Lexicology test No.1.

1. Enumerate different changes in denotative meaning, provide examples.

2. Comment upon a semantic triangle of word meaning, present its composite elements.

3. What linguistic factors cause semantic change?

4. How do polysemantic words differ from homonyms? Provide examples for each.

5. What types of synonyms do you know? Provide examples.

6. Enumerate different types of motivation, explain each.

7. What are hyponyms?

8. What results of semantic change do you know?

9. How does lexical meaning differ from grammatical one?

10. What sub-types of lexical meaning do you know? Exemplify.

11. What type of semantic motivation – metonymy or metaphor – do the following
sentences represent?
The guitar has the flu today.
The soccer player was an animal yesterday.
Ted played Bach all evening.
The life is a toilet roll – the closer you get to the end the faster it goes!
The Times asked a bold question at the news conference.

12. Provide the semantic shift in the sentences given:

OE awful “worthy of respect or fear” > “exceedingly bad”
OE wif 'a woman' > Modern English wife 'a married woman’
OE nice “careless, clumsy; weak” > “kind, thoughtful”
OE mete 'any food' > Modern English meat 'animal flesh'
sophisticated ”mixed with some foreign substance; adulterated; not pure or genuine” >
experienced, worldly-wise, refined, cultured.

13. Are the words given synonyms, antonyms or hyponyms? Indicate the type each
stands for:
doctor – patient;
fish – salmon;
intelligent – smart;
black – white;
dead – alive.

14. Identify the types of homonyms:

race “running” / race “ethnic group”;
stair / stare;
box “container” / box “slap or blow”;
brother’s / brothers;
seal1 ‘a sea animal’, / (to) seal3 ‘to close tightly’.