?

All these criteria can be applied, sometimes alone and sometimes with others, for the classification of dictionaries. For example when we talk of the Sanskrit Dictionary (Poona) we find that although its aim is to present history of the words, it treats two languages and is arranged in alphabetical order. An etymological dictionary presents the development of forms of the word, it has a very highly specialized audience. The Malayalam Lexicon and Tamil Lexicon combine in them several classificatory criteria.

Although a typological classification is essential and has been attempted by many writers, it is impossible to delimit the types into a strict water-tight frame work. When we analyse any entry from any dictionary we usually find that many characteristics of different types of dictionaries have been included in it. As we shall see later, there is a large amount of overlapping in different types of dictionaries.

But although there is no clear cut division between the scope and the coverage of the dictionaries, there are dictionaries with definite focus on some major aspect of the language.

53. Sound interchange. Distinctive stress. Sound imitation. Sound interchange - Another term for sound interchange is gradation. It is the feature that is characteristic of all Indo-European languages. In English sound interchange used to play a certain role in word-building: sit – sat, fall – fell. Vowel interchange is the most widespread case: food – feed, tooth – teeth, стіл – стола. Consonant interchange is a more rare case: advice – advise, сів - сіла. In other cases both vowel and consonant interchange takes place: bath – to bathe, grass – to graze, сидіти - село. Sometimes sound interchange is accompanied by affixation: deep – depth, long – length.

Distinctive stress- Some otherwise homographic, mostly disyllabic nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern. Thus, 'conduct n ‘behaviour’ is forestressed, whereas con'duct v ‘to lead or guide (in a formal way)’ has a stress on the second syllable. Other examples are: accent, affix, asphalt, compact (impact),1 compound, compress (impress), conflict, contest, contract (extract), contrast, convict, digest, essay, export (import, transport), increase, insult, object (subject, project), perfume, permit, present, produce, progress, protest, rebel, record, survey, torment, transfer.2 Examples of words of more than two syllables are very few: 'attribute n : : a'ttribute v. Historically this is probably explained by the fact that these words were borrowed from French where the original stress was on the last syllable. Thus, ac'cent comes through French from Latin ac'centus. Verbs retained this stress all the more easily as many native disyllabic verbs were also stressed in this way: be come, be'lieve, for'bid, for'get, for'give. The native nouns, however, were forestressed, and in the process of assimilation many loan nouns came to be stressed on the first syllable. A similar phenomenon is observed in some homographic pairs of adjectives and verbs, e.g. ‘absent a : : ab’sent v; ‘frequent a : : fre'quent v; ‘perfect a : : per'fect v; ‘abstract a : : ab’stract v. Other patterns with difference in stress are also possible, such as arithmetic [э'riθ-mэtik] n : : arithmetical) [эпθ'metik(эl)] a. The fact that in the verb the second syllable is stressed involves a phonemic change of the vowels as well: [э/ае] and [э/i]. This stress distinction is, however, neither productive nor regular. There are many denominal verbs that are forestressed and thus homonymous with the corresponding nouns. For example, both the noun and the verb comment are forestressed, and so are the following words: exile, figure, preface, quarrel, focus, process, program, triumph, rivet and others. There is a large group of disyllabic loan words that retain the stress on the second syllable both in verbs and nouns: accord, account, advance, amount, approach, attack, attempt, concern, defeat, distress, escape, exclaim, research, etc. A separate group is formed by compounds where the corresponding combination of words has double stress and the compound noun is forestressed so that the stress acquires a word-building force: ‘black ‘board : : ‘blackboard and ‘draw'back : : ‘drawback. It is worth noting that stress alone, unaccompanied by any other differentiating factor, does not seem to provide a very effective means of distinguishing words. And this is, probably, the reason why oppositions of this kind are neither regular nor productive.

Sound imitation -The great majority of motivated words in present-day language are motivated by reference to other words in the language, to the morphemes that go to compose them and to their arrangement. Therefore, even if one hears the noun wage-earner for the first time, one understands it, knowing the meaning of the words wage and earn and the structural pattern noun stem + verbal stem+ -er as in bread-winner, skyscraper, strike-breaker. Sound imitating or onomatopoeic words are on the contrary motivated with reference to extra-linguistic reality, they are echoes of natural sounds (e. g. lullaby, twang, whiz.) Sound imitation (onomatopoeia or echoism) is consequently the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. For instance words naming sounds and movement of water: babble, blob, bubble, flush, gurgle, gush, splash, etc. The term onomatopoeia is from Greek onoma ‘name, word’ and poiein ‘to make1 → ‘the making of words (in imitation of sounds)’. It would, however, be wrong to think that onomatopoeic words reflect the real sounds directly, irrespective of the laws of the language, because the same sounds are represented differently in different languages. Onomatopoeic words adopt the phonetic features of English and fall into the combinations peculiar to it.

54. Archaisms. Neologisms. The classification of words according to time.In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately (to achieve a specific effect) or as part of a specific jargon (for example in law) or formula (for example in religious contexts). Many nursery rhymes contain archaisms. Archaic elements that occur only in certain fixed expressions (for example 'be that as it may') are not considered to be archaisms. A type of archaism is using an older version of you: thou. Thou is the nominative form; the oblique/objective form is thee (functioning as both accusative and dative), and the possessive is thy or thine.

"Though thou hast ever so many counsellors, yet ["yet" is generally not an archaism, but it is in this context] do not forsake the counsel of thy own soul."[1] English proverb.

A neologism (pron.: /niːˈɒlədʒɪzəm/; from Greek νέο- (néo-), meaning "new", and λόγος (lógos), meaning "speech, utterance") is a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language.[1] Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event. Νεολεξία (Greek: a "new word", or the act of creating a new word) is a synonym for it. The term neologism is first attested in English in 1772, borrowed from French néologisme. A neologism may also be a new usage of an existing word,[3][4] sometimes called a semantic extension. A stunt word is a neologism created to produce a special effect, or to attract attention.Examples are gloatation, titterosity,scrumtrulescent, malamanteau, and truthiness. Some stunt words are portmanteau words, and many are also based onmalapropisms.

55. Minor types of Word-formation. MINOR MEANS OF WORD-FORMATION – NON-PRODUCTIVE MEANS OF WORD FORMATION IN PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH: SOUND INTERCHANGE, REDUPLICATION, BACK-FORMATION, BLENDING, DISTINCTIVE STRESS (Q.V.), ETC.

CLIPPING