Kovalenko Lexicology

Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University
Ganna Kovalenko
LEXICOLOGY
of the
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Kyiv – 2011
Рецензенти:
Ільченко О.М., доктор філологічних наук, професор, завідувач кафедри

іноземних мов Центру наукових досліджень та викладання іноземних мов
НАН України
Самохіна В.А., кандидат філологічних наук, доцент, завідувач кафедри

англійської філології факультету іноземних мов Харківського національного
університету імені В.Н. Каразіна
Рекомендовано Вченою радою Інституту філології

Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка
(протокол №10 від 25 травня 2010 року)
Коваленко Г.М. Lexicology of the English Language / Ганна Миколаївна

Коваленко. – Київ, 2011.
Написаний англійською мовою навчальний посібник “Lexicology of the English
Language” – це сучасна праця з англійської лексикології, яка поєднує в собі
фундаментальну теоретичу основу з останніми дослідженнями в цій галузі.
Посібник охоплює всі розділи навчальної програми з лексикології для
студентів-англістів факультетів іноземних мов, а також містить вправи для практичного
закріплення теоретичного матеріалу.
Призначений для студентів вищих навчальних закладів зі спеціальністю
«іноземна філологія», аспірантів, викладачів, й усіх, хто цікавиться питаннями сучасної
англійської лексикології.
© Г.М. Коваленко, 2011

Contents
CONTENTS:
ПЕРЕДМОВА………………………………………………… 7
INTRODUCTION………………………................................. 9
Lexicology as a linguistic discipline / The subject matter of
Lexicology / Vocabulary as a System of Subsystems /
Vocabulary Functions / Cognitive Nominative Mechanisms /
Ways of Vocabulary Enrichment / Lexicology and Language
Pictures of the World / Branches of Lexicology
1. THE WORD AS A UNIT OF LANGUAGE.....………………. 20
Definition of the word / Word boundaries / The word from the
point of view of different language subsystems / Criteria of
word classification / The problem of word-forms
2. SEMASIOLOGY……………………………….……............... 29
2.1 Word as a sign. The structure of meaning………………. 29
Signification and meaning in Ancient and Medieval philosophy
/ Word as a sign / Sign structure (the signifier, the signified and
the interpretant) / Lexical vs Grammatical meaning /
Denotation / Signification / Connotation /Loaded words /
2.2 Semantic change................................................................ 39
Definition of semantic change / Extension (Generalization) /
Narrowing (Specializaation) /Amelioration / Pejoration /
Further kinds of semantic change / Folk etymology
2.3 Polysemy........................................................................... 49
Stages of semantic change /Definition of polysemy and
polysemes / Polysemy vs Homonymy / Examples of polysemes /
Polysemy vs Indeterminacy / Linguistic processes governing
polysemy
2.4 Homonymy and paronymy………………………............ 56
4
Contents
Definition of Homonyms / Origins of Homonyms / Partial

Homonyms / Homographs / Homophones / Capitonyms /
Heterologues / Stylistic use of Homonyms / Paronyms
2.5 Antonymy……………………………………….............. 62
Definition of Antonyms / Derivation of Antonyms /Gradable
Antonyms / Complementary Antonyms / Other types of
Antonyms /Auto-Antonyms
2.6 Synonymy……………………………………………….. 72
Definition of Synonymy and Synonyms / Types of Synonyms /
The Basic Semantic Functions of Synonyms / Synonym
Paradigms / Non-Lexical Synonymy /
2.7 Other semantic relations between words………………... 79
Hyponyms and Hypernyms / Incompatibility / Holonymy and
Meronymy / Series / Hierarchies
3. WORD-FORMATION………………………………………… 86
3.1 Word-Formation in the Nomination System of the
English Language.................................................................... 86
Nomination /Simple Nomination vs Nomination of the Second
Order / Primary vs Secondary Nomination / Classifications of
Word-Formation Types / Linear and Non-Linear Derivation /
Word-Combinations and Phraseologisms / Borrowing
3.2 Affixation…..............…………………….…..………….. 100
Definition and affix types / Suffixation / Semi-suffixes /
Prefixation / Semi-prefixes
3.3 Compounding..........……………………………………... 120
Definition of compounds / Endocentric vs exocentric
compounds / Bahuvrihe /Compounds spelling / Stress
patterns /Chief grammatical relations between compound
5
Contents
components / Compound nouns / Compound nouns of verbal

origin / Compound adjectives / Compound verbs / Compound
prepositions / Multicomponent compounds /
3.4 Minor linear derivation types.....………………………… 130
Back-formation / Clipping / Blending / Reduplication /
Abbreviation and Acronyms / Iconic derivation
3.5 Non-linear derivation……………………………………. 141
Definition of non-linear derivation /Definition of conversion /
Types of word-class conversion / Conversion between language
levels / Conversion within one word-class / Compression
/Partial substantivation / Noun adjunct /Metaphoric
nomination / Connotation shift
4. WORD-COMBINATION………………………………........... 152
Free combination / Collocation / Collocational restriction /
Lexical phrases / Catch phrases / Quotations
5. PHRASEOLOGY…………….……………………………....... 158
Phraseology and phraseologisms – definition / Phraseological
unit vs word / Phraseological unit vs word combination / The
degree of semantic isolation / Classifications of
phraseologisms / Stability of phraseological units /
Phraseological variants / Structural synonymy / Proverbs
6. VOCABULARY STRATIFICATION………………………… 169
Native vocabulary / Criteria of vocabulary classification /
Semantic fields / Nonce words and neologisms / Archaisms
/Loaded lexicon / Regional dialects / World Englishes /Social
stratification of vocabulary / Political correctness and gender
issues
7. LEXICOGRAPHY...................................................................... 186
6
Contents
Subject matter of lexicography / The history of English

dictionary-making / The criteria of word description in
linguistic dictionaries / Classification of dictionaries /
Electronic and online icitonaries
8. EXERCISES................................................................................ 194
9. SUBJECT INDEX…...........………………………………........ 248
10. NAME INDEX…...………………………………………......... 254
7
Передмова
ПЕРЕДМОВА
Посібник «Lexicology of the English Language» призначено для студентів

3 курсу спеціальності «Англійська філологія» в межах курсу лексикології, студентів
5 курсу спеціальності «Іноземна філологія» в межах загальнотеоретичного курсу,
а також студентів інших філологічних спеціальностей в межах загальнотеоретичного
курсу з англійської мови.
Зміст посібника відповідає програмі Міністерства освіти і науки України
з лексикології англійської мови для спеціалізованих вузів.
Теоретичну частину посібника побудовано з урахуванням новітніх вітчизняних
і зарубіжних лінгвістичних досліджень. Приклади та ілюстрації, наведені в посібнику,
являють собою сучасний лексичний матеріал, представлений
в останніх редакціях словників англійської мови, а також в Оксфордському,
Британському національному й Американському корпусах англійської мови. Кожен
розділ посібника супроводжується списком питань для перевірки засвоєння матеріалу,
а також переліком навчальної та наукової літератури для самостійного читання
з вивченої теми.
Посібник складається зі Вступу, в якому подано загальний огляд курсу, семи
теоретичних розділів і розділу «Вправи», а також тематичного й іменного покажчиків.
Перший розділ «The Word as a Unit of Language» розглядає проблему
визначення слова, межі слова в англійській мові, місце слова серед інших одиниць
мови, критерії класифікації слів, а також проблему визначення таких понять,
як лексема, слово, словоформа.
У другому розділі «Semasiology» пропонується до вивчення слово як знак,
структура значення слова, особливості семантичної транспозиції в англійській мові,
проблеми полісемії, омонімії та паронімії, а також семантичні відношення між словами
(синонімія, антонімія, гіпонімо-гіперонімічні відношення, тощо).
Третій розділ «Word-Formation» присвячено розгляду засобів словотворення
в сучасній англійській мові, таких як афіксація, словоскладання, конверсія, а також
другорядних типів словотвору.
В четвертому розділі «Word-combination» розглядаються особливості
сполучуваності англійських слів у вільних та усталених сполуках, вивчається питання
обмеженої сполучуваності.
8
Передмова
П'ятий розділ «Phraseology» присвячено визначенню фразеологізму як одиниці

мовної системи, його відмінності від слова й словосполучення, класифікації
фразеологізмів, а також питанням стабільності фразеологічних одиниць, фразеологічній
варіативності та структурній синонімії.
В шостому розділі «Vocabulary Stratification» представлено огляд
різноманітних критеріїв стратифікації лексики англійської мови, визначення таких
понять як «питома лексика», «семантичне поле», а також розглядаються такі групи
слів, як оказіоналізми й неологізми, архаїзми, конотативно навантажені слова,
в оглядовій формі описуються регіональні діалекти й міжнародні варіанти англійської
мови. Робиться загальний огляд питання політичної коректності й гендерних проблем |
у сучасній англійській мові.
Восьмий розділ «Lexicography» присвячено предмету й завданням сучасної
лексикографії, класифікації словників, розглядаються класичні й сучасні типи
словників, електронні лексикографічні ресурси.
В розділі «Exercises» студентам і викладачам пропонуються практичні
завдання для засвоєння теоретичного матеріалу. Матеріалом для вправ послужили
класичні й сучасні художні тексти англомовних авторів, а також Оксфордський,
Британський національний і Американський корпуси англійської мови. Практична
частина посібника охоплює такі підрозділи лексикології, як семасіологія і словотвір.
9
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Lexicology as a linguistic discipline /
The subject matter of Lexicology / Vocabulary as a System of Subsystems /
Vocabulary Functions / Cognitive Nominative Mechanisms / Ways of
Vocabulary Enrichment / Lexicology and Language Pictures of the World /
Branches of Lexicology
Lexicology (from Greek lexicós – ‘related to word’ and logos –
‘discipline’) is a linguistic discipline that studies language vocabulary.
The main subjects of study in Lexicology are:
 The problem of the word as the main unit of language, the types
of lexical units;
 Vocabulary structure;
 Functioning of lexical units;
 The sources of vocabulary enrichment and the ways of its
development;
 Vocabulary and extralinguistic reality.
1. The word as a unit of language is studied by the general word
theory. The category of lexical unit includes not only separate words, but also
set word combinations (analytical or compound units), but the word is still
considered to be the basic lexical unit. As long as the word is characterized by
the correlation between form and meaning, it is studied in three aspects:
 structural (word boundaries and word structure);
 semantic (lexical meaning of the word);
 functional (the role of the word in the structure of language and
speech).
In the structural aspect, lexicology deals with the word boundaries
and word identity. Speaking about the word boundaries, the word is contrasted
to the word combination (help, great, little vs a great help, of little help), the
10
Introduction
problem of analytical words is studied (will have been helping, South Africa).
Studying the word identity, the category of word form is defined (has helped, is
helping) and contrasted to the word invariant (to help), along with studying the
word variants (phonetic, morphological and semantic).
Semantic analysis of the word suggests the research of the way the
word correlates with the notion it indicates (signification) and the object it
denotes (denotation). Lexicology also studies semantic types of words, such
semantic features of lexical units as monosemy (possessing only one meaning)
and polysemy (possessing several meanings), as well as semantic relations
between words: antonymy (health – illness, virtue - sin), synonymy (strange,
odd, peculiar, eccentric, weird, bizarre, queer), hyponymy (dog – German
Shepherd, Daxon; furniture – table, wardrobe, etc.), and the like. Special
attention is paid to the semantic structure of polysemantic words. The types of
meaning are studied along with peculiarities of meaning changes and
development.
The functional aspect of lexicological study suggests looking at the
word as belonging to the language system and regarding it in correlation with
the units of the other levels of this system. Particular attention is paid to the
correlation of the lexical level of language and grammar.
2. The vocabulary is studied in two aspects:
 System relations between lexical units;
 Vocabulary stratification.
Lexicology studies vocabulary as a system of subsystems. Minimal
word groups, based upon the sameness or similarity of words are homonyms
(to skip = to jump, and to skip = to miss out) and paronyms (affect / effect,
feminine / feminist). Groups of synonyms evolve basing upon the similarity of
semantic structures (beautiful / pretty / good-looking), while pairs of antonyms
are based upon semantic opposition (generous – greedy). Lexicology also
11
Introduction
studies bigger groups of words – fields – based upon either paradigmatic or

syntagmatic relations between words. A sum of paradigmatic and syntagmatic
fields makes up a thematic field, which reflects a certain sphere of
extralinguistic activity. No sector of vocabulary is isolated, certain types of
relations exist between all lexical units in language.
Vocabulary of any language is not uniform. Word groups form
vocabulary strata. Vocabulary stratification occurs according to the
following criteria:
 According to the sphere of use, vocabulary can be classified
into:
 neutral: mother, dinner, book, lamp, watch, smile, red,
young, etc.
 stylistically marked, used in particular conditions and
spheres, for example:
 poetic vocabulary: rosy-fingered (dawn), slumber (of death),
amorous (causes), brethren, (noble) steed, sublime, behold, enchanted, the 2nd
person singular pronoun thou (thy, thine);
 professional vocabulary: stocks, to lease, loan, interest rate, asset
purchases, bridge bank, net income (banking); depression, Oedipus complex,
unconscious drive, extravert, archetype, countertransference, narcissism
(psychoanalysis);
 dialects and regional variations of language: can (Am) – tin (Br),
eraser (Am) – rubber (Br), highway (Am) – motorway (Br), cookie (Am) –
biscuit (Br), diaper (Am) – nappy (Br), fries (Am) – chips (Br), license plate
(Am) – number plate (Br), line (Am) – queue (Br), motor home (Am) –
caravan (Br), period (Am) – full stop (Br), sidewalk (Am) – pavement (Br),
etc.;
12
Introduction
 sociolects: vocabulary used by different social classes, for

example dig (to understand/appreciate), tote, bad-mouth, gray dude (‘white
man’), Ofay (pejorative for white people), kitchen (referring to the particularly
curly or kinky hair at the nape of the neck), siditty or seddity (‘snobbish,
bourgeois’) are from African American Vernacular English. This sociolect
has contributed various words and phrases to other varieties of English,
including jazz, chill out, main squeeze, soul, funky, and threads;
 ageisms, for example youth slang: hammered, wreckaged,
battered, swilled, sloshed, wizzed, widdled, hamstered, hoovered, on the
heavy-bevvy, newkied, racked, hootered, faced, polluted (‘intoxicated by
drink or drugs’); bollers, wonga, luka, bokoo (=much) duckets, billies,
fundage, rocks (‘money’); brutal, nang, safe, buff, rated, bangin’, kickin’
(‘excellent, exciting’);
 idiolects: the vocabulary specific of a certain person; some
famous people’s vocabularies (Raeganisms, Bushisms) have been of particular
interest to the linguists.
 Considering emotional colouring, words can be classified into
neutral and emotionally coloured (or loaded) vocabulary: bureaucrat vs
public servant, anti-life / pro-abortion vs pro-choice, regime vs government,
slowpoked vs leisurely, to go back on one’s word vs to reconsider, to be
indignant vs to make fuss, do-gooder vs idealist.
 With chronological prospective, one can allocate:
 neologisms: blog, punked, adultolescence, to unfriend, to google,
prequel, plus-size, consumerization, band-aid, advertorial, awesome-itude,
bacheloric, bizarred, e-linquent, edress, to egosurf, halfie, etc.
 archaic words: thee, steed, hereunto, thereof, alack, anon, beseech,
ere, gaoler, morrow, verily, wherefore.
 By origin words can be classified into:
13
Introduction
 native: father, stone, swear, work, sit, two, above, life, baby, back,
believe, blow, break, cat, child, clever, cut, dark, depth, fall, food, foot, give,
glass, good, half, job, jump, etc.;
 borrowed: machine, datum, alumnus, bourgeois, rendezvous,
babushka, abolish, acquisitive, admire, adolescence, quotidian, raison d'être,
recollection, strudel, lager, leitmotif, balustrade, bronze, replica, terra-cotta,
sepia, studio, villa and
 international: telephone, president, organization, algebra,
automobile, biology, chemistry, dynamite, encyclopedia, hysteria, museum,
prince, university, violin, vitamin, etc..
Lexical system of language is the least rigid among all language
subsystems. The boundaries between word groups are quite flexible. One and
the same word can (with different meanings and uses) belong to different word
strata.
3. When vocabulary functions are researched, the following issues
are discussed:
 word usage frequency: frequently used words are distinguished
from rare words, frequently used words lists are made (among the most
frequently used English words, except pronouns and grammatical words, hot,
word, time, say, write, like, long, make, thing, see are mentioned); active
vocabulary (the word stock recognized and used by a particular person or a
group of people) and passive vocabulary (the word stock recognized by a
particular person, but not actively used) are described;
 words in oral speech and in writing: the differences between
spoken and written language are studied, as well as the peculiarities of word
choice in written and spoken texts (for example, tautology in spontaneous
speech), the choice of register (standard English, vernacular, jargon) in oral and
written communication is researched, the influence of speech on the language-
14
Introduction
as-a-system (neologisms, nonce-words, coinages and their assimilation by the

system of language) is of particular academic interest;
 nominative function of words:
 the correlation between words and aspects of extralinguistic reality
is researched;
 cognitive nominative mechanisms are defined:
 analogy: coining new words by means of existing affixes, the
cases of folk etymology, when parts of stems are interpreted as affixes by
analogy to the existing word-formation model (hamburger – cheeseburger -
vegeburger), the cases of lexicalization of affixes or syntactic units (a mini, do-
it-yourself), the cases of metaphoric nomination (based on a certatin similarity:
pencil skirt);
 opposition: creating antonyms to the already existing lexemes
by means of affixes with negative semantics: anti- (fashion – antifashion,
aesthetics - antiaesthetics), non- (colour – non-colour), un- (fashionable –
unfashionable, cool – uncool, comfortable – uncomfortable); the use of suffixes
with opposite meanings (mini-skirt – maxi-skirt; sleaved - sleaveless); the use of
lexical antonyms (readymade – handmade);
 axiological shifts: amelioration and pejoration: elevation and
lowering of meaning (queen from Indoeuropean gwene (woman, wife); knave (a
cheat) – from Old English cnafa (boy));
 compression (a push-up from a push-up bra) and detalization
of meaning (creating multicomponent word-combinations);
 assimilation mechanisms that help use borrowed words and
nonce-words according to the rules of the English language (sari – saris; a
wannabee – wannabees);
15
Introduction
 context shifts of meaning and word usage are studied, the

context-dependent aspects of connotation and polysemy; the application spheres
of different vocabulary registers; pragmatic aspects of word usage;
 word combinability is studied together with the rules of building
word-combinations.
4. Four ways of vocabulary enrichment can be distinguished:
 Word-formation: affixation, compounding, conversion, etc.;
 Development of new meanings: polysemy, semantic change;
 Creating word-combinations;
 Borrowings.
5. Vocabulary and culture is a separate area of discussion. Here
language pictures of the world are studied, the ways in which reality is
divided into sectors and described by words. Such processes as categorization
and conceptualization of extralinguistic phenomena are discussed, the ways in
which the continuum of extralinguistic reality is reflected in the people’s minds
by means of language. The notion of concept is central to the cognitive
linguistic research. The difference is made between language pictures of the
world and conceptual pictures of the world. While the conceptual picture of
the world is the whole set of ideas, concepts and knowledge about the world,
and is connected with the abstract cognitive sphere, the language picture of
the world is the result of verbalisation of cognitive concepts. While the first one
is universal, the latter depends to a great extent on the ethnic mentality of the
language speakers. Verbalized concepts are an integral part of language
pictures of the world: they are the result of the world categorization encoded in
speech. Such concepts as LOVE, FEMININITY, BALANCE, HARMONY,
FEAR, FREEDOM, LIBERTY, DEMOCRACY, LANDSCAPE, POWER,
SPACE, GOD have been researched on the material of the English language.
16
Introduction
Lexicological discipline is divided into the following branches:

 General lexicology, which studies general laws of lexical system
and language vocabulary.
 Special lexicology, which is occupied with the lexical system of a
given language.
 Historical lexicology and etymology, which study lexical system
in diachrony, discussing the evolution of vocabulary and the origins of words,
and investigating the linguistic and extralinguistic forces that influence the
changes in the vocabulary of a given language.
 Descriptive lexicology, which deals with the vocabulary of a
given language at a given stage of its development. It studies the functions of
words and their specific structure.
 Comparative lexicology, which deals with lexical systems of
different languages in comparison.
 Semasiology is the area of lexicology which discusses the word
meaning, its structure and the classification of changes in the meanings of
words.
 Word-formation is the area of lexicology which deals with
derivation patterns in a particular language, categories and types of word-
formation devices and the lexical units built with the help of these devices.
 Phraseology is the area of lexicology which studies the word-
groups viewed as functionally and semantically inseparable units
(phraseologisms or idioms) with a fully or partially transferred meaning.
 Applied lexicology coincides with certain branches of
lexicography (compiling dictionaries), is used by some branches of translation
theory, and deals with some aspects of rhetoric.
⁂
17
Introduction
REVISION:
1. Give a definition of lexicology.
2. What is the subject matter of lexicology?
3. What general aspects can the word be studied in?
4. Describe the language vocabulary as a system of subsystems.
5. What criteria of vocabulary stratification do you know?
6. Name the types of stylistically marked words that you know.
Give examples.
7. What issues are discussed while studying vocabulary
functions?
8. Describe cognitive mechanisms of nomination.
9. What ways of vocabulary enrichment exist in the English
language?
10. Speak about language and conceptual pictures of the world.
11. Give a definition of concept. What concepts have been studied
on the material of the English language?
12. Name and describe all branches of lexicological discipline that
you know.
READING:
1. Ayto J. Twentieth Century Words / John Ayto. – Oxford, OUP,
1999. – 640 p.
2. Crystal D. English vocabulary. The Structure of the Lexicon: The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language / David
Crystal. – Cambridge University Press, 1995. – 490 p.
3. Fromkin V., Rodman R. An Introduction to Language /
V.Fromkin, R.Rodman. - Dryden Pr Pub, 1999. – 592 p.
4. Антрушина Г.В., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н.
Лексикология английского языка / Антрушина Г.В.,
Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н. – М.:ДРОФА, 2004. – 288
С.
5. Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского
языка / Ирина Владимировна Арнольд. –М.: Высш.Шк,
1986. – 254 с.
6. Апресян В. Ю. Языковая картина мира и системная
лексикография / Апресян, Апресян, Бабаева, Богуславская,
Иодмин [Ю.Д. Апресян (отв.ред.)]. — М.: Языки славянских
культур, 2006. — 911с.
7. Апресян Ю.Д. Избранные труды / Юрий Дереникович
Апресян. — (Язык). – T.2: Интегральное описание языка и
системная лексикография. — М.: Школа "Языки рус.
культуры", 1995. — 767с.
8. Бацевич Ф.С., Космеда Т. А. Очерки по функциональной
лексикологии / Ф.С. Бацевич, Т. А. Космеда. — Львов : Світ,
1997. — 392с.
9. Блумфилд Л. Язык / Леонард Блумфилд. — М.: Прогресс,
1968. – 608 с.
18
Introduction
10.Бортничук Е.Н., Василенко И.В., Пастушенко Л.П.

Словообразование в современном английском языке /
Бортничук Е.Н., Василенко И.В., Пастушенко Л.П. – Киев:
Вища Школа, 1988. – 264 с.
11.Бялик В. Д. Семінари з англійської лексикології / Василь
Дмитрович Бялик — Чернівці : Рута, 2001. — 139с. —
(Чернівецький національний ун-т ім. Юрія Федьковича).
12.Верба Л. Г. Порівняльна лексикологія англійської та
української мов: [посіб. для переклад. від-нь вузів] / Лідія
Георгіївна Верба — Вінниця : Нова книга, 2008. — 246 с.
13.Квеселевич Д.І., Сасіна В.П. Практикум з лексикології
сучасної англійської мови: Навч. посіб. / Д.І. Квеселевич,
В.П. Сасіна. — Житомир : Поліграфічний центр
Житомирського педуніверситету, 2000. — 118с.
14.Корунець І.В. Contrastive Typology of the English and
Ukrainian Languages / Ілько Вакулович Корунець. –
Вінниця : Нова Книга, 2004. — 460с.
15.Мостовий М.І. Лексикологія англійської мови / М.І. Мостовий.
– Харків: Основа, 1993. – 172 с.
Dissertations:
16.Андрєєва І.О. Лінгвокогнітивні параметри концептуалізації

ПРОСТОРУ засобами англійської фразеології: автореф.
дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / І.О. Андрєєва; Одес.
нац. ун-т ім. І.І.Мечникова. — О., 2007. — 21 с
17.Багацька О.В. Концепт РІВНОВАГА в сучасних американських
оповіданнях: лексико- граматичний та наративний
аспекти / О.В. Багацька: Автореф. дис... канд. філол.:
10.02.04 / Київський національний лінгвістичний ун-т. — К.,
2007. — 19 с.
18.Борисов О.О. Дієслівні лексичні одиниці сучасної англійської
мови на позначення емоційного концепту "СТРАХ" (на
матеріалі лексикографічних джерел) / О.О. Борисов // Вісн.
Житомир. держ. ун-ту ім. І. Франка. — 2004. — N 17. — С.
91-94.
19.Кисельова А.Л. Концепт "Жіночість" у вікторіанській
лінгвокультурі / А.Л. Кисельова: дис... канд. філол. наук:
10.02.04 / Київський національний ун-т ім. Тараса
Шевченка. — К., 2007. — 218 c.
20.Кислицына Н.Н., Дидковская O.C. Исследование семантики
некоторых лингвокультурных концептов в английском
языке / Н.Н. Кислицына, О.С. Дидковская // Культура
народов Причерноморья. — 2006. — N76. — С. 51-54.
21.Луньова Т.В. Лексикалізований концепт ГАРМОНІЯ в сучасній
англійській мові: структура і комбінаторика / Луньова Т.В.:
дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Київський національний
19
Introduction
лінгвістичний ун-т. — К., 2006. — 348 c.

22.Огаркова Г.А. Вербалізація концепту кохання в сучасній
англійській мові: когнітивний та дискурсивний аспекти /
Г.А. Огаркова: Автореф. дис... канд. філол. наук: Київ. нац.
ун-т ім. Т.Шевченка. — К., 2005. — 20 с.
23.Пасічник Г.П. Лексико-семантичне вираження концепту
'пейзаж' у тексті англійського роману / Г.П. Пасічник //
Культура народов Причерноморья. — 2004. — N49, Т.1. —
С. 49-51.
24.Поліна Г.В. Мовна об'єктивація концепції Бог в англійському
дискурсі XIV - XX століть: Автореф. дис... канд. філол.
наук: 10.02.04 / Г.В. Поліна; Харк. нац. ун-т ім.
В.Н.Каразіна. — Х., 2004. — 20 с.
Electronic Resources:
25.Poetic Diction [Електронний ресурс]. –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetic_diction#Poetic_diction_in_
Englishю - 13 March 2009 at 23:58.
26.Kemmer S. Words in English. / Suzanne Kemmer. –
[Електронний ресурс].
–http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words04/meaning/index.
html
20
1.The Word as a Unit of Language
1.THE WORD AS A UNIT OF LANGUAGE

Definition of the word / Word boundaries /
The word from the point of view of different language subsystems /
Criteria of word classification / The problem of word-forms
The word is the central unit of language. At the same time it is the
smallest linguistic unit which coincides with a separate fragment of reality. The
main function of the word is to name objects or extralinguistic phenomena. The
word is at the same time the basic unit of the lexical subsystem of language and
the structural-semantic unit of language as a whole, as by its different aspects it
belongs to all language subsystems (phonetics, morphology, lexis, syntax).
There exist numerous linguistic definitions of the word (from
phonetic, morphological, syntactic perspective or a combination of these),
among which the following can be mentioned:
 An association of a particular meaning with a particular
group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment.
 The smallest unit of language, independent by meaning and
form (by Acad. Zhirmounsky, 1976).
 The smallest unit of language, characterized by independence
(autonomy) bigger than that of the morpheme (by Prof. Bloomfield,
1968).
 A part of a sentence, which we can use independently without
changing its meaning (by Acad. Shcherba, 2008).
 The word is a unit of nomination that is characterized by
complete form and idiomaticity (by Prof. Shmelev, 1964).
 The smallest independent, freely reproduced in speech,
separately designed and meaningful unit of language which coincides
with a known and separate element of reality (object, phenomenon,
quality, process, relation, etc.) and whose basic function is marking, sign
21
representation of this element – naming it, indicating it or expressing it

(by Prof. Taranenko, 2006).
 A unit of language that native speakers can identify; "words
are the blocks from which sentences are made" (Miller, 2006).
 A sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in
writing or printing that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and
may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes
(Answers.com, 2006).
 A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and
consists of one or more morphemes. Words can be combined to create
phrases, clauses and sentences (en.wikipedia.org, 2009).
 A number of morphemes connected according to the
grammar rules of a certain language and correlated to a certain object of
extralinguistic reality (uk.wikipedia.org, 2006).
 A sequence of characters in a sentence, recognized as a
lexical unit (jsoftware.com, 2006).
The abovegiven word definitions show, that the main features of the
word are: independence, being separately shaped, possessing meaning
(correlation with extralinguistic reality), morphemic structure (for analytical
and inflected languages), and also the ability to build word-combinations and
to function in a sentence.
When studying definitions of the word one should remember that “the
notion of the word should be qualified with regard to a definite language or a
group of related languages” (Вихованець, 1988, с. 14-19), while the borders of
the word in different languages can vary.
According to Ferdinand de Saussure, “the word, notwithstanding all
difficulty connected with its definition, is a unit that always comes before our
22
mind as something central in language mechanism ” (Вихованець, 1988, с. 14-

19).
The central position of the word in the language system is predefined by
the fact that the other language units (phonemes, morphemes, sentences, word-
combinations) are connected with the word by systemic relations. The status of
the phoneme as a language unit is defined by its role in differentiation of
meaning and formal differentiation of words (compare: cat – cut – cot; pet – pat
– pot – put; live – love – leave, etc.). The status of the morpheme as the smallest
meaningful unit of language is defined by its ability to build words (live – alive
– lifeless; help – helpful – helpless – helping; husband – ex-husband, etc.). And
the status of the sentence as the largest meaningful unit of language is defined
by words as its components. Thus, the word is the central unit that runs through
the whole language system.
The matter of word boundaries remains one of the discussion issues
in defining the word. In most languages, a word is usually marked out in the text
by interword separation such as spaces. In other words, the word is graphically
separated in text. However, even in writing systems that use interword
separation, word boundaries are not always clear. Thus, there are a number of
compound words in the English language that, despite an interword separation
between their elements, still make a single word.
For example, even though ice cream is written like two words, it is a
single compound because it cannot be separated by another morpheme or
rephrased like iced cream or cream of ice. Likewise, a proper noun is a word,
however long it is. A space may not be even the main morpheme boundary in a
word; the word New Yorker is a derivative of New York and the suffix -er, not of
New and Yorker.
In English, many common words have historically progressed from
being written as two separate words (e.g. to day) to hyphenated (to-day) to a
23
single word (today), a process which is still ongoing, as in the common spelling
of all right as alright.
There are five ways to determine where the word boundaries of
spoken language should be placed:
 Potential pause. A speaker is told to repeat a given sentence
slowly, allowing for pauses. The speaker will tend to insert phonetic pauses at
the word boundaries. However, this method is not foolproof: the speaker
could easily break up polysyllabic compound words (butterfly, pancake,
mailbox, wildlife, sunburn, toolbox, teapot, etc.).
 Indivisibility. A speaker is told to say a sentence out loud, and
then is told to say the sentence again with extra words added to it. Thus, My
family is important to me might become My family is the most important thing
in the world to me. These extra words will tend to be added in the word
boundaries of the original sentence.
 Minimal free forms. This concept was proposed by Prof.
Leonard Bloomfield. Words are thought of as the smallest meaningful units of
speech that can stand by themselves. This correlates phonemes (units of
sound) to lexemes (units of meaning). However, some written words are not
minimal free forms, as they make no sense by themselves (for example, the
and of).
 Phonetic boundaries. Some languages have particular rules of
pronunciation that make it easy to spot where a word boundary should be. For
example, in a language that regularly stresses the last syllable of a word (like
French), a word boundary is likely to fall after each stressed syllable. Another
example can be seen in a language that has vowel harmony (like Turkish): the
vowels within a given word share the same quality, so a word boundary is
likely to occur whenever the vowel quality changes. However, not all
24
languages have such convenient phonetic rules, and even those that do present
the occasional exceptions.
 Semantic units. Much like the abovementioned minimal free
forms, this method breaks down a sentence into its smallest semantic units.
However, language often contains words that have little semantic value (and
often play a more grammatical role), or semantic units that are compound
words.
In practice, linguists apply a mixture of all these methods to determine
the word boundaries of any given sentence. Even with the careful application
of these methods, the exact definition of a word is often still elusive.
Thanks to its central role in the language system, the word may be
defined applying the criteria of the other language subsystems.
 Thus, from the point of view of phonetics, the word can be
defined as a segment of a sentence (a sequence of sounds) separated by
pauses, or as a sound complex united by a single stress.
 From the point of view of morphology the word is a number of
morphemes united by a separate lexical meaning.
 According to the criteria of syntax, the word is a minimal
syntactic unit, and the minimal unit able to function as a sentence.
 From the point of view of semantics the word is a minimal unit
able to denote a separate phenomenon, to name a certain element of
extralinguistic reality.
Words may also be classified according to the criteria of the
language subsystems.
 According to the phonetic criteria words are classified into the
stressed words: one-stress words (cat, muffin, simple) and two-stress words
(underground, forget-me-not, alphabetic); and the unstressed words:
grammatical words that are attached to the meaningful word constituting a
25
“phonetic word” with it (enclitics, following the meaningful word: get by; and
proclitics, preceding the meaningful word: an apple); one-syllable words
(stand, lip, miss, last) and polysyllabic words (phenomenology, delete,
happiness).
 According to the structural (morphemic) organization, words
can be undivided (separately shaped: zero, evening, celebrate) and
analytical: analytical morphological word forms (will have come, should
have been going) and compound words (good bye, twenty five, Los Angeles).
 Morphologically, words can be classified as inflected (possessing
an ending that indicates a certain grammatical form: rats, dated, out-coming,
prefers) and uninflected (possessing no endings: automobile, year, swim);
simple (consisting of a single stem without affixes: train, picture, green),
derivative or affix-built (consisting of a stem and an affix (a prefix or a
suffix) or several affixes: ventilat-or, interview-ee, pre-nuptial, over-estimate,
re-generat-or, pre-consider-ation, hard-en-er, help-less-ness) and compound
(consisting of two or more stems: doghouse, apple-tree, nightclub, mother-of-
pearl, salt-and-pepper, mother-in-law).
 By motivation words can be classified as motivated (their
meaning and form can be traced back to some root: friendly from friend,
shameless from shame, forgetful from forget) and unmotivated (their
meaning and form cannot be traced in synchrony: war, she, god, stick).
 By the combination of lexical and grammatical characteristics
words are classified into the parts of speech or word-classes: nouns (man,
fire, love), verbs (stay, like, build), adjectives (green, tiny, likeable), adverbs
(quickly, very, really), pronouns (she, you, they), numerals (one, ten,
thousand), prepositions (to, at, after, on, but), conjunctions (and, but, when),
interjections (oh! Ouch, hi, well).
26
 By semantic features words are classified into different types:

monosemantic words (possessing only one lexical meaning: loud-speaker,
editorial) and polysemantic (possessing several lexical meanings: mouse,
cover); into synonyms (run – sprint, labour – work, assassinate – murder –
do in – kill), antonyms (dark – light, intelligent – stupid, dangerous - safe),
etc.
 From the point of view of style and function, words can be
described as colloquial (wanna, pop, jabber), dialect (skull-ache, head-wark
for headache; extortion for blackmail), jargon (bird for rocket, garment for
pressure space suit, smeller for geologist, swabber for pipeliner), literary
(exercise, lawyer, tremendous), bookish (incipit, frontispiece, verso),
belonging to various terminological systems (CD drive, processor, utility
– from the IT terminology; anoxia, dialysis, iatrogenic – from medical
terminology); stylistically neutral (computer, daughter, sky, help) and
emotionally charged (sweetie, terrorism, atrocious, nasty, gorgeous); words
that belong to active vocabulary (all the words used by a particular person,
socioeconomic group, profession, etc.) and passive vocabulary (all the
words recognized and understood, although not necessarily used, by a
particular person), frequently used words (I, go, be) and rare words
(galeanthropy, remedial, bookie).
 By origin, words can be either of native origin (love, help,
mother, son, brother) or borrowed (enamoured, assistance, cousin,
congener).
Lexis – the total stock of meaningful units of language – consists not
only of words, but also of idioms and parts of words which express meaning,
such as prefixes and suffixes.
The word stem with inflectional suffixes build the so-called word-
forms, which are considered to be grammatical variations of one and the same
27
word. For example, fibrillate, fibrillating, fibrillates and fibrillated are word-
forms of the word fibrillate. There also exist units larger than a single word (ex.
come in, rain cats and dogs) which still represent one indivisible meaning. That
is why the term lexeme has been introduced.
A lexeme is a unit possessing lexical meaning, which exists regardless
of the number of word-forms (the stem + inflections) it may have or the number
of words it may contain. The headwords in a dictionary are all lexemes.
⁂
REVISION:
1. Give a definition of the word.
2. What are the main features of the word?
3. Give reasons why the word is considered to be the central unit
of language.
4. Why does the problem of the word boundaries arise during the
study of the English language?
5. How can the word boundaries be determined?
6. How can the word be defined using the criteria of the other
language subsystems?
7. How can the words be classified according to the criteria of the
other language subsystems?
8. What is lexis? Which units of language build up its lexis?
9. What is the difference between words and word-forms?
10. What is a lexeme?
11. Explain the difference between the terms lexeme and word.
READING:
1. Блумфилд Л. Язык / Леонард Блумфилд. – М., 1968. –
608 с.
2. Бодуэн де Куртенэ Иван Александрович. Избранные труды
по общему языкознанию / Иван Александрович Бодуэн де
Куртенэ [С.Г. Бархударов (отв.ред.), В.И. Григорьев (сост.),
А.А. Леонтьев (сост.)]. — М. : Издательство АН СССР, 1963.
– Т.1, 2 — 384 с.
3. Вихованець І. Р. Частини мови в семантико-граматичному
аспекті / Іван Романович Вихованець. — К.: Наукова Думка,
1988. — 256 c.
4. Гумбольдт В. Избранные труды по языкознанию: Пер. с
нем. / Вильгельм фон Гумбольдт. — 2. изд. — М.: Прогресс,
2000. — 398с.
5. Жирмунский В.М. Общее и германское языкознание:
Избр.тр. / Виктор Максимович Жирмунский. — Л., Наука.
1976. — 695 с.
28
6. Загнітко А.П., Домрачева І.Р.Основи мовленнєвої діяльності.

/ А. П. Загнітко, І.Р.Домрачева [Навчальний посібник]. —
Донецьк, Український культурологічний центр, 2001. —
56 с.
7. Кубрякова Е.С. Язык и знание: На пути получения знаний о
языке:части речи с когнитив. точки зрения. Роль языка в
познании мира / Кубрякова Елена Самойловна. — М.:
Языки славянской культуры, 2004. — 555с.
8. Маслов Ю.С. Избранные труды: Аспектология. Общее
языкознание / Юрий Сергеевич Маслов [А.В. Бондарко
(сост.,ред.,вступ.ст.)]. — М. : Языки славянской культуры,
2004. — 840с.
9. Серебренников Б.А. Роль человеческого фактора в языке:
Язык и картина мира / Серебренников, Кубрякова,
Постовалова, Телия, Уфимцева [Борис Александрович
Серебренников (ред.)]. — М., 1988. — 215 с.
10. Шмелев Д.Н. Слово и образ / Дмитрий Николаевич Шмелев.
— мМ.: Наука, 1964. – 120 c.
11. Щерба Л. В. Языковая система и речевая деятельность /
Лев Владимирович Щерба [ Л.Р. Зиндер (ред.), М.И.
Матусевич (ред.)]. — Изд. 4-е — М. : URSS. ЛКИ, 2008. —
428с.
Electronic resources:
12. Слово. Матеріал з Вікіпедії — вільної енциклопедії
[Електронний ресурс]. – http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Слово –
15:37, 2 вересня 2009.
13. Тараненко О.О. Слово [Електронний ресурс] / Олександр
Онисимович Тараненко. –
http://litopys.org.ua/ukrmova/um91.htm – 13:11, 1 травня
2006.
14. Jsoftware.com [Електронний ресурс]. –
www.jsoftware.com/books/help/jforc/glossary.htm 12:55, 1
травня 2006.
15. Linguistics. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[Електронний ресурс]. –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics 2 September 2009 at
18:09.
16. Word. At Answers.com [Електронний ресурс]. —
http://www.answers.com/topic/word 12:47, 1 травня 2006.
17. Miller G.A. Wordnet.Princeton.edu [Електронний ресурс] /
Miller G.A., Fellbaum C., Tengi R., Langone H. —
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 12:51, 1 травня
2006.
29
2. SEMASIOLOGY
2. SEMASIOLOGY
Semasiology is a branch of lexicology and semantics that studies word

meaning and semantic relations between words. The term was first used by
Christian Karl Reisig in 1825 in his Vorlesungen über lateinische
Sprachwissenschaft (Lectures on Latin Linguistics). The major fields of study of
semasiology are:
 the word meaning, its structure and components (lexical and
grammatical meaning; denotation, connotation and signification; the
signifier, the signified and the interpretant);
 meaning change, development of meanings, the nature of
polysemy;
 semantic relations between words: synonymy, antonymy,
hyponymy-hypernymy, holonymy-meronymy, etc.
2.1 WORD AS A SIGN. THE STRUCTURE OF MEANING

Signification and meaning in Ancient and Medieval philosophy /
Word as a sign /
Sign structure (the signifier, the signified and the interpretant) /
Lexical vs Grammatical meaning /
Denotation / Signification / Connotation /Loaded words /
Words are linguistic signs. A sign is regarded as an entity that indicates
another entity to some agent for some purpose. Signs possess and convey
meaning.
In linguistics, meaning is understood as the content carried by the
words or other signs exchanged in communication through language. Restated,
the communication of meaning is the purpose and function of language.
30
2.1 Word as a Sign: the Structure of Meaning
In the European tradition, meaning was first studied by the Greek

philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC). Aristotle’s ideas have laid the
foundation of all contemporary academic research. He described words as
symbols of mental experience and mental experiences as images of the elements
of the real world: “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and
written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the
same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental
experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are
those things of which our experiences are the images” (Aristotle, 2004, p.1).
A Latin Christian church father and philosopher Augustine (November
13, 354 – August 28, 430) treats words as signs that stand for different objects
and emotions. Here is how he describes his own experience of language
acquisition in the early childhood: “So it was that by frequently hearing words,
in different phrases, I gradually identified the objects which the words stood for
and, having formed my mouth to repeat these signs, I was thereby able to
express my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me the verbal signs by
which we express our wishes and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of
human life, depending all the while upon the authority of my parents and the
behest of my elders” (Augustine, 1955, p.17).
In his paper “On Christian Doctrine” (Augustine, 2002, p.6) Augustine
comes very closely to the idea of the signifier (the word or any other sign) and
the signified (what is meant). And at the same time he contemplates on the
difference between the signified (actual reality named) and the image of this
reality in the speaker’s mind. Thus, he tries to solve the paradox between the
idea that God (as the signified) is inconceivable and the use of the word God and
the image behind it. Jeffrey Ringer explains one of Augustine’s quotations about
the incomprehensibility of God: “Several inferences can be drawn from this
passage. The first is that, for Augustine, God is ineffable. The second is that
31
2. SEMASIOLOGY
inherent even in the previous statement is the division between signifier and
signified. "God" is not ineffable; rather, the signified or essence of God is.
Human language cannot convey the meaning of God but produces the signifier
"God" or "Deus" to point to the signified reality, working in the same fashion as
Hilton's "Jhesu." The meaning of God escapes signification” (Ringer, 2003, p.6).
The medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225 – 7 March 1274)

explored the double nature of the symbol. In his opinion, God speaks with the
help of things (that have names-signifiers in human language) the way people
speak with the help of words: “I answer that, The author of Holy Scripture is
God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man
also can do), but also by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science
things are signified by words, this science has the property, that the things
signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore that first
signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the
historical or literal.
That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves

also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and
presupposes it” (Aquinas, 1911). In other words, the signified can in certain
circumstances serve as the signifier to some other signified. The spiritual sense
of things can today be treated as symbolic or metaphorical sense, the second
layer of meaning found behind the first, literal meaning.
According to this classic tradition, meaning is a relationship between two

sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they mean (intend, express or
signify). The presence of meaning necessarily causes the recipient perceiving
the sign to think of something else.
32
Ferdinand de Saussure described language in terms of signs. He in turn

described the sign in terms of the signified and signifier. The signifier is the
sound of the linguistic object (like Socrates, Saussure didn't much concern
himself with the written word). The signified, on the other hand, is the mental
construction or image associated with the sound. The sign, then, is essentially
the relationship between the two. The signifier will have a form that a person
can see, touch, smell, and/or hear, and the signified will represent an idea or
mental construct of a thing rather than the thing itself.
Charles Peirce introduced the new understanding of a sign as containing
three elements: the signifier, the signified and the interpretant. In his
understanding, while the signifier is the material representation of the sign, the
signified is basically the object, phenomenon, process or quality denoted by the
sign, and the interpretant is an abstract idea which links the signifier with the
signified.
Speaking about the meaning of the word, one should distinguish between
lexical and grammatical meaning.
Grammatical meaning of the word is a generalised, abstract linguistic
meaning, characteristic of a group of words. An example of grammatical
meaning is the generalised meaning inherent in parts of speech (object, live
being or phenomenon – for nouns, quality – for adjectives, process – for verbs).
Some words contain only grammatical meaning without any separate
lexical meaning. For example, the word the definitely has a meaning, but it is
not represented anyhow in the real world.
Lexical meaning of the word may be described as the content of the
word (Гак, 1998, с.261-263). It reflects the ideas about an object, phenomenon,
process or quality in the mind. Lexical meaning of the word can be represented
in the form of a dictionary definition.
33
2. SEMASIOLOGY
Structurally, lexical meaning consists of denotation, signification and

connotation.
Denotation is the objective representation of an object, phenomenon,
process or quality. It can be described as the surface or literal meaning encoded
to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary. D. Crystal
explains the notion of denotation in the following way: “Most of our discussion
about the lexicon has been taken up with the dictionary meaning of lexemes -
what is often called their denotation. A denotation is the objective relationship
between a lexeme and the reality to which it refers: so, the denotation of
spectacles is the object which balances on our nose in front of the eyes; and the
denotation of purple is a colour with certain definable physical characteristics.
A denotation identifies the central aspect of lexical meaning, which everyone
would agree about - hence, the concept of a 'dictionary definition'” (Crystal,
1995, p.170).
Denotation may be understood in, at least, two ways:
1) Denotation of a certain concrete object, phenomenon, quality or
process.
2) Denotation of a certain abstract linguistic unit, including a multitude
of objects, phenomena, qualities or processes that are named by the given word.
In other words, a word may refer to the whole class of objects, as in “The
tiger is a wild animal”, as well as to a certain representative of a class, e.g.,
“Suddenly, the tiger attacked the hunter”. In the first case, the word tiger is
about the whole species of tigers as generally understood, while in the second
case a very particular animal is meant.
Signification is understood as the kernel of the lexical meaning.
Signification can be explained as the reflection of denotation in human
conscience.
34
It may be possible that two expressions have the same denotation, but
different signification. For example, the vertebrates and live beings that have a
scull are different by signification but possess the same denonative meaning.
Signification always states a certain range of qualities of denotation –
constant or temporary, absolute or relative.
Connotation is an emotional, evaluative or stylistic element of

meaning. It can either be occasional, or semantically inherent to the word.
Generally speaking, connotation is an additional component of the meaning,
based on an emotional attitude of the speaker to the object denoted by the word.
Connotation refers to the personal aspect of lexical meaning – often, the

emotional associations which a lexeme incidentally brings to mind. So, for many
people, bus has such connotations as 'cheapness' and 'convenience'; for others,
'discomfort' and ‘inconvenience'; for many children, it connotes 'school'; and for
many American adults, in this connection, it has a political overtone (because of
the I960s policy in the USA of 'bussing' children to school as a means of
promoting social integration in ethnically divided urban communities).
The subjective nature of connotation is opposed to the objective content

of denotation. Connotation arises when the denotative relationship between a
signifier and its signified is inadequate to serve the needs of communication.
The second level of meaning is termed connotative. This meaning is not an
objective representation of the thing, but a new usage produced by the language
group.
Connotations vary according to the experience of individuals, and are to
some degree unpredictable. On the other hand, because people do have some
common experiences, many lexemes in the language have connotations which
would be shared by large groups of speakers. Among the “widely-recognized
35
2. SEMASIOLOGY
connotations of city, for example, are ‘hustle’, ‘crowds’, ‘dust’, ‘excitement',

'fun', and 'sin'”(Crystal, 1995, p.170).
Connotative meanings are to some extent a social phenomenon. They are

developed by the community. The connotation of the name can be compared
with the attribute or attributes which could be used to describe the name. The
denotation of the name is any object to which the name applies. For example,
the word city connotes the attributes of largeness, populousness. It denotes
individual objects such as London, New York, Paris.
There is a related distinction in linguistics between the objective

meaning, or denotation of a word such as vulgar, and the positive or negative
association or connotation we attach to such a word. Vulgar derives from the
Latin word for common and literally means ubiquitous, found everywhere, which
was its original meaning. The word has now acquired the negative connotation
of ‘gross’ or ‘crudely obscene’ (also ‘of showy ostentatiousness’).
When a lexeme is highly charged with connotations, we commonly refer

to it as loaded. The language of politics and religion is full of such loaded
expressions: capitalist, fascism, radical federalism, democracy, bureaucracy,
politician; priest, dogma, pagan, orthodox, sect, heresy, fundamentalist. The
language of science and law, on the other hand, attempts (not always
successfully) to avoid vocabulary which is highly connotative. In general, the
more a domain or topic is controversial, the more it will contain loaded
vocabulary, providing people with the lexical ammunition they need to reinforce
their point of view.
Connotations can play an important role in explaining the way in which

lexemes are used. A group of synonyms, for example, cannot by definition be
distinguished in terms of their denotation, but they usually display noticeable
36
differences of connotation, as in the case of car, automobile, runabout, buggy,

banger, bus, hot rod, jalopy, old crock, racer, and so on. Indeed, in describing
an unconventional design, the connotations may become critical marketing
considerations.
Connotations are also an important means of conveying personal attitude
and point of view. “Bertrand Russell, on a BBC Brains Trust programme some
years ago, gave a perfect illustration of this when he 'conjugated' the following
'irregular verb': I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool. The idea
prompted the British periodical, The New Statesman, to set a competition for its
readers. Here are some of the published entries: I am sparkling. You are
unusually talkative. He is drunk. I am a creative writer. You have a journalistic
flair. He is a prosperous hack. I day dream. You are an escapist. He ought to see
a psychiatrist. Many other triplets could be devised: slender / thin / skinny, frank
/ blunt / insolent, overweight / plump / fat...” (Crystal, 1995, p.170).
⁂
REVISION:
1. What is semasiology? Make a brief overview of its research
area.
2. Give the definition of sign.
3. How is the notion of meaning understood in Linguistics?
4. Describe Aristotle’s understanding of meaning.
5. How are the ideas of the signifier and the signified approached
in the works of St. Augustine?
6. How did Thomas Aquinas explain the double nature of the
symbol?
7. What is the sign structure according to Ferdinand de
Saussure?
8. What is Charles Peirce's contribution into the understanding of
sign?
9. Explain the difference between lexical and grammatical
meaning of the word.
10. What is denotation?
11. Explain the meaning of the notion signification.
12. Give an extended description on the notion of connotation.
13. Discuss the personal dimension of connotation.
14. Speak about the social dimension of connotation.
15. What is a loaded lexeme / expression?
37
2. SEMASIOLOGY
READING:
1. Blank A. Why do new meanings occur? A cognitive typology of
the motivations for lexical Semantic change / Andreas Blank //
Blank A., Koch, P. Historical Semantics and Cognition. –
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999. – pp. 61–90
2. Cann R. Formal Semantics / R. Cann. – CUP, 1994.
3. Charles D. Aristotle on Meaning and Essence / David Charles.
– Oxford, 2002.
4. Crystal D. English vocabulary. The Structure of the Lexicon:
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language / David
5. Geeraerts D. Diachronic prototype Semantics: a contribution
to historical lexicology / Dirk Geeraerts. – Oxford: Clarendon,
1997.
6. Болдырев Н. Н. Когнитивная семантика: [Курс лекций по
английской филологии: Учеб. пособие для студ. вузов,
обучающихся по спец. "Зарубежная филология"] / Николай
Николаевич Болдырев. — Тамбов : Издательство ТГУ, 2001.
— 124 с.
7. Вольф Е. М. Функциональная семантика оценки / Елена
Михайловна Вольф. — М.: КомКнига, 2006. — 261с.
8. Гак В.Г. Лексическое значение слова / Владимир
Григорьевич Гак // Языкознание. Большой
энциклопедический словарь. / [гл. ред. В.Н. Ярцева]. – 2-е
изд. – М.: Большая Российская Энциклопедия, 1998. – С.
261-263.
9. Кубрякова Е. С. Типы языковых значений. Семантика
производного слова: [монография] / Елена Самойловна
Кубрякова. — Изд. 2-е, доп. — М. : URSS. ЛКИ, 2008. —
199с.
10. Телия В. Н. Коннотативный аспект семантики номинативных
единиц / Вероника Николаевна Телияю — М.: Наука, 1986.
— 143 с.
11. Уфимцева А.А. Лексическое значение: Принцип
семиологического описания лексики / Анна Анфилофьевна
Уфимцева. – М., 2002.
Dissertations:
12. Алєксєєва І. О. Семантика та прагматика англійських
часток: Автореф. дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / І. О.
Алєксєєва. — К., 2001. — 20 с.
13. Бессонова О. Л. Оцінка як семантичний компонент
лексичного значення слова (на матеріалі іменників-назв
особи в англійській, французькій та українській мовах):
Автореф. дис...канд. філол. наук: 10.02.19 / О. Л.
Бессонова. — Донецьк, 1995. — 22 с.
38
14. Aristotle. On Interpretation [Електронний ресурс] / Aristotle
[translated by E. M. Edghill]. – 2004. – 48 p.
http://books.google.com.ua/books?
id=Vv1kRCidNTAC&dq=aristotle+on+interpretation&printsec=f
rontcover&source=bn&hl=ru&ei=o15pS_uLIY6WmAP54aS5Bg
&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBgQ6AE
wAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false .
15. Aquinas T., St. Part 1. Question 1. Article 10 [Електронний
ресурс] / Saint Thomas Aquinas // Summa Theologica
[translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province].
– originally published: London, 1911.
http://maryourmother.net/Aquinas.html
16. Augustine, St. Confessions and Enchiridion [Електронний
ресурс] /Saint Augustine [translated and edited by Albert C.
Outler]. – Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Philadelphia: Westminster Press [1955] (Library of Christian
Classics v. 7).
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.html
17. Augustine, St. On Christian Doctrine [Електронний ресурс]
/Saint Augustine [translated by J. F. Shaw]. – Calvin College:
Christian Classics Ethereal Library.- (The Early Church Fathers.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers). – Series 1. Vol. 2, 7 Nov.
2002. http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF102/npnfl-02-
29.htm#P4576_2531673
18. Galèas C.G. Scalar Categorization [Електронний ресурс] /
C.G. Galèas // The Web Journal of Modern Language
Linguistics – 1998. – Issue 3. – P. 10.
http://wjmll.ncl.ac.uk/issue03/crocco.htm
19. Leech G. Semantics / G.. Leech. – Penguin, 1974.
20. Onomasiology Online / Joachim Grzega, Alfred Bammesberger,
Marion Schöner: [Електронний ресурс]. –
http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/SLF/EngluVglSW/OnOn.htm –
11 June 2009.
21. Ringer J. Faith and language: Walter Hilton, St. Augustine, and
poststructural semiotics [Електронний ресурс] / Jeffrey
Ringer // Christianity and Literature. – Autumn, 2003.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb049/is_1_53/ai_n2905
8610/pg_5/?tag=content;col1
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2. SEMASIOLOGY
2.2 SEMANTIC CHANGE

Definition of semantic change / Extension (Generalization) /
Narrowing (Specializaation) /Amelioration / Pejoration /
Further kinds of semantic change / Folk etymology
With the course of time, lexical meanings of words may change. We
speak about the change in lexical meaning only when it is accepted within the
language system. Otherwise we speak about particular uses of words.
Semantic change, also known as semantic shift or semantic
progression describes the evolution of word usage — usually to the point that
the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. In diachronic
(or historical) linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of
a word. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations which can be
added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across
space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can
be seen as part of etymology, onomasiology, semasiology and semantics.
Linguists have distinguished several kinds of semantic change. Four
particularly important types of semantic change are:
 Extension or generalization. Change from subordinate level to
superordinate level. A lexeme widens its meaning. Numerous examples of this
process have occurred in the religious field, where terms have taken on a more
general, secular range of meanings: for example, novice in the mid-14th century
denoted ‘probationer in a religious order,’ from Old French novice, which in its
turn had been borrowed from Latin novicius ‘newly imported, inexperienced (of
slaves)’, from novus ‘new’. The meaning of ‘an inexperienced person’ is
attested from early 15th century1.
In Old English, food (foda) referred to animal fodder, and later it was
generalized to refer to all forms of solid food.
1
Etymological materials in this chapter are from: Harper D. Online Etymology Dictionary / Douglas Harper
[Електронний ресурс]. - http://www.etymonline.com/ - © November 2001.
40
2.2 Semantic Change
The noun lad in the 14th century had the meanings of ‘foot soldier’ and
also ‘young male servant’. In the middle of the 15th century the meaning of the
word widened to ‘boy, youth, young man’.
The noun job was first recorded in 1557, in a phrase jobbe of worke
(piece of work), as contrasted with continuous labor. In the middle of the 17 th
century the word began to be used in the wider sense of ‘the work done for pay’.
The noun experience in the late 14th century meant ‘knowledge gained by
repeated trials’. The verb experience first meant ‘to test, to try’; the sense of
‘feel, undergo’ was first recorded in the 1580s.
There are many examples of specific brand names being used for the
general product: for example, the word Jacuzzi was first a proprietary name,
registered in 1966 in the U.S. (Jacuzzi Bros., Inc., Little Rock, Arkansas).
Further examples are Kleenex used for all paper napkins, Pampers – for all
diapers, Xerox – for all copying machines, Keds – for any kind of trainer shoes.
 Narrowing or specialization. Change from superordinate level to
subordinate level. A lexeme becomes more specialized in meaning. For
example, skyline used to refer to any horizon, but now it has narrowed to a
horizon decorated by skyscrapers. Engine was formerly used in a general sense
of 'mechanical contrivance' (especially of war and torture), but since the
Industrial Revolution it has come to mean 'mechanical source of power'.
Another example comes from Old English: meat (mete) referred to all
forms of solid food while flesh (flæsc) referred to animal tissue; meat was
eventually restricted to flesh of animals, then flesh restricted to the tissue of
humans (Jeffers, 1979, p. 130).
The noun cockney in the beginning of the 16th century denoted any town
dweller, gradually narrowing thereafter to residents of a particular neighborhood
in the East End of London.
41
2. SEMASIOLOGY
Dainty in the early 13th century was used in the meaning of ‘price,
value’, and also ‘delicacy, pleasure’. The adjectival use was first recorded
around 1300. The meaning of the adjective evolved from ‘choice, excellent’ to
‘delicately pretty’.
Exotic in the 1590s, meant ‘belonging to another country.’ The sense of
‘unusual, strange’ was first recorded in English in the 1620s, from the notion of
alien, outlandish. In the modern English the meaning has narrowed to
‘something unusual and belonging to a foreign culture’.
The noun lieutenant in the late 14th century denoted ‘the one who takes
the place of another’, from an Old French noun that could be translated as
substitute, or literally placeholder, from lieu (place) + tenant (holder). It was
particularly used to denote a ‘substitute’ for higher authority. Specific military
sense of ‘officer next in rank to a captain’ first appeared in the 1570s.
The noun grammar in the late 12th century was used in the general
meaning of ‘learning’, especially Latin and philology. As the study was until the
16th century mostly limited to Latin, the Middle English gramarye also came to
mean ‘learning in general, knowledge peculiar to the learned classes’ (early 14th
century), which included astrology and magic; hence the secondary meaning of
‘occult knowledge’ (late 15th century), which evolved in Scottish into glamour.
The restriction to ‘the rules of language’ is a post-classical development.
A grammar school (late 14th century) was originally ‘a school in which
the learned languages are grammatically taught’. In the U.S. (1860) the term
was put to use in the graded system for ‘a school between primary and
secondary, where English grammar is taught’.
 Amelioration. A lexeme develops a positive sense of approval.
Revolutionary, once associated in the capitalist mind with an undesirable
overthrowing of the status quo, is now widely used by advertisers as a signal of
42
2.2 Semantic Change
desirable novelty. Lean no longer brings to mind emaciation but athleticism and
good looks.
At the time of the American Revolution, the term ‘democrat’ had all the
negative connotations of the modern usage of the word ‘demagogue’. A century
later, the term had shifted in meaning enough that it was viewed favourably as
the name of an American national political party.
The noun lady in the Old English had the literal meaning of ‘one who
kneads bread’, from hlaf (bread, compare: loaf) + -dige (maid), related to dæge
(maker of dough) and began to mean ‘the mistress of a household, wife of a
lord’. Around 1200 the word already meant ‘woman of superior position in
society’, since 1861 it acquired the meaning of ‘a woman whose manners and
sensibilities befit her for high rank in society’.
The adjective kind comes from the Old English gecynde, which meant
‘natural, native, innate’, ‘with the feeling of relatives for each other’ around
1300 the sense developed from ‘with natural feelings’ to "well-disposed",
"benign, compassionate".
The noun glamour came into the English language about 1720 in the
meaning of ‘magic, enchantment’ (especially in phrase to cast the glamour). It
was popularized by the writings of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Sense of
‘magical beauty, alluring charm’ was first recorded in 1840. The derivative
adjective glamorous appeared in 1882.
Guido (Guy) Fawkes was the alleged leader of a plot to blow up the
English Houses of Parliament on 5 November 1605. The burning on 5
November of a grotesque effigy of Fawkes, known as a ‘guy’, led to the use of
the word ‘guy’ as a term for any ‘person of grotesque appearance’ and then to a
general reference for a man, as in ‘some guy called for you’. In the 20th century,
under the influence of American popular culture, guy has been gradually
replacing fellow, bloke, chap and other such words throughout the English-
43
2. SEMASIOLOGY
speaking world, and, in the plural, can refer to a mixture of genders (e.g., "Come
on, you guys!" could be directed to a group of men and women).
 Pejoration or deterioration (degeneration). A lexeme develops a
negative sense of disapproval. Middle English villain neutrally described a serf,
whereas Modern English villain is by no means neutral. Similarly, junta has
acquired a sinister, dictatorial sense, and lewd (originally, 'of the laity') has
developed a sense of sexual impropriety.
The word demagogue originally meant ‘a popular leader’. It is from the
Greek demagogos (leader of the people), from demos (people) + agogos
(leader). Now the word has strong connotations of a politician who panders to
emotions and prejudice.
The adjective egregious originally described something that was
remarkably good. The word is from the Latin egregius (outstanding) which is
from e-, ex- (out of) + greg or grex (flock). Now it has a meaning of ‘utter’ and
collocates with nouns that denote something remarkably bad or flagrant
(egregious error, egregious fool, egregious lie).
The adjective daft was used in the Old English (gedæfte) to describe
something gentle, becoming. Then the sense progressed from mildness to
dullness (in the 14th century) to foolish (the 15th century) to crazy (the 1530s),
probably influenced by analogy with daffe (halfwit).
The following phenomena are further kinds of semantic change:
 Metaphor. Change based on similarity of things, or change based
on similarity between concepts. Basically, there exist two kinds of metaphor:
nominative metaphor and cognitive metaphor. Nominative metaphor is a
linguistic device used to name an object or a person by similarity when it
doesn’t have any other name, for example the leg of the table, face and hands of
the clock. To broadcast originally meant ‘to cast seeds out’; with the advent of
radio and television, the word was extended to indicate the transmission of
44
2.2 Semantic Change
audio and video signals. Outside of agricultural circles, very few people use
broadcast in the earlier sense. The noun mouse which originally denoted only a
kind of rodent has started to denote a computer device as well.
The flower name daisy appeared in the Old English (dægesege), and was
derived from the word combination dæges eage (day's eye), implying the
flower’s petals opening at dawn and closing at dusk.
Cognitive metaphor is based on the similarity of certain characteristic

features between objects, persons, qualities or actions: a cold person, to choke a
demonstration. Cognitive metaphor is the main source of polysemy. For
example, the noun governor originally meant steersman, pilot, and in the 14th
century its meaning widened to director, ruler, governor. Later, the original
meaning of steersman died out.
The verb jog in the middle of the 16th century meant ‘to shake up and
down’, and by the end of the 16th century it acquired the meaning ‘to walk or
ride with a jolting pace’. The main modern sense is attested from 1560s but
mostly dates from 1948; at first a training regimen for athletes, it became a fad
around 1967.
 Metonymy. Change based on nearness in space or time, e.g., the
noun jaw originally meant ‘cheek’. The word codex originally meant manuscript
volume (especially an ancient one), and in the meaning of the system of laws it
was first recorded in 1845.
A red-letter day is an important day, like the feast days marked in red on
church calendars. A redneck (slang) is a stereotypical member of the white rural
working class in the Southern U.S., originally a reference to necks sunburned
from working in the fields (Eble, 1992).
 Synecdoche. Change based on whole-part relation, for example a
pair of hands referring to a worker, willow for a cricket bat, plastic for a credit
45
2. SEMASIOLOGY
card, pigskin for an American or Canadian football, from the early use of a pig's
bladder to cover those balls, lead for bullets. The convention of using capital
cities to represent countries or their governments is another example of this kind
of semantic change.
The noun vermouth in its original meaning was first recorded in 1806,
and it derives from wormwood, the name of the aromatic herb formerly used in
the flavoring of the liqueur.
 Litotes. Change from stronger to weaker meaning, e.g., astound
originally meant ‘strike with thunder’, and now has a meaning of ‘surprise
strongly’. The adjective keen in the Old English had the meaning of bold, brave,
and later – clever, wise. In contemporary English it is merely interested,
enthusiastic.
 Hyperbole. Change from weaker to stronger meaning, e.g., the
verb kill originally meant ‘to torment’.
At the same time, hyperbole can be understood as an exaggerated use of
a lexical item not meant to be understood literally but expressing an intensely
emotional attitude of the speaker to the situation. The example can be the use of
starving to mean ‘hungry’. Here also belong some of the most frequently used
emphatic words: absolutely! awfully! terribly! lovely! magnificent! splendid!
 Antiphrasis. Change based on a contrastive aspect of the concepts,
e.g., perfect lady in the sense of ‘prostitute’.
 Auto-antonymy. Change of a word's sense and concept to the
complementary opposite, e.g., bad in the slang sense of ‘good’. The adjective
virtual in the late 14th century meant ‘influencing by physical virtues or
capabilities’, The meaning of ‘being something in essence or fact, though not in
name’ is first recorded 1650s, probably via sense of ‘capable of producing a
certain effect’ (early 15th century). Computer sense of ‘not physically existing
but made to appear by software’ is attested from 1959. At the end of the 20 th
46
2.2 Semantic Change
century the meaning widened further to ‘not physically existing but imagined or
thought of’ or ‘approximate’.
 Auto-converse. Lexical expression of a part in a relationship by an
opposite extreme of the respective relationship, e.g., take in the dialectal use as
‘give’ or bad as the slang word of praise (in the meaning of good, beautiful).
 Substitution. Semantic change related to the change of an object,
of the knowledge referring to the object, of the attitude toward the object, e.g.,
artillery, formerly used to denote ‘engines of war used to throw missiles’ has
received the meaning of ‘mounted guns’. Atom was first understood as an
‘inseparable smallest physical-chemical element’ and is known now to be a
‘physical-chemical element consisting of electrons’.
The noun virus was first recorded in 1392 in the meaning of ‘venomous
substance’. It derives from the Latin word virus (poison, sap of plants, slimy
liquid). The main modern meaning ‘agent that causes infectious disease’ was
first recorded in 1728. The computer sense developed from 1972.
A very peculiar kind of semantic change is folk etymology. When
people hear a foreign or unfamiliar word for the first time, they try to make
sense of it by relating it to words they know well. They guess what it must mean
– and often guess wrongly. However, if enough people make the same wrong
guess, the error can become part of the language. Such erroneous forms are
called folk or popular etymologies.
“Bridegroom provides a good example. What has a groom got to do with
getting married? Is he going to ‘groom' the bride, in some way? Or perhaps he
is responsible for horses to carry him and his bride off into sunset? The true
explanation is more prosaic. The Old English form was bridgome, which goes
back to English brydguma, from 'bride' + guma 'man'. However, gome died out
during the Middle English period. By the 16th century its meaning was no
longer apparent, and it came to be popularly replaced by a similar-sounding
47
2. SEMASIOLOGY
word, grome, 'serving lad'. This later developed the sense of 'servant having the
care of horses’, which is the dominant sense today. But bridegroom never meant
anything more than 'bride's man'”.
Here are a few other folk etymologies:
 Sparrow-grass – a popular name for asparagus, though this

vegetable has nothing to do with sparrows.
 Cockroach came from Spanish cucuracha, the first part of which

must have been particularly obscure to English ears. There is no connection with
cock.
 Helpmate: the form comes from a Bible translation of Genesis 2.18,

when God said 'I will make him a help meet for him'. Meet in this context is an
adjective, meaning 'suitable'; but the popular view preferred to take the word as
a form of mate.
 Salt-cellar: in Old French, a salier was a salt -box. When the word
came into English, the connection with salt was evidently not clear, and people
started calling the object a salt-saler. The modern form has no connection with a
cellar.
 Old English sam-blind (semi-blind or half-blind) became sand-blind

(as if blinded by the sand) when people were no longer able to make sense of the
element sam (half).
 Buttonhole was originally buttonhold (a loop of string to hold a

button down).
 Shamefaced was originally shamefast, 'caught in shame'.

⁂
48
2.2 Semantic Change
REVISION:
1. Give definition of semantic change.

2. What are the four major types of semantic change?
3. Find examples of extension (generalization) of meaning in the
etymological dictionary.
4. Illustrate narrowing (specialization) of meaning with examples
not used in this textbook.
5. Give examples of amelioration of meaning in the English
language using the materials from the etymological dictionary.
6. Exemplify the process of pejoration of meaning using the
materials from the etymological dictionary.
7. What types of metaphoric shift do you know? Illustrate your
answer with examples found in dictionaries.
8. What other types of semantic change do you know?
9. Give a definition and examples of metonymy.
10. What is synecdoche? Give your own examples.
11. Illustrate the notion of litotes with examples not mentioned in
this textbook; explain the essence of the notion.
12. Give a definition and your own examples of hyperbole.
13. Define antiphrasis. Illustrate your answer with examples from
dictionaries.
14. Explain the notion of auto-antonymy. Give your own
examples.
15. Give a definition of auto-converse. Illustrate your answer with
examples not used in this textbook.
16. What is substitution? Find examples in the etymological
dictionary.
17. Explain the notion of folk etymology. Illustrate your answer
with examples not mentioned in this textbook.
READING:

2. Eble C. Metonymy / Connie Eble. – The Oxford Companion to
the English Language, 1992
3. Geeraerts D. Reclassifying Semantic change / Dirk
Geeraerts // Quaderni di semantica. – 1983. – #4. – pp.217–
240.
4. Grzega, J. Historical Semantics in the Light of Cognitive
Linguistics: Aspects of a new reference book reviewed /
Joachim Grzega // Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik. –
2000. – #25. – pp. 233-244.
49
2. SEMASIOLOGY
5. Jeffers, R. J. Principles and methods for historical linguistics /

Robert J. Jeffers, Ilse Lehiste. – MIT press, 1979.
6. Koch P. Lexical typology from a cognitive and linguistic point
of view / Peter Koch // Lexicology: An international handbook
on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies: [Cruse
D. A. et al., eds.]. – Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,
2002. – vol. 1. – pp. 1142-1178.
7. Traugott E. C. From less to more situated in language: the
unidirectionality of Semantic change / Elizabeth Closs Traugott
// Adamson S., Law V. A., Vincent N. et al. Papers from the
Fifth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics.
–Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1990. – pp. 496–517.
8. Warren, B. Sense Developments: A contrastive study of the
development of slang senses and novel standard senses in
English / Beatrice Warren //Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis
80. – Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1992.
9. Harper D. Online Etymology Dictionary / Douglas Harper
[Електронний ресурс]. - http://www.etymonline.com/ - ©
November 2001.
2.3 POLYSEMY
Stages of semantic change /Definition of polysemy and polysemes /
Polysemy vs Homonymy / Examples of polysemes /
Polysemy vs Indeterminacy /Linguistic processes governing polysemy
The change of lexical meaning undergoes three stages:
1. Innovation in speech (a new use of the word), which does not
influence the semantic structure of the word.
2. Formation of a new meaning, as a part of semantic structure of the
word as a result of the regular new use. The new meaning may acquire special
new grammatical characteristics.
3. Appearance of homonyms when lexical meanings separate and the
connection between them is lost.
The second stage of this change may be described as polysemy.
50
2.2 Semantic Change
Polysemy (from the Greek πολυσημεία = multiple meaning) is the

capacity for a sign (e.g. a word, phrase, etc...) or signs to have multiple
meanings (sememes, i.e. a large semantic field).
A polyseme is a word or phrase with multiple, related meanings.
Homophonous words are judged to be polysemous if their meanings are related.
Different meanings of polysemes are actualised in different contexts.
The complex relations between meanings and words were first noted by
the Stoics (Robins, 1967). They observed that a single concept can be expressed
by several different words (synonymy) and that conversely, one word can carry
different meanings (polysemy).
The difference between homonyms and polysemes is subtle.
“Traditionally, polysemy is distinguished from homonymy. Strictly speaking,
homographs are etymologically unrelated words that happen to be represented
by the same string of letters in a language. For example, bass the fish is derived
from Old English barse (perch) while bass the voice is derived from Italian
basso. Conversely, polysemes are etymologically and therefore semantically
related, and typically originate from metaphoric usage. Line in a line of people
and a line drawn on a piece of paper are etymologically related, and it is easy to
see their semantic relation. The distinction is not always straightforward,
especially since words that are etymologically related can, over time, drift so far
apart that the original semantic relation is no longer recognizable” (Ravin, 2000,
p.2).
Lexicographers define polysemes within a single dictionary lemma,
numbering different meanings, while homonyms are treated in separate
lemmata. Semantic shift can separate a polysemous word into separate
homonyms. For example, check ("bank check", also spelled cheque for
disambiguation), check in chess and check "verification" are considered
51
2. SEMASIOLOGY
homonyms, while they originated as a single word derived from chess in the
14th century.
Here are some examples of polysemes2:
 Book (noun)
1. a set of printed pages that are fastened inside a cover so that you can
turn them and read them: a pile of books; hardback/paperback book;
2. a written word published in printed or electronic form: She's reading a
book by Stephen King. A book about / on wildlife; reference / children's library
book;
3. a set of sheets of paper that are fastened together inside a cover and
used for writing in: an exercise book; an address book; a notebook;
4. a set of things that are fastened together like a book: a book of
stamps / tickets / matches; a chequebook.
 individual (adj.)
1. [only before noun](often used after each) considered separately rather
than as part of the group: We interviewed each individual member of the group.
The minister refused to comment on individual cases;
2. [only before noun] connected with one person; designed for one
person: respect for individual freedom; an individual pizza.
 milk (verb)
1. to take milk from a cow, goat, etc.;
2. A (of B) | B (from A) (disapproving) to obtain as much money,
advantage, etc. for yourself as you can from a particular situation, especially in a
dishonest way: She's milked a small fortune from the company over the years.
She's milked the company of a small fortune. I know he's had a hard time lately,
but he's certainly milking it for all it's worth (= using it as an excuse to do
things people would normally object to).
2
From: Hornby A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary / Albert Sidney Hornby. – Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004.
52
2.2 Semantic Change
It is important that a distinction be made between polysemy and

indeterminacy, sometimes referred to as vagueness. “The distinction is
between those aspects of meaning that correspond to multiple senses of a word
versus those aspects that are manifestations of a single sense” (Ravin, 2000, p.2-
3). For example, the referent of child can be either male or female. This
difference in gender can be viewed as polysemy, creating two different senses of
child; or, more intuitively, it can be seen as a difference that is indeterminate
within a single sense of child.
In the classical linguistic tradition a word is regarded as polysemous if
more than a single definition is needed to account for its meaning. In other
words, a word is polysemous if a single set of necessary conditions (or defining
features, the ones that make the object different from the others of its class) and
sufficient conditions (or core properties which unite all objects of the same
class) cannot be defined to cover all the concepts expressed by the word.
Prof. Apresjan defines polysemy as the similarity in the representations
of two or more senses of a word: “the definition does not require that there be a
common part for all the meanings of a polysemantic word; it's enough that each
of the meanings be linked with at least one other meaning” (Apresjan, 1974).
The word meaning contains several components: some of them possess
context-invariant semantic properties (the basic part of meaning which doesn’t
change), the others are context-dependent (“nodules of meaning that are created
and dissolved with changes in the context” (Cruse, 1986).) Single-sense words
can acquire different readings in different contexts: a fast car is one that can be
driven quickly but a fast typist is one who can type quickly. Similarly, English
sentences like the construction is complete convey an ambiguity between the
product and the action that caused it.
Regular polysemy is governed by certain linguistic processes, which
are productive, rule-governed, and predictable. Here are some of them:
53
2. SEMASIOLOGY
 Metonymic extension, responsible for creating senses such as foot

in the foot of the mountain.
 The extension from a feeling (sad as in ‘the person is sad’) to
something evoking this feeling (as in ‘a sad day’).
 Container vs quantity: the systematic relation between words
denoting vessels and the quantity that the vessel holds, such as spoon, the utensil
and spoon meaning ‘spoonful’, as in a spoon of sugar.
 Container vs content: nouns like book alternate between the
physical object and its content. In fact, as Cruse points out, both meanings can
be active simultaneously, as in I'm going to buy John a book for his birthday
(Cruse, 1986).
 Action vs result: nominals that describe an action, such as
construction, cooperation, separation, often describe its result too.
 Place vs administrative unit vs people: nouns like city, country,
state alternate their meaning between an administrative entity or unit, the group
of people living within the unit's borders and the people who govern it.
 Plant vs material or food stuff: oak the tree (as in oak grove) and
oak the wood (as in oak table), cotton the plant (as in cotton field) and cotton the
material (as in cotton jeans), rice the plant (as in rice fields) and rice the food
stuff (as in rice porridge).
 Syntactic alternations, as in: 1) Bees swarm in the garden. 2) The
garden swarms with bees. The two syntactic forms – one with an agent subject;
the other with a locative subject – exhibit a variety of differences in the semantic
structure of the verb.
One more prototypical kind of relationships between polysemes is the
one where a certain condition included in the meaning is more privileged, or
basic, than the others. Long, for example, is more prototypically used in the
spatial sense; and only by extension in the duration sense.
54
2.2 Semantic Change
The more subtle the interactions between lexical meaning and context,
the more complex mechanisms are necessary for governing these interactions.
Pustejovsky discusses a particularly vexing group of verbs, like risk, which
occur with contradictory contexts, as in Mary risked her life versus Mary risked
death. The same verb meaning here combines with antonymous complements to
form roughly the same compositional meaning, that of some likely harmful
result (Pustejovsky, 1995).
Another group of verbs have conflated with one of their complement
meanings. For example, consider the sentences: 1) The fish smells good. 2) The
fish smells. In the second sentence, the sense of the verb smells has been
conflated with that of a particular concept, bad. So, the meanings of the verb to
smell are: 1) emit an odour, as in ‘The soup smells good’; 2) smell bad, as in ‘He
rarely washes, and he smells’ 3) reek, stink. Fellbaum represents this kind of
polysemy as superordinate and subordinate senses, where the subordinate sense
has a more specific meaning which includes the adjectival element (Fellbaum,
1990).
⁂
REVISION:
1. What stages does the change of lexical meaning undergo?
2. Give definition to polysemy and polysemes.
3. What is the difference between polysemes and homonyms?
4. Give the examples of polysemes.
5. Explain the notion of indeterminacy.
6. Speak about context-invariant and context-dependant
properties of lexical meaning.
7. What is the role of context in defining the meaning of a
polyseme?
8. Describe some linguistic processes that govern polysemy.
READING:
Апресян. — 2.изд., испр. и доп. — (Язык). – Т.1:
55
2. SEMASIOLOGY
Лексическая семантика: синонимические средства языка.

— М. : Школа "Языки рус. культуры", 1995. — 472с.
2. Apresjan Y. D. Regular polysemy / Y. D. Apresjan //
Linguistics. – № 142. – 1974. – pp. 5-32.
3. Cruse D.A. Lexical semantics / D.A. Cruse. – Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986.
4. Fellbaum C. English verbs as a semantic net / Fellbaum C. //
International Journal of Lexicography. – №3. – 1990.
5. Hornby A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary / Albert
Sidney Hornby. – Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
6. Pustejovsky J. Semantics and the Lexicon / James
Pustejovsky. – Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993.
7. Pustejovsky J. The Generative Lexicon / James Pustejovsky. –
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995.
8. Robins R.H. A Short History of Linguistics / Robert H. Robins. –
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967.
9. Rosch E. Human categorization / Eleanor Rosch // Advances in
Cross-Cultural Pshycology [ed. by Warren N.]. – vol. 7. –
London: Academic Press, 1977.
10. Ravin Y. Polysemy: An Overview / Y. Ravin, C. Leacock //
Polysemy: Theoretical and Computational Approaches [Ed. by
Yael Ravin and Claudia Leacock]. – Oxford University Press,
2000. – pp. 1-29. – [Електронний ресурс] -
http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-823842-8.pdf
56
2.4 Homonymy and Paronymy
2.4 HOMONYMY and PARONYMY

Definition of Homonyms / Origins of Homonyms /
Partial Homonyms / Homographs / Homophones / Capitonyms / Heterologues
/ Stylistic use of Homonyms / Paronyms
A homonym is a word that has the same pronunciation and spelling as
another word, but a different meaning. For example:
 Ray 1) noun, a narrow beam of light;
2) noun, a sea fish with a large broad flat body and a long
tail, that is used for food;
3) noun, in music the second note of a major scale.
 Me 1) pron., the form of “I” used as object;
2) noun, in music the third note of a major scale.
 Key 1) noun,a specially shaped piece of metal used for locking a
door, starting a car, etc.;
2) noun, a low island or sandbanks, as the Florida Keys.
 Hay 1) noun, grass that has been cut and dried and is used as food
for animals;
2) noun, the choke of an artichoke.
 Content 1) noun, the things that are contained in sth;
2) adj, happy and satisfied with what you have.
There are several ways in which homonyms appear in language:
1) The most common one is when homonyms are the result of a
coincidence of phonetic changes in two semantically unrelated words. Thus, the
nouns flaw (a crack or fault) and flaw (a gust of wind) have a different origin,
but are spelt and pronounced in the same way in contemporary English.
Similarly, sea and see sound in the same way in Modern English as the result of
a phonetic reduction of the Old English verb sene (see) (Верба, 2008).
2) One of the homonyms may be borrowed from another language, or
both of them may have different foreign origins. Thus, the adjective male
(masculine) came to the English language from Latin (masculus) through Old
French in the 14th century; mail (the system of delivery) was borrowed into
English from Old French male (bag) in the 13th century; mail (an iron mesh-like
garment used to protect a warrior) was borrowed in the 14th century from Old
French maille (mesh), which itself derives from the Latin macula (spot); mail (a
monetary payment, esp. of rent or taxes) comes from Old English mal (terms,
agreement) (Верба, 2008). Similarly, the adjective worst (the superlative degree
of bad) is coincidentally homophonous with the noun wurst (sausage) that has
German origin.
3) One of the homonyms may have an onomatopoeic origin, or be an
exclamation like in the pair hey (an exclamation used to draw attention) and hey
(a kind of country dance, another spelling is hay).
4) The most productive and historically most complicated factor of
homonym origin is semantic cleft of originally single word. The difficulty here
lies in the fact that separation of lexical meanings is a process, extended in time,
it occurs gradually, and, thus, different linguists and dictionaries may treat the
same cases either as polysemes or as homonyms. The difference between
homonyms and polysemes is subtle. Semantic shift can separate a polysemous
word into separate homonyms. For example, check (bank check, also spelled
cheque for disambiguation), check in chess and check (verification) are
considered homonyms, while they originated as a single word derived from
chess in the 14th century (Nym Words, 2010). Bank-mound, bank-financial
institution and river bank have a common origin as well, the Gothic word benc,
which originally referred to a small mound. Later it was used metaphorically for
river bank, and also as a metaphor for a low table, especially those where
bankers used to exchange money, which gave Italian banca, French banque, and
English bank. Bankruptcy originates in banqueroute, i.e. "bank on the road".
The difficulty in telling polysemes from homonyms in certain cases

brings some scholars to the concept of homonyms as having different origins.
Though, there are cases when it is hard to trace the word’s etymology.
Moreover, treating homonyms in this way would shift the notion of homonymy
into the domain of historical lexicology. At the same time, drawing a line
between related meanings and the meanings, that, although expressed by the
same graphic or phonetic form, still have nothing in common, is the problem
that belongs not only to the domain of pure linguistic theory, but also to the
sphere of lexicography, which deals with contemporary language.
Homonyms may be full and partial. Full homonyms (homonyms
proper) coincide in spelling and pronunciation in all grammatical forms
(farmer's bull and a papal bull). Partial homonyms coincide only in separate
forms. Thus, the noun saw (a tool that has a long blade with sharp points used
for cutting wood or metal) is a partial homonym for saw (the Past Simple form
of the verb to see). A large group of partial homonyms have appeared in the
English language due to conversion, a very productive word-building
mechanism. When a verb is derived from an adjective or a noun, or, quite
opposite, a noun is derived from a verb, a pair of homonyms appears, while the
two words differ in paradigm. Compare: a dress – two dresses vs dress –
dressed – dressing; clean – cleaner – the cleanest vs clean – cleaned – cleaning.
There are several other types of partial homonyms:
A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another word, but
a different meaning and pronunciation, like lead /led/ (heavy soft grey metal)
and lead /li:d/ (to go with or in front of a person or animal to show the way or to
make them go in the right direction), the wind /wind/ in the trees and roads that
wind /waind/; or at least a different stress, like desert (abandon), where the last
syllable is stressed, and desert (arid region), where the initial syllable is
stressed.
A homophone is a word that has the same pronunciation as another
word, but whose meaning and spelling are different, like to, too, and two; there
and their; week and weak; air and heir; gilt and guilt.
Capitonyms are words that are spelled in the same way but have
different meanings when capitalised (and may or may not have different
pronunciations) – for example, polish (to make shiny) and Polish (from Poland).
Heterologues (the interpreter’s false friends) are words in different

languages that have same spelling and / or pronunciation but have different
meanings. For example, the English adjective sympathetic and Ukrainian
симпатичний are heterologues. False friends may cause misunderstanding in
translation and communication. Here are some more examples: the Spanish
word sensible means sensitive in English, the German word gift means poison,
Italian domanda and French demande mean a question or request, but not a
strong demand at all, English actual means real, while German aktuell means
up-to-date.
Compare some more English – Ukrainian false friends: accurate –

акуратний, artist – артист, auditorium – аудиторія, cabinet – кабінет,
compositor – композитор, conductor – кондуктор, decoration – декорація,
gymnasium – гімназія, intelligent – інтелігентний, magazine – магазин, mark
– марка, novel – новела, operator – оператор, physique – фізик, prospect –
проспект.
“The best part about homonyms, though, is that they are the raw material
for puns, a truly sublime form of humour” (Cooper, 2001). The humorous effect
in the following poem is achieved by means of using homophones:
His death, which happen'd in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton toll'd the bell
(Thomas Hood, "Faithless Sally Brown" ) (Wikipedia, 2009).
The author of the poem uses the word berth, homophonous to birth, that
is in its turn potentially antonymous to the word death, which not only suggests
a kind of an ironic effect to the poem, but also gives it a second layer of
meaning. Thus, in fact, the hero of the poem died at forty-something in his berth,
but at the same time the author suggests that he was actually born dead, in a
figurative sense.
Told (from tell) and toll’d (a form of tolled, from toll) are partial
homonyms, that are homophonous only in the form of Past Simple. The ironic
effect is achieved by a suggestion that the sexton didn’t actually toll the bell, but
spoke to it telling about the hero’s death.
Paronyms are words that have slight differences in spelling or
pronunciation and have different meanings. Structurally, paronyms can be
divided into two groups:
 The ones that have the same root but different derivational affixes:
affect – effect, alternately – alternatively, anterior – interior, proceed – precede,
preposition – proposition, popular – populous, upmost – utmost.
 The ones that derive from different roots: collision – collusion,
complement – compliment, conjuncture – conjecture, continuous – contiguous,
deprecate – depreciate, excise – exercise, farther (or farthest) – further (or
furthest) prolepsis – proslepsis.
⁂
REVISION:
1. What is a homonym?
2. Give examples of homonyms.
3. In what ways do homonyms appear in language?
4. What is the difference between polysemes and homonyms?
5. Explain the meanings of the terms full homonyms and partial
homonyms. Give examples.
6. Give a definition to the term homograph.
7. What is a homophone?
8. Explain the meaning of the term capitonyms.
9. Define heterologues. Give examples of the false friends.
10. What is the stylistic function of homonyms?
11. Give a definition and examples of paronyms.
READING:
1. Верба Л. Г. Порівняльна лексикологія англійської та
української мов: [посіб. для переклад. від-нь вузів] / Лідія
Георгіївна Верба — Вінниця : Нова книга, 2008. — 246 с.
2. Шмелев Д.Н. Омонимия / Д.Н. Шмелев // Языкознание.
Большой энциклопедический словарь. / [гл. ред. В.Н.
Ярцева]. – 2-е изд. – М.: Большая Российская
Энциклопедия, 1998. – С. 344-345.
Dissertations:
3. Воронюк О.В. Паронимическая аттракция в заголовке
текстов англоязычной массовой коммуникации: Дис... канд.
филол. наук: 10.02.04 / O.В. Воронюк. – Одесский гос. ун-т
им. И.И.Мечникова. — О., 1998. — 190 л.
4. Cooper A. Homonyms [Електронний ресурс] / Alan Cooper –
http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym.html © 1996-2001,
Alan Cooper.
5. Frath P. Homonymy and Polysemy / Pierre Frath –
[Електронний ресурс]. -
http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson
/m0005974.html
6. Homonym. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym – 2 September 2009 at
21:32.
7. Nym Words [Електронний ресурс]. – http://www.fun-with-
words.com/nym_words.html - (c) 1999-2010 Fun-with-
words.com
8. Polysemy. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysemy – 3 August 2009 at

20:46.
2.5 ANTONYMY
Definition of Antonyms / Derivation of Antonyms / Gradable
Antonyms / Complementary Antonyms / Other types of Antonyms /Auto-
Antonyms
Antonyms, from the Greek anti ("opposite") and onoma ("name") are
word pairs that are opposite in meaning, such as young and old, and up and
down. Polysemantic words may have different antonyms, depending on which
meaning is actualised in the context. Both long and tall are antonyms of short.
Antonymy is a language universal, which means that pairs of words with
opposite meanings exist in absolutely all human languages. Significant
distinctions between phenomena in the real world are reflected in language as
opposites. Antonyms represent the opposites within one and the same entity.
Such relationships are a fundamental part of a language, in contrast to
synonyms, which are a result of history and drawing of fine distinctions, or
homonyms, which are mostly etymological accidents or coincidences. "Of all
the relations of sense that semanticists propose, that of oppositeness is probably
the more readily apprehended by ordinary speakers" (Cruse, 1986, p.197).
Most languages have morphological processes which can create
antonyms. As Lyons writes: “In many languages, including English, the most
commonly used opposites tend to be morphologically unrelated (good/bad,
high/low, beautiful/ugly, big/small, old/young). But these are outnumbered in the
vocabulary by such morphologically related pairs as married/unmarried,
friendly/unfriendly, formal/informal, legitimate/illegitimate, etc.” (Lyons, 1977,
p. 275).
In addition to un- and in-, English also has the prefixes dis- (like/dislike,
honest/dishonest) and de- (colonize/decolonize, emphasize/deemphasize), as well
as the suffixes -less and -ful, which together sometimes form pairs of antonyms
(harmless/harmful). Of course, these affixes do not always create antonyms; it is
easy to find examples which, due to semantic drift or some other cause, look
morphologically as if they should be opposites but which actually are not, e.g.,
integrate/disintegrate and easy/uneasy.
It should be noted, that English does not have derivational processes
involving other kinds of lexical-semantic relations; that is, there are no affixes
which create synonyms or hyponyms or form the name of a part from a whole.
Pairs of antonyms fall under several categories:
 Gradable antonyms are two ends of the spectrum (slow and fast).
In other words, gradable antonyms name qualities which can be conceived of as
'more or less'; therefore the scale (or dimension) with which each pair is
associated has a neutral mid interval. For example hot and cold describe
opposite ends of the scale of temperature. Hot and cold are both gradable; for
example, we can say "A is hotter than B," "C is fairly cold," "D is very hot," and
so on. Between the opposite poles named by hot and cold, there is a mid
interval, so that if something is neither hot nor cold, it might be warm, cool, or
lukewarm, etc.
Sometimes pairs of gradable antonyms can have variations, like in the

semantic row skinny – slim – well built – plump – obese, where well built is a
newtral member of the row, and the rest of the words may form pairs of
antonyms: skinny vs obese; slim vs obese; slim vs plump; skinny vs plump.
The set of gradable opposites includes many common and prototypical

pairs of opposites including big/little, good/bad, high/low, hot/cold, happy/sad,
tall/short, and wet/dry.
Although there are also nouns (e.g., friend/enemy) and verbs (e.g.,
love/hate and like/dislike) which show properties of gradability, most attention
has been given to the adjectives of this type, perhaps because the adjectives most
clearly exhibit the characteristic properties of gradable opposites, such as
implicit comparison, committedness, and markedness (Muehleisen, 1998).
Implicit comparison can easily be seen in examples such as big and

little, tall and short, young and old, and hot and cold. Something is described as
big or tall or hot in comparison to other things of the same type. This means, for
example, that a tall child is tall in comparison to other children of the same age,
but may in fact be much shorter than a short adult, and that a hot day describes
a hotter than average day, but an overall temperature that is much lower than
the one described by a hot oven.
Committedness involves an adjective's behavior in questions. An

adjective is said to be committed if it implies a particular value when used in a
question, and impartial or uncommitted if it does not have such an implication.
For example, tall is uncommitted in a question like "How tall is Pat?" This
question is neutral and can be used whether or not the speaker knows Pat's
approximate height and whether Pat is tall, short or of average height. In
contrast, the adjective short is committed; a speaker would only ask "How short
is Pat?" if there is some reason to believe that Pat is shorter than average
height. Many pairs of gradable antonyms contain one committed term and one
uncommitted, e.g., old/young, heavy/light, fast/slow; many other pairs are made
up of two committed terms, e.g., innocent/guilty, beautiful/ugly, happy/sad.
Markedness has been used as cover term for several related phenomena
which distinguish the marked member of an antonym pair from the unmarked
member.
 The uncommitted member of an antonym pair is said to be
unmarked and the committed member is said to be marked, so old is unmarked,
while young is marked.
 It has also been noted that if the name of the semantic scale is
morphologically related to the unmarked member, so for example, the name of
the scale of length is related to the unmarked long rather than the marked short.
 Another criterion of markedness is that the unmarked antonym can
generally appear in a wider range of syntactic contexts; in particular, unmarked
antonyms can occur with measure phrases but marked ones usually cannot, so
we can say that something is 3 feet tall but not 3 feet short.
 Similarly, ratios are usually only possible with the unmarked
antonym; we can say that Kim is twice as old as Pat, but we can't say that Pat is
twice as young as Kim.
 Morphology also plays a role: in pairs in which one antonym is
derived from the other, the derived member is said to be marked, so happy is
unmarked and unhappy is marked.
Most research on antonymy has focused on gradable opposites,
antonyms in the narrow sense, but a few people, including J. Lyons (1977) and
D.A. Cruse (1986) have tried to characterize the other sorts of commonly
occurring opposites. These other types lack the special properties found with
gradable opposites, but like them, they show a "dependence on dichotomization"
(Lyons, 1977). In other words, like antonyms in the narrow sense, these other
types of opposites are also pairs of words which share some kind of semantic
dimension.
 Complementary antonyms are pairs that express absolute

opposites, like alive and dead. Unlike gradable antonyms, these pairs do not
include any intermediate members, for example there is no intermediate notion
between true and false.
“The essence of a pair of complementaries is that between them they

exhaustively divide some conceptual domain into two mutually exclusive
compartments, so that what does not fall into one of the compartments must
necessarily fall into the other” (Cruse, 1986, p.198).
It is sometimes hard to decide whether a pair of opposites belongs in the
set of gradable adjectives or in the set of complementaries, as in the case of
clean/dirty. Clean and dirty are both gradable adjectives: we can say that
something is fairly clean, very clean, extremely dirty, and we can say that X is
cleaner/dirtier than Y. However, the scale of clean and dirty does not seem to
have a middle term; whenever something is not clean, it can be described as
dirty.
The case of wet and dry is similar in that there are words such as damp
and moist which appear to name midpoints of the scale (Muehleisen, 1998).
However, it seems that damp and moist are actually just more specific terms for
types of wetness. We can gloss damp as 'slightly wet', but we cannot gloss a true
midpoint word in this way (e.g., we can't gloss lukewarm as 'slightly hot').
In addition to adjectives, verbs such as pass/fail and obey/disobey, nouns
such as day/night, prepositions such as in/out, and adverbs such as
backwards/forwards are also sometimes considered examples of
complementaries.
Although by definition, complementaries are pairs which allow no
logical middle term, in actual use, complementaries are sometimes used like
gradable adjectives; for example, we can say that something is almost true, or
that someone is barely alive.
 Directional antonyms are generally adverbs or prepositions and
include pairs such as up/down, in/out, and clockwise/anticlockwise.
 Reversive antonyms “comprise adjectives or adverbs which
signify a quality or verbs or nouns which signify an act or state that reverse or
undo the quality, act, or state of the other. Although they are neither
contradictory nor contrary terms, they present a clear opposition” (Egan, 1968,
p.27a). This class contains many verbs, for example, tie/untie, marry/divorce,
enter/leave, appear/disappear.
 Relational antonyms (relative terms, conversive terms) include
pairs such as buy/sell, above/below, predecessor/successor, parent/child and
teacher/student. They are pairs of words which indicate such a relationship that
one of them cannot be used without suggesting the other. Many opposites of this
type involve social roles (teacher/student, doctor/patient) or kinship relations
(father/mother).
 Such pairs as work/play and town/country represent the group of
contextual antonyms. They seem somewhat like opposites because in a
particular context, there are two alternatives that provide an either/or choice. At
the same time, we know that the two alternatives do not exhaust the logical
possibilities (in addition to being at play or at work, a person could be asleep,
for example), so they are not felt to be true opposites (Muehleisen, 1998).
 Near-opposites (another term is “impure opposites”) are the
opposites "which encapsulate, or include within their meaning, a more
elementary opposition." For example, an opposition giant/dwarf can be said to
“encapsulate the opposition between large and small (but this opposition does
not exhaust their meaning); likewise, shout and whisper encapsulate loud and
soft, criticize and praise encapsulate good and bad..." (Cruse, 1986, p.198).
 Contradictory notions, whose relations may be expressed like “A is
not B” do not have any logical foundation for antonymy and represent the so-
called weak oppositions, like in the pairs expensive – inexpensive, wise –
unwise where the meaning of the second member is rather obscure.
 Auto-antonyms are the same words that can mean the opposite of
themselves under different contexts or having separate definitions. Here are
some examples of auto-antnyms (Wikipedia, 2009):
 enjoin: (1) to prohibit, issue injunction; (2) to order, command:

(1) Libya had asked the ICJ Court to “enjoin” the UK and the USA
from taking action “calculated to compel and coerce...”3
(2) Therefore, boy, never attempt to touch me, save for when I
specifically enjoin it.
 fast: (1) moving quickly; (2) fixed firmly in place:
(1) Ah Billy, I find my life and strength ebbing so fast. Make Mrs.
Jervis, my dear son, as happy as you can.
(1) "He took off at once, at a fast gallop towards Claridge's," said
Peter.
(2) Redmond, once a Maine Road hero, has settled in fast with Joe
Royle's side. And he stressed: ‘I feel wanted again...”
(2) She opened the door to the living room; John was fast asleep. She
climbed the stairs and peered into the room she had chosen for Rodney...
 cleave (1) to split; (2) to adhere:
(1) Vermont's green mountains form a spine of three- and four-
thousand-foot peaks that cleave the state neatly in half from end to end.
(2) He puts the palms out and they cleave against the glass with a
moist suction.
 sanction (1) punish, prohibit; (2) permit:
(1) ...and the Southern African Development Community has thus far
refused to sanction Zimbabwe over its continued harassment and arrest of top
opposition leaders.
(2) Ruth's parents gave them a sympathetic hearing but refused to
sanction their plan.
3
This and the examples below in this chapter are from: British National Corpus [електронний ресурс]. -
http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/ and Corpus of Contemporary American English [електронний ресурс]. - http://
www.americancorpus.org/
Another term for auto-antonyms is contronyms, sometimes spelled
contranyms (occasionally called antagonyms, Janus words or self-
antonyms).
An auto-antonym may be understood as a word with a homonym which
is its antonym at the same time. It is a word (of multiple meanings) that is
defined as the reverse of one of its other meanings. For example, the word fast
can mean moving quickly as in ‘running fast’, or it can mean not moving as in
‘stuck fast’. To buckle can mean (1) to fasten or (2) to bend then break:
(1) I got in the car and told the kids to buckle up.
(2) I stumbled through the lobby on legs that threatened to buckle

under me.
To weather can mean (1) to endure or (2) to erode.
(1) To weather the economic downturn, all travel has been cut by 10
percent the past year.
(2) The Hohokam disappeared by 1500, leaving their villages to

weather back into the earth.
This phenomenon is also called enantionymy or antilogy.
Some pairs of contronyms are true homonyms, i.e. distinct words with
different etymology which happen to have the same form. For instance cleave
(separate) is from Old English clēofen, while cleave (adhere) is from Old
English cleofian, which was pronounced differently. Other examples include let
— hinder (as in tennis) or allow.
Other contranyms result from polysemy, where a single word acquires
different, and ultimately opposite, senses. For instance quite, which meant clear
or free in Middle English, can mean slightly (quite nice) or completely (quite
beautiful). Other examples include sanction — permit or penalize; bolt
(originally from crossbows) — leave quickly or fixed; fast — moving rapidly or
unmoving. Many English examples result from nouns being verbalized into
distinct senses ‘add <noun> to’ and ‘remove <noun> from’; e.g dust, seed,
stone. Some contranyms result from differences in national varieties of English;
for example, to table a bill means to put it up for debate in British English but
means to remove it from debate in American English.
Often, one sense is more obscure or archaic, increasing the danger of
misinterpretation when it does occur; for instance, the King James Bible often
uses let in the sense of forbid. An apocryphal story relates how an English
monarch described St Paul's Cathedral as ‘awful, artificial and amusing’,
meaning ‘awesome, clever and thought-provoking’ (Wikipedia, 2009).
⁂
REVISION:
1. Give a definition of antonyms.
2. What is a language universal? What is particular about
antonymy being a language universal?
3. What morphological mechanisms are used in the English
language to create antonyms?
4. What types of antonyms can be distinguished?
5. Give a definition of gradable antonyms.
6. What are the three characteristic properties of gradable
opposites? Describe them.
7. Give a definition of complementary antonyms. Illustrate
your answer with examples.
8. Give a definition of directional and reversive antonyms.
9. What are relational antonyms?
10. Define contextual antonyms.
11. Explain the meanings of the terms near-opposites and weak
oppositions.
12. How do you understand the term auto-antonyms? Give
examples.
READING:
1. Cruse D.A. Lexical semantics / D.A. Cruse. – Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986.
2. Egan R.F. Survey of the history of English synonymy / R.F.
Egan //Webster's new dictionary of synonyms: [ed. P.B.
Gove]. – 5a-31a. – Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1968.
— p. 27a.
3. Lehrer A. Antonymy / A. Lehrer, K. Lehrer // Linguistics and
Philosophy. – 1982. – № 5. – pp. 483-501.
4. Lehrer A. Markedness and antonymy / Adrienne Lehrer //
Linguistics. – 1985. – №21 — pp. 397-429.
5. Lyons J. Semantics / John Lyons. — Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1977. – Vol. 1. – 1977.
6. Вежбицкая А. Семантические универсалии и описание
языков / Анна Вежбицкая [пер. А.Д. Шмелев]. — М. : Языки
русской культуры, 1999. — 780с.
Electronic resources:
7. Antonym. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonym - 21 August 2009 at
01:20
8. Auto-antonym. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[Електронний ресурс]. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-
antonym - 21 August 2009 at 18:14.
9. Muehleisen, Victoria. Why isn't little the opposite of large?
Antonymy and Semantic Range [Електронний ресурс] /
Victoria Muehleisen // Proceedings of the 24th LACUS Forum,
216-26. – Toronto, Canada: York University, 1998.
http://www.f.waseda.jp/vicky/dissertation/html.html
2.6 Synonymy
2.6 SYNONYMY
Definition of Synonymy and Synonyms / Types of Synonyms /
The Basic Semantic Functions of Synonyms /
Synonym Paradigms / Non-Lexical Synonymy /
Synonymy is a type of semantic relations between language units,
which consists in either full or partial coincidence of their meanings (Новиков,
1998, с.446-447).
Synonyms (in ancient Greek syn 'συν' = plus and onoma 'όνομα' =
name) are words whose meanings coincide either fully or partially. Synonyms
can also be described as words and word-combinations that have the same
meaning in some or in any contexts (Жарковская, 2006).
There exist several approaches to the research of synonymy, which
put in the center of their attention:
1.the equivalence of meanings;
2.a full or partial ability of the synonyms to interchange in the text;
3.the evaluative, stylistic qualities of the synonyms.
From the semantic point of view (with regard to the equivalence of
meaning) synonyms can be described as full or partial.
Full synonyms are those, whose semantic contents coincide completely.
For example, both words cat and feline describe any member of the family
Felidae.
Partial synonyms are words only parts of whose meanings coincide,
which means that they become synonyms only when used in one of their
meanings or in certain combinations. For instance, the words student and pupil
are synonyms only in the meaning a person who is being taught, and at the same
time the word pupil as the small round black area at the centre of the eye is not
synonymous with student. In the word-combinations a long time and an
extended time, long and extended become synonyms. A polysemantic word,
thus, may enter several paradigms of synonyms at once.
There are two basic types of synonymy: semantic (ideographic)
synonymy and stylistic synonymy.
Semantic synonyms:
 Describe different quality of the object denoted (ex. mistake –
error – slip - lapse);
 Show different degree of the same quality or phenomenon (ex.
mistake – blunder).
Stylistic synonyms are used in different communicative styles: insane
and loony are synonymous, but the former is formal and the latter is informal.
Salt and sodium chloride are synonymous, but the former is everyday and the
latter is technical. Stylistic synonyms may have different evaluative quality
(compare horse and steed).
Some synonyms differ in both semantic content and stylistic colouring,
like to eat and to pig (i.e. to eat greedily).
Besides, there may be:
 a dialect difference between words: autumn and fall are
synonymous, but the former is British English and the latter is American.
Sandwich and butty are synonymous in Britain, but the former is standard and
the latter is technical.
 a collocational difference: rancid and rotten are synonymous, but
the former is used only of butter and bacon. Kingly, royal and regal are
synonymous, but mail has to be royal in the UK.
 a difference in connotation: youth and youngster are synonymous,
but youths are less pleasant than youngsters.
The basic semantic functions of synonyms are substitution and
specification.
2.6 Synonymy
Substitution can often be observed in the text parts which follow each
other. Semantically adequate lexical units interchange in order to avoid
monotony:
 And when he got too old to go to school he went swimming more
than ever, to get away from his worried feeling. Even on a winter day he would
take a plunge if it wasn't too freezing cold, moving rapidly through the water for
ten or fifteen minutes before running out and towelling himself in the lee of the
rocks.
 Red Rocks is a struggling little place. Also straggling. A long road
leads down to the sea, […]. Further up, at the T-junction, there is the older and
more settled part of the village.
 Every twelve hours the sea came in and inspected this casual de-
marcation line, nudging it here and there, straightening one section and pushing
the next into a curve. It was not only the sea's frontier, it was Jimmy's.4
Specification serves to unfold the qualities and various characteristic
features of the denoted objects or phenomena. This function is usually realized
within one sentence, when partially equivalent words are situated near each
other and give a more particular, precise description of an object or
phenomenon.
There are two possible types of contexts in this case. In the neutralizing
context, the differences between synonyms are not crucial for the content of the
utterance. The differing semes of the synonymous lexical units are summed up
as additional characteristics of the signified:
 In the early summer, nobody came to the beach except at week-
ends, so for five days on end Jimmy was lord and owner of the sea and the
shore, king of birds, master of crabs, director of shells and seaweed.
4
These and further illustrations in this chapter are from: Wain, J. The Life Guard / John Wain. – NY:Viking,
1972. – 172 P.
 The pushing, enterprising young ones had all gone off to the towns
anyway, and the older ones liked a quiet life.
In the differenciating context the differences in the semantic content of
the synonyms are in the center of attention. The differing semes are opposed to
each other, making the expressed ideas more precise:
 The field behind Owen's Fish and Chips held three straggling rows
of caravans, from little ones like hen-coops on wheels to immense silvery ones fit
to be called Mobile Homes.
Mobile Homes are a certain type of caravans, fit to be dwelled in
permanently, and in the context they are opposed to the caravans of smaller
sizes. The author makes it a point that the larger silvery caravans deserve this
name, while the smaller ones do not.
 When they reached the water, Jimmy ran ahead and lightly ducked
below the surface. The fat woman advanced step by laborious step, letting the
water creep-up her pale thighs.
In the above example, the verbs of motion possess different semes that
indicate speed, thus putting the quick motion of a young man in an opposition to
the slow motion of a woman. In this case, the synonymic lexical units in fact
fulfill the function close to that of antonyms.
The evaluative function and the function of the stylistic organization
of the text are two basic functions of stylistic synonymy.
Emotional evaluation is based upon different stylistic colouring of the
marked synonyms:
1. higher than neutral (high, poetic, bookish, etc.);
2. lower than neutral (colloquial, jargon, etc.).
The stylistic colouring becomes the basis of the positive or negative
evaluation of an object:
2.6 Synonymy
 It nagged at him all the way home, and just as he was turning into
his own gateway he got the answer. A Life Guard. A brawny life-saver to be on
duty on the beach every day during the season, and not to leave his post until the
last bather had gone.
While a life guard is just neutral a profession title, the word life-saver
possesses positive connotation, which implies the speaker’s positive evaluation
of the fact that he is going to work in this position.
 Jimmy longed for the fat woman to come back. Then he saw her
approaching. […] Everything about her was thick and white.
'Here she comes,' said Hopper. 'Two-Ton Tessie. Get the lifeboat out.'
In this case, the storyteller uses rather neutral adjectives (fat, thick) to
describe the woman’s appearance, while one of the characters – a teenager
called Hopper – applies a famous catch phrase Two-Ton Tessie5, (a synonym to
the word-combination fat woman), which acquires quite a negative connotation
in the context of the stoty.
The function of the stylistic organization of the text is realized, when
stylistically marked synonyms coordinate stylistically and semantically with the
whole text. In the following example the author of the short story creates the
atmosphere of a teenager conversation by using besides the stylistically neutral
noun girls its slangy equivalent:
'Girls,' said Hopper. 'They're all waiting for it. Just waiting for it, they
are. I soon found that out, at our place.' […]
'What else?' Jimmy asked. 'I've a job to do’.
'Oh, do me a favour,' said Hopper. He sniggered again. 'Your job is to
walk around and make the birds feel good. You'll never have to rescue anybody.'
5
“Two-Ton Tessie from Tennessee” was a signature song of Teresa “Tessie” O'Shea (13 March 1913 – 21 April
1995), a Welsh entertainer and actress, who was quite a large woman herself.
Synonymic words form synonym paradigms that consist of numbers of
words with similar or identical meanings. Every synonym paradigm has a
central, or domineering, member whose meaning is the simplest
semantically, the most neutral stylistically and the least fixed syntagmatically.
For example, in the paradigm big, large, ample, sizeable, bulky, capacious,
colossal, giant, enormous, extensive, gigantic, great, huge, immense, vast, large-
scale, massive, oversize, rangy, super, titanic, volumed, voluminous, whacking,
broad, spacious, wide the word big is evidently the central member.
There are also contextual synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words
may be said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation: "a widespread
impression that … Hollywood was synonymous with immorality" (Doris Kearns
Goodwin) (Wikipedia, 2009).
Sometimes a word may be synonymous to a word-combination, e.g. to
hitch – to get a free ride.
Beside lexical synonymy, several types of non-lexical synonymy
can be observed in language:
1. Phraseological synonymy occurs, when two or several
phraseological units denote the same object, phenomenon or idea: to hit the
target = to reach one’s ends; to lose one’s nerve = to go to pieces, etc.
2. Derivational synonymy consists in the semantic equivalence of
morphemes, for example prefixes un- and in- both express the absence of a
quality: unable, incapable.
3. Grammatical synonymy is understood as the sense
equivalence of functionally equal grammatical forms: We used to talk a lot in
the quiet evenings. We would talk a lot in the quiet evenings.
4. Under syntactic synonymy we understand the sense
equivalence between two sentences with different syntactic structure: We close
the store at 5 p.m. The store is closed at 5 p.m.
⁂
2.6 Synonymy
REVISION:
1. Give a definition of synonymy and synonyms.
2. What approaches to the research of synonyms do you
know?
3. Explain the meaning of the notions full synonyms and partial
synonyms.
4. What is the difference between semantic and stylistic
synonyms?
5. What other factors can bring about the appearance of
synonyms?
6. What are the semantic functions of synonyms?
7. In what types of context does specification usually appear?
8. What are the basic functions of stylistic synonymy?
9. Give an extended definition to the concept of a synonymic
paradigm.
10. List the types of non-lexical synonymy that you know and
explain their essence.
READING:
1. O’Grady W. Contemporary Linguistics / O’Grady W.,
Dobrovolsky M., Katamba F. – London & NY: Longman, 1997.
– 755 p.
2. Апресян Ю.Д. Англо-русский синонимический
словарь=English-Russian Dictionary of Synonyms / Апресян,
Ботякова, Латышева, Мосягина, Полик [А.И. Розенман (под
руководством), Ю.Д. Апресян (под руководством)]. — М. :
Рус.яз., 2004. — 543с.
Апресян. — 2.изд., испр. и доп. — (Язык). – Т. 1:
Лексическая семантика: синонимические средства языка.
— М. : Школа "Языки рус. культуры", 1995. — 472с.
4. Білинський М. Е. Синоніміка англійського дієслова. Словник
семантичних відстаней [English Verbal Synonyms: A
dictionary of Semantic Distances: Понад 5500 словникових
статей] / Михайло Емільович Білинський. — Львів: ЛДУ ім.
Івана Франка, 1999. — 382 с.
5. Девлин Д. Словарь синонимов и антонимов английского
языка: 20000 наиболее употребительных слов / Джозеф
Девлин. — М.: ЗАО "Центрполиграф", 2005. — 559с.
6. Новиков Л.А. Синонимия / Лев Алексеевич Новиков //
Языкознание. Большой Энциклопедический словарь. – М:
«Большая Российская энциклопедия», 1998. – С. 446-447.
Dissertations:
7. Єфремова Н. В. Семантичні та функціональні особливості
синонімічних опозицій англійських дієслів: Автореф. дис...
канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Н. В. Єфремова. — К., 2000.
— 19 с.
8. Кирилова В. М. Спрямованість оцінки у синонімії (На
матеріалі прикметників сучасної англійської мови):
Автореф. дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / В. М.
Кирилова. — К., 1996. — 24 с.
9. Synonym. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonym - 5 September 2009 at
13:58.
10. Жарковская И.В. Когнитивно-дискурсивный подход к
определению семантических синонимов [Электронный
ресурс] / И.В. Жарковская // Культура народов
Причерноморья. — 2006. — N82. - Т.1. — С. 143-145
http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/_scripts/wwwi32.exe/[in=_scripts/ep
.in]
2.7 OTHER SEMANTIC RELATIONS BETWEEN WORDS

Hyponyms and Hypernyms / Incompatibility /
Holonymy and Meronymy / Series / Hierarchies
A hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic range is included
within that of another word. For example, scarlet, vermilion, carmine, and
crimson are all hyponyms of red (their hypernym). According to Victoria
Fromkin and Robert Rodman's Introduction to Language (Fromkin, 1999),
hyponyms are a set of related words whose meanings are specific instances of a
more general word (so, for example, red, white, blue, etc., are hyponyms of
color). Hyponymy is thus the relationship between a general term such as
polygon and specific instances of it, such as triangle.
A word is a hypernym (in Greek υπερνύμιον, literally meaning 'extra
name') if its meaning encompasses the meaning of another word of which it is a
hypernym; a word that is more generic or broad than another given word.
Therefore, another term for a hypernym is a superordinate. For example,
vehicle denotes all the things that are separately denoted by the words train,
2.6 Synonymy
chariot, dogsled, airplane, and automobile and is therefore a hypernym of each

of those words. A hypernym and a hyponym are reciprocal notions. For
example, plant is hypernymic to flower whereas tulip is hyponymic to flower.
D. Crystal writes: “Hyponymy is particularly important to linguists
because it is the core relationship within a dictionary. The most illuminating
way of defining a lexeme is to provide a hypernym along with various
distinguishing features – an approach to definition whose history can be traced
back to Aristotle. For example, a majorette is ‘a girl’ (a hypernym) ‘who twirls
a baton and accompanies a marching band’. It is usually possible to trace a
hierarchical path through a dictionary, following the hypernyms as they become
increasingly abstract, until we arrive at such general notions (essence, being,
existence) that clear sense-relations between the lexemes no longer exist. At any
point along this path, a lexeme can be seen to have a hyponymic relationship
with everything above it, though we usually take seriously only those involving
successive levels. So, in answer to the question, ‘What is Gorgonzola?’, the
expected answer is ‘a kind of cheese’. If someone does not know exactly what
Gorgonzola is, ‘a kind of food’ would be an acceptable first approximation; but
to go higher in the hierarchy of abstraction by saying ‘a kind of substance’ of ‘a
sort of thing’ would not” (Crystal, 1995, p.166).
There are many lexemes which belong to no hypernym. If we try the
formula ‘X is a kind of Y’ on such items as chaos, nightclub, interesting and
balloon, we shall be unable to assign any hypernym other than a vague general
term, such as state, place or thing. Dictionaries grope for better alternatives, but
not always successfully: balloon, for example, is variously described as a bag,
ball, pouch and toy. Abstract nouns are especially difficult, in this respect, and
verbs and adjectives are more awkward still.
Also, the level of abstraction of a lexeme may be difficult to determinate.
Is noise a kind of sound or sound a kind of noise? When the answer is ‘neither’,
some other way of analyzing the sense relation must be found, such as by using
the notion of synonymy or incompatibility.
Incompatibility is a notion opposite to hyponymy. While hypo-
hypernymic relations are about including one meaning in another, the
relationships of incompatibility means excluding one meaning from another.
Under this heading are grouped sets of lexemes which are mutually exclusive
members of the same superordinate category. Daffodil, tulip, rose and pansy are
examples, because they are all hyponyms of the same hypernym (flower).
D. Crystal (1995, p.167) illustrates the notion of incompatibility as
follows. Compare these two sentences:
 I am thinking of a single flower and it is a daffodil and a rose.
 I am thinking of a single flower and it is a daffodil and a
prizewinner.
The first sentence fails to make sense because daffodil and rose are
incompatible. The second sentence succeeds because daffodil and prizewinner
are not; they are compatible. Here is another pair of examples – this time using
adjectives:
 I am thinking of an object which is painted in a single colour, and it
is red and yellow.
 I am thinking of an object which is painted in a single colour, and it
is red and dirty.
Again, there is a problem with the first sentence, because red and yellow
are both hyponyms under colour. Red and dirty, however, do not belong to the
same set, and can be used together without difficulty.
Holonymy (in Greek holon = whole and onoma = name) is a semantic
relation that defines the relationship between a term denoting the whole and a
term denoting a part of, or a member of, the whole. That is,
'X' is a holonym of 'Y' if Ys are parts of Xs, or
'X' is a holonym of 'Y' if Ys are members of Xs.
2.6 Synonymy
For example, a tree is a holonym of a bark, of a trunk and of a limb.

Meronymy (from the Greek words meros = part and onoma = name) is
a semantic relation concept reciprocal to holonymy. A meronym denotes a
constituent part of, or a member of something. That is,
X is a meronym of Y if Xs are parts of Y(s), or
X is a meronym of Y if Xs are members of Y(s).
For example, a finger is a meronym of a hand because a finger is part of
a hand. Similarly a wheel is a meronym of an automobile.
The relationship is not as obvious as it may seem. In particular, there is a
strong tendency for the relationship to be acceptable only between adjacent
items in a chain of more than two. Thus, a door is a part of a house and a house
is a part of a village, but it would be most unusual to say that a door is a part of a
village.
On the other hand, certain chains do permit a relationship between non-
adjacent items: a cuff is a part of a sleeve which is a part of a shirt – but also, a
cuff is a part of a shirt.
Part-whole relations can be seen in many areas of the lexicon (Crystal,
1995, p.168):
 Clothing: zip, button, hem, collar, lining, cuff
 Food: stalk, leaf, root, husk, shell, bone, seed
 Vehicle: wheel, brakes, engine, door, steering wheel
 Animal: foot, mane, leg, feather, claw, tail
 Container: top, lid, door, side, handle, back
 House: bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, roof, window, door.
Series is a type of a semantic relationship which implies that certain
lexical units follow each other in a peculiar sequence. The commonest examples
of lexical series are the days of the week and months of the year, which are
cyclical in character: we reach the end of the series when we start again.
The number system is unique, in the lexicon of a language, because its
members are members of an open-ended series in which the place of each item
is defined by mathematical rules. We might be tempted to refer to such items as
one, two, three, four… as a hierarchy, like military ranks, but the number system
is different: from a lexical point of view, 2 is not always ‘higher’ than 1.
A lexical hierarchy is a graded series of lexemes in which each item
holds a particular rank, being ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ than adjacent items. The
sequence corporal – sergeant – lieutenant is part of one such hierarchy. The
relationship between corporal and sergeant is not one of synonymy (they are not
the same in meaning), nor antonymy (they are not opposites), nor hyponymy (a
corporal is not a kind of sergeant, or vice versa). It is really one of
incompatibility, but a rather special kind: the relationship between corporal and
sergeant is not like that between clarinet and oboe. Sergeant is ‘higher’ than
corporal, whereas neither of the instruments can be said to outrank the other.
Several lexical domains are organized as hierarchies. They often reflect
relationships between people, as in the case of military ranks or church
seniority: priest – bishop – archbishop. Notions of quantity are also important,
especially in relation to units of measurement: second – minute – hour. Some
hierarchies also represent levels of abstraction, as can be seen in the levels of
grammar: sound – morpheme – word – phrase – clause – sentence – discourse.
⁂
REVISION:
1. What types of semantic relationships besides antonymy,
synonymy and homonymy do you know?
2. Explain the meaning of the notions hyponym and hypernym.
3. Do all lexemes enter the relations of hyponymy? Give some
examples to support your point of view.
4. What is incompatibility? Illustrate your answer with lexical
examples and the sentences composed on your own.
2.6 Synonymy
5. What other terms for the ‘part-whole’ relationship do you

know? Give an extended description of the phenomenon.
6. Explain the essence of the notion series in linguistics.
7. What is a lexical hierarchy? Give some examples.
READING:
2. Fromkin V. An Introduction to Language / V. Fromkin, R.
Rodman - Dryden Pr Pub, 1999. – 592 p.
3. Болдырев Н.Н. Когнитивная семантика: (Курс лекций по
английской филологии) / Николай Николаевич Болдырев —
2. изд., стер. — Тамбов : Издательство ТГУ, 2001. — 124с.
Dissertations:
4. Николина Т.С. Постференционные свойства гиперонимов и
их отражения в диахроническом движении лексико-
семантического поля / Татьяна Станиславовна Николина. —
Минск, 2001. — 13с.
5. Hypernym. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernym - 1 September 2009
09:28.
6. Hyponymy. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponym - 1 September 2009
09:28.
7. Holonymy. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Електронний
ресурс]. –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonymy - 15 July 2009 at
18:17.
8. Meronymy. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meronymy 15 July 2009 at
18:18.
3. WORD-FORMATION
3. WORD-FORMATION
Word-formation is a branch of lexicology which studies patterns of
derivation, categories and types of word-formation devices and the lexical units
built with the help of these devices. Word-formation is considered to be a simple
nomination type. It is also the most productive way of vocabulary enrichment in
the English language.
3.1 WORD-FORMATION IN THE NOMINATION SYSTEM OF

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Nomination /Simple Nomination vs Nomination of the Second Order /
Primary vs Secondary Nomination / Classifications of Word-Formation
Types / Linear and Non-Linear Derivation / Word-Combinations and
Phraseologisms / Borrowing
Nomination is the process of naming things. In this process the facts of
extralinguistic reality find their place in the language system and structure.
“In gnoseological-semantic aspect nomination is a process of turning the
facts of extralinguistic reality into the system and structure of language, into
language meanings that reflect common experience in the consciousness of the
native speakers of a given language” (Уфимцева, 1977, с. 13).
Nomination takes place on the lexical (words and word-combinations)
and syntactic levels of language, as well as on the text level, thus nomination
units of different levels are described (Кубрякова, 1981, с. 76). Words and
word-combinations are considered to be the units of simple nomination, “as
long as this nomination type is a mere process of recording isolated features and
qualities, that is static denotations” (Телия, 1977, с. 132).The sentence is
regarded to be the nomination unit of the second order, and “nomination on
the text level already deals with combinatorics, that is operations with complex
3.1 Word-Formation in the Nomination System of the English Language
units of nomination” (Телия, 1977, с. 133). The units of this order do not fall
within limits of lexicology.
In the act of nomination the word meaning arises together with its ability
to name things (nominative function). “The nomination relationship itself can be
regarded in two perspectives: onomasiological, when the signified actual (an
object, phenomenon, event, quality, relationship, etc.) is taken to be the baseline
and receives this or that name and meaning, or semasiological, when the
baseline is the sense of the name and its projections to the signified actual, that
inter alia allows us to consider the application sphere of the meaning of already
existing nomination units in accordance with either their own signifieds or the
signifieds that are new to them” (Телия, 1981, с. 96).
The formation act of an absolutely new unit is called primary (direct,
unmotivated) nomination. There are very few neologisms in the current
English language that are completely new words, like quark or keds. Another
example of primary derivation is onomatopoeic words that are formed by
means of copying natural sounds, like bark, oink, meow, roar, Weero,
chickadee, cuckoo, chiffchaff. In contemporary linguistics the units whose
etymology is forgotten are considered to be unmotivated as well.
The majority of English neologisms of the recent century are motivated
(the units of secondary nomination). The units of secondary nomination
either reflect the idea about an extralinguistic object indirectly (e.g. to
overcharge), or describe it metaphorically (e.g. to be fired).
Secondary nomination is carried out thanks to reconsideration of
nominative tools that already exist in language (Телия, 1981, с. 117).
V.M. Telia classifies the meanings of the secondary nomination units into
nominative-derivative (in cases when indirect representation of an
extralinguistic object takes place, for example overcoat) and indirect-derivative
(when an extralinguistic object is reflected with help of the units that refer to a
3. WORD-FORMATION
totally different object in their primary meaning, for example pencil dress)
(Телия, 1981).
The basic types of simple nomination in the English language are word-
formation, borrowing and word-combination. Attributive and object word-
combinations built on the juxtaposition basis (a nasty weather, to ask a
question) are the most characteristic of the English language (Левицький, 2001,
с. 101; Резвецова, 1989, с. 26).
Word-formation is the basic type of simple nomination in the English
language. The end of the 20th century has been described in contemporary
linguistics as the time of neological boom (Зацний, 1997). New means of
communication, the acceleration of information exchange together with the
worldwide status of the English language have caused the acceleration of
dynamic processes in the lexical stock of the English language, the appearance
of new word-building models, which has influenced other language levels as
well, first of all the morphemic level (the appearance of new affixes). Recent
research has proved the anthropocentric character of the majority of new
coinages (Андрусяк, 2003; Бялик, 2003; Шиманович, 2002).
Nomination on the word level occurs by means of derivation. Semantic
shift takes place during derivation – a new word, in spite of its motivation level,
receives a new meaning. “There are no word-formation processes in which
semantic shift wouldn’t occur in the secondary unit of nomination compared
with the primary one” (Каращук, 1977, с. 10). A relationship of derivation is
established between the new (derived) and the generating (formative) words. It
is characterized, “first of all by the presence of the formative word (or the base)
for every derived word. Secondly, it is characterized by the semantic correlation
between the derived and formative words (motivation), and at the same time
structurally the derived word is more complex than the formative word.
Semantic correlation is associated with semantic shift that is based upon either
the reconsideration of categorial affiliation of the formative word (transposition)

or its specification. Thirdly, the derivation relationship is characterized by the
presence of the word-formation meaning in the derivative word, which is
expressed by this or that word-formation device. Fourthly, it is characterized by
the division of the derived word into the base and the word-formation
element (affix, etc). At the same time derivation can have no formal expression
at all (Каращук, 1977, с. 10).
There exist several variants of classification of word-formation

devices considering different characteristics.
V.V. Vinogradov classifies word-formation devices into: 1)

morphological, to which belong phonetic-morphological derivation, suffixation,
prefixation and suffixation-prefixation; 2) syntactic, where belong
morphological-syntactic derivation (word-composition and conversion into a
different part of speech), lexical-syntactic derivation (lexicalization of word-
combinations and idioms); and 3) lexical-semantic derivation (the development
of homonyms of the basis of polysemy) (Улуханов, 1996, с. 25).
I.S. Ulouhanov contrasts usual word-formation devices to occasional
ones, direct derivation to back-formationn and clear word-formation types to
mixed types (Улуханов, 1996, с. 29 – 55).
O.A. Zemskaya divides the word-formation devices into affixal and
affixless, and, according to the number of base morphemes, into simple and
compound. Among affixal word-formation devices she lists suffixation,
prefixation, combined (suffixation-prefixation) word-formation, zero
suffixation, suffixation with multiple suffixes, prefixation with zero suffixation
and word-composition with zero suffixation. To affixless derivation devices
3. WORD-FORMATION
belong word-composition proper, abbreviation, truncation and conversion

(Земская, 1973, с. 169-181).
O.I. Smyrnytsky contrasts word-formation devices that include affixation
and conversion (inner word-formation) to word-composition as two groups of
word-formation devices that are different in principle (Смирницккий, 1956, с.
65-137).
P.M. Karashchuk and others (Каращук, 1977, с. 24-25; Лопатин, 1970,
с. 37-301) suggest the classification of word-formation devices based upon the
number of the word-forming base morphemes. To the one-base word-formation
belong affixation (the word-building device is an affix), conversion (the
paradigm of the target word class and its distribution (the combinability with
other words in a sentence) are regarded as the word-building devices),
substantivation, where the word-building device is the paradigm of the derived
word (a noun).
The word-formation devices that use more than one base morpheme are:
1) Composition proper, where the word-formation devices are: the

connective morpheme which neutralizes the grammatical meaning of the
component (as in Afro-American); a fixed component order; the single major
stress on one of the base morphemes.
2) Mixed word-formation types that involve both composition and

affixation (baby + sit+>er = babysitter).
3) Combination of base morphemes, where the forming word that

consists of two or more components is morphologically equal (in all its forms)
to the syntactic combination and thus, the syntactic relation (government,
juxtaposition) is preserved in the structure of the derived word. The word-
formation devices here are: the single major stress on the syntactically
domineering component and the bound word-order (hall + room = hallroom).
4) Abbreviation, where belong all types of shortenings (AFAIK, lol,

UNESCO). Here also belongs the type of word-formation called ‘blending’
(Californication). The word-formation device here is the truncation of all or one
of the derivative base morphemes, the single stress and single grammatical
composition (Каращук, 1977, с. 24-25).
Linguists speak of lexical and syntactic derivation. “According to the

classification by Acad. Kurylowicz, accepted in linguistics, the derived words
are classified into syntactic derivatives, that preserve the meaning of the
formative word and only change its syntactic characteristics (to move – to make
a move, edible (adj.) – edibles (n.), a cool day – the cool of the morning), and
lexical derivatives that change the semantics of the formative word (a child –
childless – childish – childlike, joy – joyful – enjoying)”.
Y.D. Apresjan explains the nature of the syntactic derivatives in the

following way: “In the process of syntactic derivation the derived word differs
from the formative word not with its lexical meaning, but only with its syntactic
qualities. Here belong de-verbal nouns of action and de-adjectival nouns
denoting quality, relative adjectives and certain types of de-adjectival adverbs,
etc.” (Апресян, 1974, с. 164).
There exist two structurally different groups of word-formation models.

N.F. Klymenko makes the difference between the “morphological, or external
word-formation where belong: 1) affixation; 2) word-composition or
juxtaposition; 3) combination of base morphemes or composition; 4) shortening
or abbreviation; and semantic or internal word-formation which consists in
semantic changes of lexemes” (Клименко, 1984, с.3).
3. WORD-FORMATION
P.M. Karashchuk after O.S. Koubryakova distinguishes between linear

and non-linear derivation models and the derived units are called,
accordingly, linear and non-linear derivatives. Linear derivatives possess
formal signs of derivation, while non-linear derivatives have no formally
expressed signs of derivation (Каращук, 1977, с. 13). O.S. Koubryakova lists
among linear models of word-formation the following: word-composition,
prefixation, suffixation, mixed derivatives (suffixation-prefixation),
abbreviations and acronyms. As the result of linear derivation a number of
words have appeared that possess formally-expressed signs of derivation. To
non-linear word-formation models belong: conversion, substantivation,
adjectivation, etc. (O.S. Koubryakova regards the latter ones as conversion
subtypes), phonological changes of the root morpheme or the base, as well as
the truncation of the word-changing indices of the word (Кубрякова, 1965, с.
58-73).
Word-formation is sometimes contrasted with semantic change, which
is a change in a single word's meaning. The line between word formation and
semantic change is sometimes a bit blurry; what one person views as a new use
of an old word, another person might view as a new word derived from an old
one and identical to it in form. Word formation can also be contrasted with the
formation of idiomatic expressions, though sometimes words can form from
multi-word phrases.
The basic derivational patterns fall into two groups: linear and non-
linear patterns. Linear word-formation is characterized by the change in form,
while non-linear word-formation takes place without such changes.
The following types of word-formation belong to the group of linear
derivation types:
1. Affixation, i.e. adding a prefix or a suffix to the base morpheme
(e.g. atypical, semiprivate, kingdom, morality).
2. Back-formation, i.e. removing seeming affixes from the existing

word (e.g. donate from donation, gamble from gambler, haze from hazy).
3. Compounding, i.e. combining two of more base morphemes or
words to form a new word (e.g. courtroom, rattlesnake, well-formed, off-white,
overlook).
4. Incorporation i.e. building a compound of a verb and an object or
particle (e.g. intake, outcome, breastfeed).
5. Reduplication, i.e. forming new words by means of repeating the
base form (e.g. go-go (style in fashion), trick-a-track, tick-tack-toe).
6. Blending, i.e. forming a word by mixing two words, like brunch,
which comes from breakfast and lunch (entertoyment= toy + entertainment,
jetiquette = jet + etiquette) The words, formed by means of blending, are also
called portmanteau words.
7. Clipping, i.e. using the initial or rear (sometimes also middle) part
of the word (e.g. ad for advertisement, demo for demonstration, doc for doctor,
condo for condominium).
8. Abbreviation, i.e. building a new word by using parts of words
(mostly, initial) in a word-combination: laser from light amplified by stimulated
emission of radiation, Dr. for doctor, e.g. for for example (Lat. exempli gratia).
9. Iconic derivation, i.e. using the letters of the alphabet to denote
certain shapes (e.g. T-junction, X-crossing, V-shape).
Non-linear derivation types include:
1. Conversion, i.e. the shift between parts of speech (e.g. to water, to
stone, to salt, to eye; a go, a convertible, a look, a squeeze).
2. Compression, i.e. using the first word in a word-combination to
denote the phenomenon that was earlier denoted by the whole phrase (e.g. an
iron-on instead of an iron-on picture, the poor instead of the poor people).
3. WORD-FORMATION
3. Noun adjunct, i.e. using a noun as a modifier to another noun, like

in phrases beef stew, rose bush, wrist watch, computer paper.
4. Metaphor, i.e. meaning transposition or nomination by association
based on a similar feature of two unrelated objects (e.g. fishnets as a name of a
specific type of stockings, flowerpot skirt, shell suit).
5. Connotation shift, i.e. melioration or pejoration of the initial
meaning of the word (e.g. computer nerd or punk that in the subculture context
acquire positive coonotation and suggest ‘belonging to the subculture’, awful in
the meaning of ‘wonderful’).
Linguists also speak of major and minor derivation types, grouping
the kinds of word-formation according to their productivity (Бортничук, 1988).
Major derivation types are the ones that are used to build up the core of
language vocabulary, being the most productive and most common for the
language (e.g. affixation, compounding, conversion). The types of word-
formation that build up derivation periphery of the language are described as
minor derivation types.
Nonce-words. Some words are created with a very short-term purpose,
to serve a current need of the speaker, and they are not expected to recur. A
word occurring, invented, or used just for a particular occasion is called a
nonce-word. We find many examples of nonce-words in literature, where
authors attempt at creative ways of verbal expression. William Faulkner, for
example, uses the word mileconsuming in the sentence ‘the wagon beginning to
fall into its slow and mileconsuming clatter’.
Nonce words frequently arise through the combination of an existing
word with a familiar prefix or suffix, in order to meet a particular need (or as a
joke). The result is a special kind of pseudoword: although it would not be found
in any dictionary, it is instantly comprehensible (e.g., Bananaphone). If the need
recurs (or the joke is widely enjoyed), nonce words easily enter regular use
(initially as neologisms) just because their meaning is obvious. Nonce words are
often created as part of pop culture and advertising campaigns.
Here are some examples of nonce-words presented by the Wickipedia:
 Tattarrattat by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922).
 Slithy, as a portmanteau of slimy and lithe, chortle as a portmanteau
of Chuckle and snort – among several used by Lewis Carroll in Jabberwocky.
 Runcible spoon, from Edward Lear, which later came to describe a
curved fork with a cutting edge.
 Unidexter – a one-legged person of the right-legged persuasion,
coined by comedian Peter Cook in One Leg Too Few.
 Contrafibularities was one of several nonce words used by the
fictional Edmund Blackadder to confuse the lexicographer Samuel Johnson,
whom Blackadder despised. Among the others were anaspeptic, phrasmotic,
pericombobulations, interphrastically and extramuralization.
 Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from the movie musical Mary
Poppins.
 Kwyjibo used in The Simpsons 'Bart the Genius' in a game of
Scrabble, meaning ‘a bald, overweight, North American ape of below average
intelligence’.
 Aetataureate coined by Michael Chabon in The Amazing
Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Meaning pertaining to a golden age.
 In Kung Pow! Enter the Fist, The Chosen One says that there
should be a new stronger word for killing and creates the word badong, a
portmanteau of bad and wrong. He goes on to say that he that he will stand for
the opposite of killing and creates the word gnodab, a reversal of the letters in
badong.
3. WORD-FORMATION
To the group of nonce-words also belong lexicalized word-

combinations and sentences that occasionally perform a function of a single
lexeme in a sentence: He stared at me with that particular don’t-give-me-that-
crap look of his which left no space or hope of further discussion.
Word-combination belongs as well to the sphere of simple
nomination. The phenomena denoted by word-combinations are more
complicated and detailed than those denoted by single words. Word-
combinations, or phrases, may consist of a different number of components.
There is a general distinction between two-component and multi-component
word-combinations.
Word-combinations differ according to the parts of speech that build
them as well as by the semantic roles that their parts play in relation to each
other.
A specific type of the word-combination is the phraseologism (idiom).
A phraseologism is a word-combination whose meaning cannot be deduced
from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to
a figurative meaning that is known only through conventional use.
Borrowing is the type of nomination which consists in using words of
foreign origin in the English language. Borrowed words tend to become fully or
partially assimilated with the course of time, acquiring, fully or partially, the
paradigm of the English language.
⁂
REVISION:
1. Give a definition to nomination.
2. On what language levels does nomination occur? What
nomination levels does lexicology deal with?
3. What is primary and secondary nomination? What other
terms do you know to describe these phenomena?
4. Explain the meaning of simple nomination. What types of
simple nomination do you know?
5. In what ways can the word-formation types be classified?
6. Explain the meaning of the terms syntactic derivation and

lexical derivation.
7. Speak about the difference between morphological and
semantic derivation.
8. What derivation types can be groupped under the heading
of linear derivation? Explain the notion. Give examples of
every type.
9. Define non-linear derivation. List non-linear derivation
types. Illustrate your answer with examples.
10. What is the difference between major and minor derivation
types?
11. Give a definition of the phenomenon of nonce-words.
12. Give some examples of nonce-words.
13. Speak about nomination by means of word-combinations?
14. Give a definition of the term borrowing.
READING:
1. Adams V. An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation /
V. Adams. – Longman, 1988.
2. Bauer L. English Word-Formation / L. Bauer. – CUP, 1994.
4. Matthews P.H. Morphology / P.H. Matthews. – CUP, 1991.
5. Апресян Ю.Д. Лексическая семантика. Синонимические
средства языка / Юрий Дереникович Апресян. – М.: Наука,
1974. – 367 с.
6. Арутюнова Н.Д. Номинация и текст / Нина Давидовна
Арутюнова // Языковая номинация [отв. ред.
Серебренников, Уфимцева]. – М.: Наука, 1977. – с. 304-
357.
7. Битко Н. С. Запозичення як спосіб адаптації концептуальної і
лексичної системи англійської мови до альтернативної
реальності (на матеріалі запозичень з автохтонних мов у
канадський і новозеландський варіанти): автореф. дис...
канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Битко Н. С. — О., 2008. — 22
с.
8. Бортничук Е.Н., Василенко И.В., Пастушенко Л.П.
Словообразование в современном английском языке /
Бортничук Е.Н., Василенко И.В., Пастушенко Л.П. – Киев:
Вища Школа, 1988. – 81 с.
9. Бялик В. Семантика та словотвірні потенції власних назв у
процесі збагачення лексичного складу мови / В. Бялик //
Науковий вісник Чернівецького університету. – Вип. 155.
3. WORD-FORMATION
Германська філологія. – Чернівці: Рута. – 2003. – С. 127-

132.
10.Єнікєєва С. М. Системність і розвиток словотвору сучасної
англійської мови: [монографія] / Санія Маратівна Єнікєєва.
— Запоріжжя : Запорізький нац. ун-т, 2006. — 302 c.
11.Зацний Ю.А. Неологізми англійської мови 80х-90х років ХХ
століття / Юрій Антонович Зацний. – Запоріжжя: РА
“Тандем-У”, 1997. – 395 с.
12.Зацний Ю.А. Розвиток словникового складу сучасної
англійської мови / Юрій Антонович Зацний. – Запоріжжя:
Вид-во Запорізького держ. ун-ту, 1998. – 430 c.
13.Зацний Ю. А. Соціолінгвістичні аспекти вивчення
словникового складу сучасної англійської мови: [Навч.
посіб. для студ. вищ. навч. закл.] / Зацний Ю. А., Пахомова
Т. О., Зацна В. Ю. — Запоріжжя : ЗДУ, 2004. — 284с.
14.Земская Е.А. Современный русский язык.
Словообразование / Земская Елена Андреевна. – М.:
“Просвещение”, 1973. – 304 с.
15.Каращук П.М. Словообразование английского языка / П.М.
Каращук. – М.: ВШ, 1977. – 303 с.
16.Карпіловська Є. А. Конструювання складних словотвірних
одиниць / Євгенія Анатоліївна Карпіловська. – К.:Наукова
думка, 1990.
17.Клименко Н.Ф. Словотворча структура і семантика складних
слів у сучасній українській мові / Надія Федорівна
Клименко. – К.: “Наукова думка”, 1984. – 252 с.
18.Клименко Н.Ф., Карпіловська Є.А. Словотвірна морфеміка
сучасної української літературної мови / Н.Ф. Клименко,
Є.А. Карпіловська. – К.: УкрНДІПСК, 1998. – 162 с.
19.Козьмик Г. О. Світ сучасної людини в контексті мовних змін.
Інноваційні процеси у лексичній системі англійської мови на
межі ХХ і ХХІ століть: [монографія] / Ганна Олександрівна
Козьмик — Запоріжжя : КПУ, 2007. — 142 с.
20.Кубрякова Е.С. Типы языковых значений. Семантика
производного слова / Елена Самойловна Кубрякова. – М.:
Наука, 1981. – 204с.
21.Кубрякова Е.С. Что такое словообразование / Елена
Самойловна Кубрякова. – М.: Наука, 1965. – 80 с.
22.Левицький А.Е. Зіставлення функціональних особливостей
систем номінативних одиниць англійської й української
мов / Андрій Едуардович Левицький // Вісн. Житомир. держ.
пед. ун-ту. — 2001. — N 8. — С. 101-105.
23.Лопатин В.В., Улуханов И.С. Грамматика современного
русского литературного языка / В.В. Лопатин, И.С.
Улуханов. – М.: Наука, 1970. – 340 с.
24.Резвецова М. Д., Афанасьева О. В., Самохина Т. С.
Практикум по сравнительной типологии английского и
русского языков / Резвецова М. Д., Афанасьева О. В.,

Самохина Т. С. — М.: Просвещение, 1989. — 160 с.
25.Смирницкий А.И. Лексикология английского языка /
Александр Иванович Смирницкий. – М.: “Изд-во лит-ры на
иностр. языках”, 1956. – 260 с.
26.Телия В.Н. Вторичная номинация / Вероника Николаевна
Телия // Языковая номинация [отв. ред. Серебренников,
Уфимцева]. – М.: Наука, 1977. – с. 129-221.
27.Телия В.Н. Типы языковых значений / Вероника Николаевна
Телия. – М.: “Наука”, 1981. – 269 с.
28.Улуханов И.С. Единицы словообразовательной системы
русского языка и их лексическая реализация / Игорь
Степанович Улуханов. – М.: “Русские словари”, 1996. – 222
29.Уфимцева А.А. Лексическая номинация / Анна
Анфилофьевна Уфимцева // Языковая номинация [отв. ред.
Серебренников, Уфимцева]. – М.: Наука, 1977. – с. 5-85.
Dissertations:
30.Андрусяк І.В. Англійські неологізми кінця ХХ століття як
складова мовної картини світу: Дис... канд. філол. наук:
10.02.04. / І.В. Андрусяк. — Ужгород, 2003. — 268 c.
31.Врабель Т. Т. Словотворча прагматика у сучасній англійській
мові: Автореф. дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Т. Т.
Врабель. — Донецьк, 2005. — 20 с.
32.Гармаш О. Л. Система словотвору англійської мови та
інноваційні процеси: Автореф. дис... канд. філол. наук:
33.Шиманович Г.М. Назви осіб як відображення динаміки
розвитку англійської мови у ХХ столітті / Ганна Миколаївна
Шиманович // Мовні і концептуальні картини світу. – №7. –
Київ: ЛОГОС. – 2002 – С.527-532.
34.Albright A. From clusters to words: grammatical models of
nonce-word acceptability / Adam Albright [Електронний
ресурс]. – Chicago, 2008. - http://web.mit.edu/albright/
www/papers/Albright-LSA2008Handout.pdf
35.Nonce-word. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_word 12 February 2010 at
00:32.
3. WORD-FORMATION
3.2 AFFIXATION
Definition and affix types / Suffixation / Semi-suffixes / Prefixation /
Semi-prefixes
Affixation is creating new words by adding affixes to the base
morpheme (a root or a stem). Affixes can either be derivational, i.e. used to
produce new words, like –able, -ful or pre-; or inflectional, i.e. used to build
grammatical forms, like the plural ending –s or the past participle ending –ed.
Affixes can be productive (e.g. -ness) and unproductive (e.g. the Old
English noun-forming suffix –th, as in length, strength, depth, width). Some
affixes possess absolute productivity, which means that they are able to
produce an almost unlimited number of derivatives from various stems. “There
is a line to be drawn between ‘actual Enlgish words’ (e.g. sandstone, unwise)
and ‘potential English words’ (e.g. lemonstone, unexcellent), both of these being
distinct from ‘non-English’ words like selfishless which, because it shows suffix
–less added to an adjective rather than to a noun, does not even obey the rules
of word-formation.
Affixes possess relative meanings, i.e. their meanings become
actualized within the word. The meanings of the affixes are generalized. For
example, words with the suffix -er, may have the general meaning ‘doer of the
action’, like driver; or the prefix pre- has the general meaning of ’before’, like
prenuptual (before marriage).
The main types of affixes in the English language are suffixes and
prefixes. Derivation types using affixes are called, respectively, suffixation and
prefixation.
Suffixation is adding a word-forming morpheme (a suffix) to the end of
the base morpheme to coin a new word. Unlike prefixes, suffixes commonly
alter the word-class of the base. For example, the adjective soft is changed into
an abstract noun softness by the addition of the suffix –ness.
3.2 Affixation
Table 1 contains the list of the commonest derivational suffixes

Abstract-noun-makers
> age frontage, mileage, marriage, cleavage, acreage, peerage,
rootage, herbage, harbourage, hermitage, parsonage
> dom officialdom, stardom, martyrdom, freedom, dukedom,
computerdom, fandom, rascaldom
>ery drudgery, slavery, robbery, tomfoolery, adultery, apery, jewellery,
greenery, crockery, pottery, cutlery, monkery, jobbery, mastery,
misery; tannery, brewery, nunnery, vinery, bindery
> ful capful, cupful, bucketful, spoonful
> hood brotherhood, girlhood, statehood, sainthood, selfhood,
priesthood, womanhood
> ing farming, panelling, cabling, carrying, law-making, deafening,
gearing, glazing, landscape-gardening, calling, daring, leading
> ism idealism, racism, voluntarism, vulgarism, sizeism, sexism,
gangsterism, meteorism, Darwinism
> ocracy aristocracy, democracy
> ship airmanship, draftsmanship, horsemanship, fellowship, friendship,
acquaintanceship, authorship, censorship, citizenship, readership,
listenership, membership, (your) Worship, (your) ladyship
Concrete-noun-makers
>eer engineer, racketeer, pioneer, volunteer
> er teenager, cooker, plumber, financier, right-winger, courtier,
villager, prisoner, New-Yorker, cottager
> ess actress, waitress, lioness, largess, duress
> ette kitchenette, dinette, leaderette, luncheonette, pianette, storiette,
anchorette, brunette, suffragette, majorette, usherette, leatherette
> let booklet, piglet, annulet, chainlet, eaglet, frontlet, necklet
3. WORD-FORMATION
> ling fledgeling, firstling, fondling, groundling, overling, dapperling,

underling, frogling, gosling, duckling
> ster gangster, gamester, oldster, punster, rhymester
Adverb-makers
> ly quickly, happily, harshly, outwardly, naturally, daily, hourly,
namely
> ward(s) northwards, onwards, south-westward, skyward(s), eastward,
shoreward, seaward
> wise clockwise, lengthwise, otherwise, chequerwise, archwise,
anticlockwise, percentagewise, budgetwise, trade-wise, bank-
wise, tonnage-wise
Verb-makers
> ate orchestrate, chlorinate, activate, capacitate, sanitate
> en deafen, ripen, shorten, strengthen, brighten, lighten, quicken
> ify beautify, certify, aerify, acetify
>ize/>ise modernize, advertise, extemporize, Americanize, oxidize
Adjective-/noun-makers
> ese Chinese, Portuguese, Vietnamese, cablese, commercialese,
fashionese, journalese, Johnsonese
> (i)an republican, agrarian, Parisian, Arabian, Georgian,
Mohammedian
> ist socialist, loyalist, moralist, technologist, palaeontologist,
pacifist, monogamist
> ite socialite, Luddite, Adamite, Benthamite, Carmelite, Trotskyite,
urbanite, Yemenite
Nouns from verbs
> age breakage, wastage, usage, leakage, linkage
> al refusal, revival, accrual, appraisal
3.2 Affixation
> ant informant, lubricant, celebrant, occupant, accountant,

expectorant, inhalant
> ation exploration, education, abirritation, activation, amelioration,
cancellation, avocation, canalization, coloration
> ee payee, absentee, appointee, mortgagee, selectee, abandonee,
amputee, callee
> er writer, driver, mocker, sinner, rider, leader, peacemaker,
boarder, beginner, winner, , eraser, conditioner, container,
extinguisher, sprayer
> ing building, clothing, absorbing, kidnapping, camping
> ment amazement, equipment, measurement, movement, embankment
> or actor, supervisor, visitor, inventor, objector, decorator,
transistor, ventilator
Nouns from adjectives
> ity rapidity, falsity jocosity, jollity, lability, magnanimity
> ness happiness, kindness, abruptness, absoluteness, callousness,
dampness, absent-mindedness, blessedness, all-at-once-ness,
donothingness, thingness
Adjectives from nouns
> ed pointed, blue-eyed, talented, bearded, diseased, dungereed, kind-
hearted, three-cornered, wounded, escaped
> esque Kafkaesque, Romanesque, arabesque, Byzantinesque,
Japanesque, statuesque, picturesque
> ful useful, successful, blushful, beautiful, hopeful, blissful
> ic atomic, Celtic, Gothic, angelic
> (c)al editorial, accidental, additional, anginal, accidental, comical,
theatrical, hysterical, aboriginal, canonical, categorical
> ish Swedish, Polish, Lettish, British, Danish, liquorish, mawkish,
3. WORD-FORMATION
modish, monkeyish, dilettantish, foolish

> less careless, childless, healthless, roomless, sinewless, showerless,
successless, changeless, countless
> ly friendly, cowardly, womanly, motherly, manly, fatherly, hourly,
daily, weekly, fortnightly, yearly
> ous ambitious, desirous, dangerous, hazardous, abdominous,
acetous, anonymous, bicephalous, righteous, dubious, spacious,
capricious, heterophyllous
>y sandy, hairy, healthy, dirty, horsy, nervy, newsy, pacificatory,
panicky, witty
Adjectives from verbs
> able drinkable, washable, acceptable, passable, drinkable, adaptable,
lovable
> ive attractive, explosive, apprehensive, pensive, meditative
Table 1. The Commonest English Derivational Suffixes
At the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries such
suffixes as -er; -ee; -ese; -ist have been particularly popular.
Words formed by means of the suffix -er have a generalized meaning of:
 Doer of the action: writer, bypasser, singer, swimmer, dancer,
jogger, fighter, diner, diver, hiker, dieter, acquirer, affirmer, authorizer,
avower, babbler, bystander, cardholder, caregiver, caretaker;
 An instrument: zipper, dish-washer, scraper, tighter, stinger,
lighter, flipper, eraser, buffer, chiller, chopper, eyeliner;
 Personal identification (way of life, belonging to a place, a group or
a philosophy), profession: astronomer, philosopher, hacker, hipster, designer,
photographer, prisoner, sniper, quitter, New Yorker, Londoner, northerner,
3.2 Affixation
villager, sixth-former, first-grader, bagpiper, bungler, latenighter, homesitter,

dolittler.
 An object possessing something denoted by the formative word (a
metonymic model): three-wheeler, double-decker, locker.
The suffix –ee has a general meaning of ‘the patient of an action’, the
one over whom the action is performed:
 Nouns derived from verbs denoting ‘a person affected by an
action’: employee, payee, trustee, trainee, tutee, referee, addressee, examinee,
abductee, acceptee, adoptee, advisee, amputee, arrestee, awardee,
communicate, conominee, dedicatee, deportee, designee, detainee, devotee,
dischargee, done, draftee, electee, evictee, expellee, hackee, internee,
interrogate, interrogee, interviewee, invitee, kidnappee, murderee, nominee,
nonemployee, relocate, rejectee, selectee, transportee;
 Nouns derived from adjectives, verbs or nouns denoting ‘a person
described as or concerned with’: absentee, refugee, escapee, mortgagee, alienee,
allottee, appellee, appointee, appraisee, assignee, attendee, bailee, bargee,
biographee, bribee, conferee, consignee, contactee, cotrustee, debauchee,
delegatee, departee, devisee, distributee, divorcee, drawee, endorsee, enlistee,
enrollee, entrée, evacuee, franchisee, grantee, indictee, indorsee, inductee,
legatee, lessee, libelee, licensee, listee, obligee, parolee, patentee, pawnee,
payee, permittee, persecutee, pledgee, pollee, presentee, promise, retiree,
returnee, signee, standee, transferee, warrantee.
Though, already in the year 1920 D.H. Lawrence uses this suffix to
denote a victim of murder in his novel “Women in love”. Observe how, using
various suffixes, the author explains his ideas:
It takes two people to make a murder: a murderer and a murderee. And
a murderee is a man who is murderable. And a man who is murderable is a man
who in a profound if hidden lust desires to be murdered6.
6
Lawrence H.D. Women in Love. – London: Penguin Books, 1996. – p.20.
3. WORD-FORMATION
Another popular noun-forming suffix is –ist, which is used to derive

words with the meaning ‘a person involved in or interested in’, such as
dramatist, publicist, atheist, socialist, physicist, motorist, violinist, Buddhist,
evolutionist, creationist, secularist, militarist, horticulturist, feminist, sexist,
ageist, animalliberationist, healthist, particularist, pugilist.
Among adjective-forming suffixes the suffix –ese must be mentioned

(which has the general meaning of ‘the language of’ or ‘the quality of’). By
analogy with such words as Chinese and Japanese such words as Americanese,
Washingtonese, jourmnalese, newspaperese, headlinese, golphese, telegraphese,
computerese, legalese, motherese, fashionese, officialese have been coined.
By analogy with the suffixation model, parts of compounds are

sometimes used to coin new words. In cases when many words are coined with
help of the same element, the meaning of this element becomes generalized and
its nature becomes close to that of a suffix. For example, in words sportswear,
menswear, footwear, nightwear, swimwear the element –wear has a generalized
meaning ‘a group of clothes used for a particular purpose’. Such words could
also be called ‘pseudo-compounds’(Зацний, 1998, с.6), as the meaning of the
second element is generalized.
At the end of the 20th – the beginning of the 21st centuries the process of
conversion of lexemes into affixes (or, rather, semi-affixes) has been
particularly active. Y.A. Zatsny names the following among the most productive
semi-suffixes (Зацний, 1998, с.6): -abuse, -friendly, -line, -person, -something,
-speak, -ware,-watch. Table 2 represents some derivatives with the most
productive English semi-suffixes.
>abuse childabuse, internetabuse, drug-abuse, alcohol-abuse,
substance-abuse, animal-abuse, police-abuse, peer-abuse
>friendly user-friendly, investor-friendly, market-friendly, earth-friendly,
3.2 Affixation
eco-friendly, life-friendly, environment-friendly, vegetation-

friendly, reader-friendly, kid-friendly, child-friendly, family-
friendly, bandwidth-friendly, human-friendly
>line hotline, helpline, topline, aidline, carline, dateline, hardline,
hemline, hipline, jawline, lifeline, mainline, midline, multiline,
neckline, plotline, roofline, sideline, silkaline, skyline,
streamline, timeline, touchline, trotline, truckline, waistline
>person chairperson, spokesperson, salesperson, businessperson,
layperson, anchorperson, cameraperson, congressperson,
craftsperson, draftsperson, handyperson, houseperson,
layperson, newsperson, waitperson, weatherperson
>somethin to denote age, more than:
g twenty-something, thirty-something, fourty-something, fifty-
something;
>speak fashionspeak, ecospeak, technospeak, doublespeak
(by analogy with Newspeak in G. Orwell’s ‘1984’)
>ware software, hardware, cheapware, wetware, barware, caneware,
chinaware, earthenware, freeware, giftware, kitchenware,
lusterware, metalware, silverware, tableware, teaware,
tinware, vapourware, willowware, woodenware, yellowware
>watch deathwatch, dogwatch, midwatch, outwatch, stopwatch,
nightwatch, daywatch.
Table 2. The Most Productive English Semi-suffixes
Table 3 shows other semi-suffixes that have been productive at the end
of the 20th – the beginning of the 21st centuries as well:
>addicted alcohol-addicted, cocaine-addicted, chocolate-addicted,
carbon-addicted, food-addicted, game-addicted, online-
3. WORD-FORMATION
addicted, internet-addicted, net-addicted, comfort-addicted;

>babble ecobabble, psychobabble, technobabble, eurobabble,
conspiracy-babble, officebabble, babybabble, mediababble,
Internetbabble, blonde-babble, sideshow-babble, actor-
babble, fashionbabble, abortion-babble, science-babble;
>fold in combination with numeral stems, Latin stems denoting
quantity and English pronouns of quantity:
threefold, fifteenfold, bifold, hundredfold, manyfold,
millionfold, multifold, severalfold, thousandfold, trifold
>head meaning ‘crazy about, addicted to’:
cyberhead, digithead, nethead, sleepyhead, dopehead;
>odd used with numerals, meaning ‘a bit more than’
thirty-odd, twenty-odd, fourty-odd, fifty-odd;
>aid medicaid, relief-aid, food-aid, cash-aid, health-aid, grant-aid,
net-aid;
>aware eco-aware, ecologically-aware, politically-aware.
>phobia technophobia, homophobia, computerphobia, photophobia
>ville cyberville, Pleasantville, Farmville, wordville,
> polis ideopolis, cosmopolis, megalopolis
>land badland, benchland, blackland, downland, dreamland,
fantasyland, filmland, parkland, screenland, tableland
>sphere blogosphere, bathysphere, photosphere
Table 3. Productive English Semi-suffixes
Sometimes slang becomes the source of wordbuilding components.
Thus, slangy nouns junkie (a drug-addict) and savvy (knowledge, expertise)
have started to function as semi-suffixes:
>junkie (synonymic to –head): data-junkie, java-junkie, sports-junkie,
adrenaline-junkie, vinyl-junkie, magazine-junkie, information-junkie,
3.2 Affixation
knowledge-junkie, TV-junkie, science-junkie, fastfood-junkie, thrill-junkie, LSD-

junkie, download-junkie, shoe-junkie, weather-junkie;
>savvy: business-savvy, techno-savvy, techsavvy, market-savvy, media-
savvy, computer-savvy, startup-savvy, Cosmo-savvy, theatre-savvy, stock-savvy,
crime-savvy, web-savvy, street-savvy,industry-savvy, production-savvy, money-
savvy, career-savvy, fitness-savvy, design-savvy, Eurosavvy.
Sometimes semi-suffixes are produced using shortened stems (rear or
initial parts of stems). For example, the element –tex in such names of cloth
types as lastex, goretex, Playtex is the initial part of the word textile.
The same way, the rear part of the word sputnik (-nik) has served to coin
a number of new lexemes with the general meaning ‘liking sth or doing sth
denoted by the stem’ (dognik, popcornik, latenik, fashionnik, US-nik, sweetnik)
or ‘often saying sth denoted by the stem’ (no-goodnik, enoughnik, so-whatnik,
allrightnik). Words coined by means of semi-affixes of this sort have a
telescopic nature.
The word hamburger, which originates from the name of a city in
Germany (Hamburg), has as a result of false etymology been interpreted as
stemming from two words: ham and burger. The part burger was later
lexicalised and now denotes almost any type of sandwich. Besides, it is used as a
semi-affix to form such words as chickenburger, fishburger, sausageburger,
vegeburger.
The other examples of semi-suffixes originated from rear parts of word
stems are:
>mail: goldmail, breakmail, greymail, greenmail (the words have been
coined by analogy with blackmail and denote different types of blackmailing).
>gate: donorgate, Irangate, filegate, travelgate, Monicagate,
Camillagate, tapegate, Raegangate (the words coied by analogy with Watergate
to denote different kinds of scandals, especially political scandals).
3. WORD-FORMATION
>cade: autocade, camelcade, motorcade, tractorcade have been coined

by analogy with cavalcade, as if the element >cade were to mean ‘a line of’,
‘procession’, although in fact this elemet is the result of the development of a
Latin ending (Зацний, 1998, с.6).
>holic: in the 80s-90s of the 20th century multiple words have been
coined to denote a person with any sort of addiction by analogy with alcoholic:
chocoholic, milkaholic, phonaholic, spendaholic. The element >(а)holic, taken
from the word alcoholic, has turned thus into a semi-suffix, although
etymologically the suffix in this word is >іс (Зацний, 1998, с.6). Some other
examples of the word with this semi-suffix are: foodoholic, golphoholic,
shopoholic, shoeholic, clothesholic, webaholic, cookoholic.
>erati: the word glitterati derived from glitter+literati in the middle of
the XXth century, and in the 90 s it became a mold for some new coinages to
denote people famous in certain spheres: culturati, cyberati, digerati, glamorati,
journarati, creating a new semi-suffix, >erati (people famous in a particular
sphere).
>zine: ‘a magazine’, ‘a regular issue’: letterzine, E-zine, catazine,
skazine, thriftzine, Webzine.
>tel: airtel, boatel, condotel (from hotel).
>nomics: burgernomics, cуbernomics, mediconomics, Reiganomics,
Clintonomics (from economics).
>plex: movieplex, megaplex, twelveplex (from multiplex).
>tainment: docutainment, casinotainment, edutainment, infotainment,
transportainment (from entertainment).
>cize: (from exercise): jazzercise, aquacise, aerobicise;
>thon: (from marathon): dancethon, telethon;
3.2 Affixation
>ocracy: (from aristocracy): do-ocracy, acre-ocracy, cheer-ocracy,

Wiki-ocracy, she-ocracy, hip-ocracy, dumb-ocracy7;
>stan (from Afganistan, Pakistan): nerdistan;
>wood (from Hollywood): Bollywood.
Prefixation is adding a word-forming morpheme (a prefix) to the

beginning of the base morpheme (the root or stem) to coin a new word. Prefixes
do not normally alter the word-class of the base. Productive prefixes normally
have a light stress on their first (or only) syllable, the main stress of the word
coming on the base: ,pre’fabricated.
Table 4 shows the common English prefixes.
With the meaning of negation
a> atheist, amoral, asexual, asymmetric
dis> disagree, disadvantage, disaffected, disallow, disapprove,
disarm, disband, disbelieve, disobey, disconsolate, discontent,
discourtesy, dishonest, disinterested, dislike, disorder,
disorganized, disuse
in> indecisive, infinite, inaccurate, inadmissible, inadequate,
inappropriate, inattentive, inauthentic, incivility, incomparable,
incompatible, incompetent, incomprehensive, indecipherable,
independent, indescribable, indestructible, insoluble, intransitive
non> nonaligned, noncitizen, noncombatant, noncommittal,
noncompliance, nonconformist, noncontroversial, non-
flammable, nonlinear, nonpartisan, nonprofit, nonproliferattion,
nonsmoker, nonslip, non-stick, non-stop, non-violent, non-white
un> unadorned, unaffected, unaffiliated, unacquainted, unapologetic,
unassisted, unbearable, unbecoming, unblemished, unblinking,
7
The examples retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1&search=-
ocracy&fulltext=Search&ns0=1 22:21, 10 February 2010.
3. WORD-FORMATION
uncensored, unconcealed, undemanding, undeniable, unhelpful,

unsustainable, untamed, unvoiced, unwaged, unwary, unwise
With the meaning of reversal
de> debunk, decode, decommission, decompose, decompress,
decrease, deflate, defraud, defrost, degenerate, dehumanize,
dehumidifier, deselect
dis> disarm, disable, disappear, discharge, disclose, discolour,
disconnect, discontinue, discourage, discover, disengage,
disentangle, disfigure, disgrace, disinfect, dismember, disunite
un> unbalance, unban, unbend, unbutton, uncork, undo, undress,
unfriend, unmask, untangle, untie, unveil, unwind
With disparaging meaning
ab> abnormal, abuse
mal> maladministration, malcontent, malformation, malfunction,
malnourished, malnutrition, malodorous, malpractice, maltreat
mis> misapply, misbehave, miscalculate, miscarriage, miscast,
misconceive, misconduct, misconstrue, misdiagnose, misinterpret,
mishear, misjudge, mislead, misname, misplace, misprint,
misquote, misshapen, mistreat, mistrust
pseudo> pseudoclassic, pseudointellectual, pseudopregnancy,
pseudorandom, pseudoscientific, pseudosophisticated,
pseudotuberculosis
With the meaning of size or degree

arch> archangel, archbishop, archdeacon, archdiocese, archduchess,
archduke, archenemy, archrival
co> cohabit, co-pilot, co-produce, cooperative, co-author, coexist
hyper> hyperactive, hypercritical, hypermarket, hypercard,
3.2 Affixation
hypersensitive, hypertension, hyperventilate

mega> megabucks, megahertz, megabyte, megaloan, megamerger,
megaphone, megastar, megaton, megawatt
mini> minibar, minicab, miniskirt, minibus, minidisc, minivan
out> outbid, outclass, outdo, outbid, outgrow, outlast, outmanoeuvre,
outnumber, outrun, outsell, outshine, outsmart, outvote,
outweigh, outwit
over> overbook, overcompensate, overcook, overcrowded,
overdeveloped, overdressed, overdue, overeat, overgrowth,
overheat, overload, overplay, overpopulated, overpriced,
overqualified, overreact, oversell, oversized, oversleep, overstay
sub> subcontract, subconscious, subculture, subeditor, subnormal,
subplot, subsonic,subset, substructure, subtitle, subtotal
super> superabundant, supercharged, supercomputer, superglue,
superhero, superhighway, superhuman, supermarket, superman,
supermodel, superpower, supersonic, superstar, superstate,
superwoman
sur> surtax, surcharge, surbase, surcoat, surpass, surplus, surprint,
surrealism
ultra> ultramodern, ultracasual, ultracool, ultrahot, ultracompetent,
ultraconservatism, ultracontemporary, ultradense, ultrafeminine,
ultralight, ultrarapid, ultraroyalist, ultrasensitive, ultraslick,
ultrasmart
under> underachieve, underage, undercharge, underclass, undercut,
underdone, underemployed, underestimate, underexpose,
underfed, underfunded, undernourished, underrate, undersell,
undersized, understaffed, underused, undervalue, underweight
vice> vice-captain, vice-chair, vice-president, viceregal, viceroy
3. WORD-FORMATION
With the meaning of orientation

anti> anti-aircraft, antibody, anti-choice, anticlockwise, anticoagulant,
anticyclone, antidepressant, antidote, antifreeze antigen,
antilock, antihero, antipersonnel, antiperspirant, antisocial,
antithesis
auto> autobiography, autocracy, autograph, autoimmune, autopilot,
autosuggestion
contra> contraindicate, contraflow, contradistinction,
contradistinguish,contraindicate, contralateral, contraposition
counter> counterclockwise, counteract, counteradvertising, counterassault,
counterbalance, countercultural, countereffort, countermeasure,
counterplay, counterproductive, countertendencies, countertrade,
countertradition, counterweight, counterworld
pro> proabortion, proactive, procreate, prolabor, pro-socialist, pro-
consul, provirus
With the meaning of location and distance
extra> extracellular, extracorporeal, extraembryonic, extragalactic,
extrajudicial, extralinguistic, extralogical, extramarital,
extramundane, extramural, extranuclear, extraordinary,
extraterrestrial, extraterritorial, extratextual, extravascular
fore> foreshore, foreleg, forearm, forebody, forebrain, forecourt,
foredeck, foreface, forefeet, forefinger, foreground, forehand,
forelady, forelock, forequarter, foreshorten, foreside, foreyard
inter> intermarry, interplay, interannual, intercaste, intercede,
interchange, interdepend, interdisciplinary, interdistrict,
interdivisional, interinstitutional, interinvolve, intermeddle,
interrelation, interreligious, intersubjective, intertie, intervillage
intra> intravenous, intranational, intracardiac, intracerebral,
3.2 Affixation
intradermal, intragalactic, intragenic, intramolecular,

intramural, intrapersonal, intraplate, intrapopulation,
intraspecies, intrastate, intravascular, intrazonal
pan> pan-African, pan-American, pandemic
super> supercontinent, supercorporation, superscript, superstructure
tele> telescope, telephone, telecast, telecommunication, telecourse,
telegragh, teleplay, teleport, teleprinter, teleview, television
trans> transplant, transatlantic, transact, transcend, transfiguration,
transformation, transliteration, transmigration, transplant,
transsexualism, transhipping
under> underarm, underbelly, undercarriage, underclothes, undercoat,
undercover, undercurrent, underfloor, underfoot, undergarment,
underground, underpass, underwater
With the meaning of time and order
after> after-birth, after-care, after-effect, after-glow, after-life, after-
math, after-shave, after-shock, after-taste, after-thought
ante> antechamber, antedate, antenatal, anteroom
ex> ex-husband, ex-wife, ex-president
fore> forewarn, foreshadow, forecast, forecheck, foreclose, foredate,
foredoom, forefather, forefeeling, forejudge, foregather,
foreknow, orenoon, foreplay, forerun, foresee, foreshock,
foreshow, foresight, forespeak, foretaste, foreteller, forethought
neo> neo-Gothic, neoclassical, neo-colonial, neoconservatism,
neoliberal, neonatal, neoorthodox, neorealism
paleo> paleolithic, paleobotany, paleoanthropology, paleobiology,
paleoclimatology, paleoecology, paleogeography, palaeographic,
paleopathology, paleozoology
post> postwar, postmodern, postaccident, postadolescent,
3. WORD-FORMATION
postapocalyptic, postarrest, postatomic, postattack, postbiblical,

postbourgeois, postclassical, postconvention, postfire,
posttraumatic, postvaccinal, postworkshop
pre> preassign, preboil, precensored, predefine, predestination,
predetermine, predigest, preelect, pre-exist, prefreeze,
prehistorical, preluncheon, premature, premodernism, prepay,
prepuberty, preregistration, prewrap, preschool, premarital
proto> protogalaxy, protohistorian, protohuman, protolanguage,
protoplanet, protoplasm, protostar, prototype, protozoology,
prototype, proto-European
re> recycle, renew, re-join, reinvent, remarry, remodel, relocate,
reenter, restart, retry, rewrite
With the meaning of number
bi> bicycle, bifocal, biceps, bilingual, billion, binary, bivalve,
bimonthly, bigamy, biathlete, bicarbonate, bisexual, biped,
binomial, bisect, biannual, bicameral, bicentennial, bicephalous,
biaxial, bicuspid, bilateral
demi> demigod, demitasse, demijohns, demilune, demimonde, demirep,
demisemiquaver, demivolt, demiworld
di> dioxide, digraph, dilemma, diode, disyllable, diatomic,
dichotomy, dihedral, dimorphism, dioxide, diphthong, dipolar,
disaccharide
mono> monorail, monodrama, monogram, monohybrid, monolayer,
monolingual, monomania, monomolecular, mononuclear
multi> multiracial, multiaxial, multicampus, multidisciplinary,
multiethnic, multihandicapped, multilingual, multinuclear,
multipower, multiservice, multistoried, multitasking,
multivariable, multivitamin, multiwavelength
3.2 Affixation
poly> polytechnic, polygamy, polycentrism, polychromatic, polyclinic,

polycyclic, polycystic, polydactyl, polyembryonic, polyglot,
polygon, polygraph, polymer, polymorph, polynomial,
polynuclear, polyrhythmic, polysyllable, polyvinyl
semi> semicircle, semidetached, semiautobiographical, semiautomatic,
semiconductor, semiconscious, semiconserative, semidarkness,
semideaf, semidocumentaries, semidwarf, semifitted, semiflexible,
semifluid, semitransparent, semiyearly
tri> trimaran, tripod, trialogue, triarchy, trichromatic, trident,
trifocal, trifold, trigram, trigraph, trilinear, trilingual, trimester,
Trinitarian, trinocular, trioxide, triphase, triplet, trisyllable,
tritheism, triumvirate, triunity, trivalent, triweekly
uni> unisex, unicycle, uniaxial, unicameral, unicellular, unicolor,
unicorn, unidimensional, unidiomatic,unidirectional, unification,
unilateral, unilinear, uniparental, unipod, unipolar, univalent,
univocal
Table 4. Common English Prefixes
Some prefixes take part in grammatical conversion: the words derived

with their help belong to a word class different from the original word.
The prefix a> turns verbs into adjectives: astride, aboard, adrift, ajar,
amiss, asleep, awake, awash.
Prefixes be> and en> participate in the process of deriving verbs from
nouns and adjectives:
be>: befriend, belittle, bejewel, bespatter, bewitch;
en/em>: encase, enflame, endanger,empower, enlarge.
Prefixes in the English language have different origin. Such prefixes as
over- and under- are former English adverbs.
3. WORD-FORMATION
There are a number of prefixes in the English language that are of Latin
and Greek origin. Among them super> (superhero, supermodel), anti>
(antispam, antiallergic), ultra> (ultrafashion, ultraheat), hyper> (hypertension,
hypersensitivity); micro> (microbiology, mocrogroup); mono> (monotonous,
monokini); bi> (bilateral, bifunctional); mini> (minivan, miniskirt); maxi>
(maxidress, maxicoat).
A case of false etymology has lead to deriving new words by means of
prefixation (the names of swimming suits for women bikini, trikini and
monokini). The word bikini was derived from the name of the island Bikini in
the Pacific. Later its initial part started to be perceived as a prefix with dual
semantics (denoting two of something), therefore bikini is understood as a
swimming suit consisting of two pieces, trikini – the one consisting of three
pieces, and monokini is a one-piece swimming suit.
At the end of the 20th century the prefix über- was borrowed into English
from German to denote the highest degree of a quality in semantic superlatives
instead of such prefixes as super- or ultra- (compare supermodel – übermodel;
ultrafashion - überfashion).
There are a number of semi-prefixes in the English language that are
by origin are similar to semi-suffixes. Among them are:
 Docu>: docuhistory, docufantasy, documusical, docuopera,
docurecreation, docudrama;
 Near-: nearaccident, neardeath, nearmonopoly;
 Petro>: (from petrol): petrocurrency, petroeconomy, petropower,
petrosheik;
 Woman>: woman-doctor, woman-officer, womanpower.
⁂
REVISION:
1. Give a definition to affixation.
2. Explain the meaning of such notions as derivational and
inflectional suffixes.
3.2 Affixation
3. Explain the difference between productive and unproductive

suffixes.
4. What is a relative meaning?
5. Give a definition of suffixation.
6. List the commonest derivational suffixes. What groups can
they be sorted into? Give as many examples as you can.
7. Which suffixes have been most popular at the beginning of the
21st century? Speak about their meanings. Illustrate your
answer with examples.
8. Explain the notion of semi-suffixes. What other terms can be
used to describe this phenomenon?
9. List the most productive semi-suffixes of the end of the 20 th –
the beginning of the 21st centuries.
10. Explain the mechanism of creating semi-suffixes from
shortened stems. Give examples.
11. Give a definition of prefixation.
12. Name the 9 types of common English prefixes. Give as many
examples as you can.
13. List English prefixes of Greek origin. Illustrate your answer
with examples.
14. What are some semi-prefixes used in the contemporary
English? Illustrate your answer with examples.
READING:
1. A Grammar of Contemporary English [Quirk R., Greenbaum S.,
Leech G., Svarvik J.]. – London: Longman, 1979. – 1120 p.
3. Зацний Ю.А. Розвиток словникового складу сучасної
англійської мови / Юрій Антонович Зацний. – Запоріжжя:
ЗДУ, 1998. – 431с.
4. Полюжин М. М. Функціональний і когнітивний аспекти
англійського словотворення / Михайло Михайлович
Полюжин. — Ужгород : Закарпаття, 1999. — 240 с.
Dissertations:
5. Коваленко Г. М. Англійська лексика моди ХХ-ХХІ століть:
Дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Г.М. Коваленко. — К.,
2005. — 244 с.
6. Левицкий А.Э. Функциональные изменения в системе
номинативных единиц современного английского языка:
Дис... д-ра филол. наук: 10.02.04 / А.Э. Левицкий. — К.,
1999. — 396 л.
3. WORD-FORMATION
7. Омельченко Л.Ф. Английская композита: структура и

семантика: Дис... доктора филологических наук: 10.02.04.
– К., 1989. – 477 с.
8. Руда О. В. Префіксальні конверсивні пари в англійській
мові: семантика, парадигматика, термінотвірність: Автореф.
дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / О. В. Руда. — Львів,
2007. — 20 с.
9. Полюжин М. М. Диахронно- семантический аспект
префиксального словообразования в английском языке:
Дис... д-ра филол. наук: 10.02.04 / Полюжин Михаил
Михайлович. — М.; Ужгород, 1993. — 416 c.
3.3 COMPOUNDING
Definition of compounds / Endocentric vs exocentric compounds /

Bahuvrihe /Compounds spelling / Stress patterns /
Chief grammatical relations between compound components /
Compound nouns / Compound nouns of verbal origin /
Compound adjectives / Compound verbs /
Compound prepositions / Multicomponent compounds /
A compound is a word (lexeme) that consists of more than one free
morpheme (more than one lexical stem). Compounding is considered to be the
most productive word-building model in contemporary English (Зацний, 1998).
On the surface, there appear to be two (or more) lexemes present, but in
fact the parts are functioning as a single item, which has its own meaning and
grammar. So, “flower-pot does not refer to a flower and a pot, but to a single
object. It is pronounced as a unit, with a single main stress, and it is used
grammatically as a unit – its plural, for example, is flower-pots, and not
*flowers-pots.
The unity of flower-pot is also signalled by the orthography, but this is
not a foolproof criterion. If the two parts are linked by a hyphen, as here, or are
printed without a space ('solid'), as in flowerpot, then there is no difficulty. But
the form flower pot will also be found, and in such cases, to be sure we have a
3.2 Affixation
compound (and not just a sequence of two independent words), we need to look
carefully at the meaning of the sequence and the way it is grammatically used.
This question turns up especially in American English, which uses fewer
hyphens than does British English” (Crystal, 1995, p.129). Unlike a word-
combination, a real compound acts as a grammatical unit, has a unified stress
pattern, and has a meaning which is in some way different from the sum of its
parts.
According to the correlation between meaning and structure, compounds
can be described either like endocentric or like exocentric. An endocentric
compound consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic
meaning of the whole compound, and a modifier, which restricts this meaning.
For example, the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog
is the modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Obviously, an
endocentric compound tends to be of the same part of speech (word class) as its
head.
The English language is typically a left-branching language, which
means that the modifying components of the compound usually go before the
head component.
Exocentric compounds do not always have a head, and their
meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from their constituent parts. For
example, the English compound white-collar (meaning office-worker) is neither
a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric compound, the word class is
determined lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a
must-have is not a verb but a noun.
The type of exocentric compounds where the head component of the
word denotes a certain object, possessed by the object denoted by the whole
compound, of a quality denoted by the modifying component, is called
bahuvrihe. In other words, the meaning of this type of compound can be
3. WORD-FORMATION
glossed as ‘(one) whose B is A’, where B is the second element of the compound
and A the first.
Thus, a redhead is the person whose hair (head) is red. Similarly, a
blockhead is also not a head, but a person with a head that is as hard and
unreceptive as a block (i.e. stupid). And someone who is barefoot is not a foot –
they're someone with a foot that is bare. And, outside of veterinary surgery, a
lion-heart is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion (in its
bravery, courage, fearlessness, etc.).
Compounds Spelling
 The solid or closed form in which two usually moderately short
words appear together as one. Solid compounds most likely consist of short
(monosyllabic) units that often have been established in the language for a long
time. Examples are housewife, lawsuit, wallpaper, etc.
 The hyphenated form in which two or more words are connected
by a hyphen. Compounds that contain affixes, such as house-build(er) and
single-mind(ed)(ness), as well as adjective-adjective compounds and verb-verb
compounds, such as blue-green and freeze-dry, are often hyphenated.
Compounds that contain particles, such as mother-of-pearl and salt-and-pepper,
are also often hyphenated.
 The open or spaced form consisting of newer combinations of
usually longer words, such as distance learning, player piano, lawn tennis, etc.
Usage in the US and in the UK differs (with the US English preferring
open forms and UK English preferring hyphenated forms) and often depends on
the individual choice of the writer rather than on a hard-and-fast rule; therefore,
open, hyphenated, and closed forms may be encountered for the same compound
noun, such as the triplets container ship, container-ship and containership; as
well as particle board, particle-board and the odd-looking particleboard.
3.2 Affixation
Stress Patterns, such as stresses placed on particular syllables, may

indicate whether the word group is a compound or whether it is an ‘Adjective +
Noun’ phrase. A compound usually has a falling intonation: bláckboard, the
Whíte House, as opposed to the phrases bláck bóárd. Note that this rule does not
apply in all contexts. For example, the stress pattern whíte house would be
expected for the compound, which happens to be a proper name, but it is also
found in the emphatic negation "No, not the black house; the white house!"
Compounds are most readily classified into types based on the

grammatical relations between their components. Earthquake, for example,
can be paraphrased as 'the earth quakes’, and the relation of earth to quake is
that of subject to verbal predicate. Popcorn can be paraphrased as 'the corn
pops', and the relation of corn to pops is also that of subject to verbal predicate.
The order of the elements (as in this example) does not necessarily correspond
to that found in a grammatical sentence. Similarly, a crybaby is also subject +
verbal predicate ('the baby cries'), despite its back to front appearance.
Scarecrow is verb + object ('scares crows'). Some involve slightly trickier
grammatical relations such as playgoer, windmill, goldfish, and homesick.
Compound Nouns
The majority of endocentric English compounds have a noun in base
with modifying adjectives or nouns. The ‘Noun + Noun’ is the most productive
word-building structure in contemporary English (e.g. flight-attendant).
Compound nouns frequently have adjectives as modifying components (e.g. big-
board).
3. WORD-FORMATION
In general, the meaning of a compound noun is a specialization of the

meaning of its head. The modifier limits the meaning of the head. This is most
obvious in descriptive compounds, in which the modifier is used in an
attributive or appositional manner. A nightclub is a kind of club which
(generally) functions at night.
In determinative compounds, however, the relationship is not
attributive. For example, a footstool is not a particular type of stool that is like a
foot. Rather, it is a stool for one's foot or feet (it can be used for sitting on, but
that is not its primary purpose). In a similar manner, the office manager is the
manager of an office; an armchair is a chair with arms, and a raincoat is a coat
against the rain.
Compound Nouns of Verbal origin
A type of a fairly common compound is formed of a verb and its object,
and in effect transforms a simple verbal clause into a noun (spoilsport, killjoy,
spendthrift, cutthroat, know-nothing).
A special kind of composition is incorporation, of which noun
incorporation into a verbal root is most prevalent (backstabbing, breastfeed).
The noun incorporated into a verb is usually an instrument of an action. Object
incorporation is also quite common: secret-keeper, pamphlet-maker. Another
model of incorporation is Preposition + Verb: an outcry, a bypass, a downshift.
Compound Adjectives
A compound adjective is a modifier of a noun. It consists of two or

more morphemes of which the left-hand component limits or changes the
modification of the right-hand one, as in the dark-green dress, dark limits the
green that modifies dress.
3.2 Affixation
Solid compound adjectives

There are some well-established permanent compound adjectives that
have become solid over a longer period, especially in American usage:
earsplitting, eyecatching, and downtown. However, in British usage, these, apart
from downtown, are more likely written with a hyphen: ear-splitting, eye-
catching. Points of the compass are generally solid: northwest, northwester,
northwesterly, northwestwards, but North-West Frontier. Hyphenated
compound adjectives
A compound adjective is hyphenated if the hyphen helps the reader
differentiate a compound adjective from two adjacent adjectives that each
independently modify the noun. Compare the following examples:
acetic acid solution: a bitter solution producing vinegar or acetic acid
(acetic + acid + solution);
acetic-acid solution: a solution of acetic acid.
The hyphen is unneeded when capitalization or italicization makes
grouping clear:
old English scholar: an old person who is English and a scholar, or an
old scholar who studies English.
Old English scholar: a scholar of Old English.
If, however, there is no risk of ambiguities, it may be written without a
hyphen: Sunday morning walk.
Hyphenated compound adjectives may have been formed originally by
an adjective preceding a noun: round table → round-table discussion; blue sky
→ blue-sky law, red light → red-light district, four wheels → four-wheel drive
(the singular, not the plural, is used).
Others may have originated with a verb preceding an adjective or
adverb: feel good → feel-good factor, buy now, pay later → buy-now pay-later
purchase.
3. WORD-FORMATION
Yet others are created with an original verb preceding a preposition: stick
on → stick-on label, walk on → walk-on part, stand by → stand-by fare, roll on,
roll off → roll-on roll-off ferry.
The following compound adjectives are always hyphenated when they

are not written as one word:
 An adjective preceding a noun to which -d or -ed has been added as a
past-participle construction, used before a noun: loud-mouthed hooligan,
middle-aged lady, rose-tinted glasses.
 A noun, adjective, or adverb preceding a present participle: an awe-
inspiring personality, a long-lasting affair, a far-reaching decision.
 With numbers spelled out or as numerics in initial position: seven-
year itch, five-sided polygon, 20th-century poem, 30-piece band, tenth-story
window.
 Compound adjectives with high- or low-: high-level discussion, low-
price markup.
 Colours in compounds: a dark-blue sweater, a reddish-orange dress.
 Fractions as modifiers are hyphenated: five-eighth inches, but if
numerator or denominator are already hyphenated, the fraction itself does not
take a hyphen: a thirty-three thousandth part.
 Fractions used as nouns have no hyphens: I ate only one third of the
pie.
 Comparatives and superlatives in compound adjectives also take
hyphens: the highest-placed competitor, a shorter-term loan.
 However, a construction with most is not hyphenated: the most
respected member.
 Compounds including two geographical modifiers: Afro-Cuban,
African-American (sometimes), Anglo-Asian. But Central American.
3.2 Affixation
The following compound adjectives are not normally hyphenated:

 Where there is no risk of ambiguity: a Sunday morning walk.
 Left-hand components of a compound adjective that end in -ly that
modify right-hand components that are past participles (ending in -ed): a hotly
disputed subject, a greatly improved scheme, a distantly related celebrity.
 Compound adjectives that include comparatives and superlatives
with more, most, less or least: a more recent development, the most respected
member, a less opportune moment, the least expected event.
 Ordinarily hyphenated compounds with intensifying adverbs in
front of adjectives: very much admired classicist, really well accepted proposal.
Compound Verbs
From a morphological point of view, some compound verbs are difficult
to analyze because several derivations are plausible. Blacklist, for instance,
might be analyzed as an Adjective + Verb compound, or as an Adjective +
Noun compound that becomes a verb through zero derivation. Most compound
verbs originally have the collective meaning of both components, but some of
them later gain additional meanings that may predominate the original, accurate
sense. Therefore, sometimes the resultant meanings are seemingly barely related
to the original contributors.
Compound verbs composed of a noun and verb are comparatively rare,
and the noun is generally not the direct object of the verb. In English,
compounds such as *bread-bake or *car-drive do not exist. Yet we find literal
action words, such as breastfeed, taperecord and washing instructions on
clothing as for example hand wash.
Here are the most common patterns of compound verb derivation:
 Preposition + Verb: overrate, underline, outrun.
 Adverb + Verb: downsize, upgrade.
 Adjective + Verb: whitewash, blacklist, foulmouth.
3. WORD-FORMATION
 Noun + Verb: browbeat, sidestep, manhandle.

 Preposition + Noun: out-Herod, out-fox.
Compound Prepositions
Compound prepositions formed by prepositions and nouns are common
in English (on top of).
Multicomponent Compounds
Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can
be constructed recursively by combining two words at a time. The compound
science fiction writer, for example, can be constructed by combining science and
fiction, and then combining the resulting compound with writer. Some
compounds, such as salt and pepper or mother-of-pearl, cannot be constructed
in this way, however. They have an idiomatic origin.
⁂
REVISION:
1. Give a definition of compounds. What is the difference
between a compound and a word-combination?
2. Explain the notion of ‘endocentric compounds’. What is their
structure?
3. What is an exocentric compound? Give examples.
4. Give a definition of bahuvrihe. Exemplify your answer.
5. What are the main types of the compounds spelling? Are
there any differences between American English and British
English variants?
6. What are the main stress patterns in compounds as opposed
to the word-combinations?
7. List some grammatical relations between compound noun
components. Give examples.
8. What are the chief grammatical relations between the
components of compound adjectives? Give examples.
9. What are the two main types of compound nouns? Give
examples.
10. Explain the notion of incorporation. Give examples.
11. When do compound adjectives receive solid spelling? Give
examples.
12. List the cases when a compound adjective should be spelt
through a hyphen. Give examples.
13. Which compound adjectives are not normally hyphenated?
Give examples.
3.2 Affixation
14. What are the most frequent grammatical structures of

compound verbs? Give examples.
15. What do you know about multicomponent compounds?
READING:
2. Kortmann B. English Linguistics: Essentials / Brend Kortmann.
– Berlin: Cornelsen. – 2005.
3. Plag I. Word-formation in English / Ingo Plag. – Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. – 2003.
4. Зацний Ю.А. Розвиток словникового складу англійської
мови в 80ті-90ті роки ХХ століття / Юрій Антонович Зацний.
– Запоріжжя : Вид-во Запорізького держ. ун-ту, 1998. —
430с.
5. Царев П. В. Сложные слова в английском языке / П. В.
Царев. – М. : Изд-во Москов . ун-та, 1980. – 126 с.
Dissertations:
6. Васильєва О. Г. Концептуальна семантика субстантивних
композитів-бахуврихі (на матеріалі антропосемічної лексики
сучасної англійської мови): Автореф. дис... канд. філол.
наук: 10.02.04 / О. Г. Васильєва — К., 2006. — 20 с.
7. Compound (linguistics). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics) - 6
September 2009 at 17:26
3.4 MINOR LINEAR DERIVATION TYPES
Back-formation / Clipping / Blending / Reduplication / Acronyms /

Iconic derivation
Back-formation consists in removing seeming or real suffixes from a

word to coin a new word. In case when the suffix is real, it did not immediately
participate in building the source word. For example, the verb to typewrite stems
from the noun typewriter, which in its turn was derived by combining the stems
type and writer.
3. WORD-FORMATION
The singular noun asset is a back-formation from what looks a plural

form assets. However, assets is originally not a plural; it is a loan-word from
Anglo-Norman asetz (modern French assez). The -s was erroneously taken to be
a plural inflection.
Many words came into English by this route: pease was once a mass
noun but was reinterpreted as a plural, leading to the back-formation pea. The
noun statistic was likewise a back-formation from the field of study statistics. In
Britain the word burgle came into use in the 19th century as a back-formation
from burglar (although in some parts of North America burglarize is usually
used) (Wikipedia, 2009).
The other examples of words coined by means of back-formation are to
butle (from butler); to edit (from editor). Similarly, television gave rise to
televise, double-glazing preceded double-glaze, and babysitter preceded babysit.
“Each year sees a new crop of back-formations. Some are coined
because they meet a real need, as when a group of speech therapists in Reading
in the 1970s felt they needed a new verb to describe what they did – to therap.
Some are playful formations, as when a tidy person is described as couth, kempt,
or shevelled. Back-formations often attract criticism when they first appear, as
happened in the late 1980s to explete (to use an expletive) and accreditate (from
accreditation)” (Crystal, 1995, p.130).
Clipping is deriving new words by means of omitting a rear or an initial
part of a word. The beginning or the ending of the word functions instead of the
full word. In most cases, the meaning of the word remains unchanged, but it
acquires a new stylistic colouring.
In case of omission of the rear part of a word, back clipping takes place,
for example bra (brassiere), cable (cablegram), demo (demonstration) doc
(doctor), exam (examination), fab (fabulous), gas (gasoline), glam (glamorous),
gym (gymnastics, gymnasium), lab (laboratory), math (mathematics), memo
3.2 Affixation
(memorandum), mod (modern), pop (popular), pub (slang shortening of public

house, which originally meant ‘any building open to the public’), trad
(traditional jazz), tux (tuxedo). Another term for this type of clipping is
apocopation.
In cases of fore-clipping (aphaeresis), the initial part of the word is
omitted: bus (autobus), chute (parachute), coon (racoon), gator (alligator), pike
(turnpike), phone (telephone), plane (aeroplane), varsity (university).
In middle clipping or syncope, the middle of the word is retained.
Examples are: flu (influenza), fridge (refrigerator), tec (detective), polly
(apollinaris), jams (pyjamas), shrink (head-shrinker).
There are also several clippings which retain material from more than
one part of the word, such as maths (UK), gents, and specs.
Several clipped forms also show adaptation, such as fries (from French
fried potatoes), Betty (from Elizabeth), and Bill (from William).
Sometimes clipping is combined with adding the suffix –o to the clipped
stem: Afro (African), boho (bohemian), disco (discotheque), logo (logogramme).
Blending is also described by the term telescopy. This type of word-

formation suggests fusing two or more words or parts of words to produce a
combined meaning. The result of blending is called a blend, a portmanteau or
a telescopic word.
The term portmanteau to denote this kind of words was first used by
Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
(1871). In the book, Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice words from
Jabberwocky, saying, "Well, slithy means lithe and slimy ... You see it's like a
portmanteau— there are two meanings packed up into one word." 8 Carroll often
used such words to a humorous effect in his work.
8
L. Carroll. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871).
3. WORD-FORMATION
In contemporary linguistics the term blending is more common.

Typically, a blend is a word that is formed by combining both sounds and
meanings from two or more words: the derived word has a part in the middle
common to the both initial words, e.g. spork or foon from spoon/fork and
fork/spoon, respectively; animatronics from animation and electronics; or
blaxploitation from black and exploitation.
Sometimes the letter/sound at the boundary is common to both
components, e.g., smog (smoke + fog). In the other cases, both components
contain a common sequence of letters or sounds. The blend is composed of the
beginning of the first component, the common part and the end of the second
component. For example, the word Californication, popularized by the Red Hot
Chili Peppers, sounds as if it were California + fornication. Other examples of
this type of blend are: motel (motorway + hotel); slanguage (slang + language).
In case of the word skorts (skirt + shorts) the beginning of the first word
is joined to the ending of the second word, and, besides, the deriving stems have
common initial letter and an inside element rt.
The word chortle (chuckle + snort) is an example of a blend, where
elements of both deriving words are intermixed, although they have no any
common elements. The same type of blend is the word polyester (a type of
cloth) – a combination of the English noun polymer with the German essigäther
(Engl. acetic ether).
In some blends the beginning of one word is prepended to the end of the
other, e.g., brunch (breakfast + lunch); edutainment (education +
entertainment); Eurovision (European + television); heliport (helicopter +
airport); infomercial (information + commercial); shortalls (shorts + overalls).
In rare cases the beginning of one word is combined with a short full
word at the end, e.g. alcopop (alcohol + pop).
3.2 Affixation
Here are some more examples of blends: advertorial (advertisement +

editorial); Chunnel (Channel + Tunnel); Oxbridge (Oxford + Cambridge);
Yarvard (Yale + Harvard); guesstimate (guess + estimate); squaerial (square +
aerial); toytoons (toys + cartoons); breathalyser (breath + analyser); affluenza
(affluence + influenza); infomercials (information + commercials);
dockominium (dock + condominium).
In most cases, the second element is the one which controls the meaning
of the whole. So, brunch is a kind of lunch, not a kind of breakfast – which is
why the lexeme is brunch, and not, say, *lunkfast. Similarly, toytoon is a kind of
cartoon (one which generates a series of shop toys), not a kind of toy. “Blending
seems to have increased in popularity in the 1980s, being increasingly used in
commercial and advertising contexts. Products are sportsational, swimsational
and sexational. TV provides dramacons, docufantasies and rockumentaries”
(Crystal, 1995, p.130). The forms were felt to be quite eye-catching and
exciting, but not all of them have become part of the language lexical stock.
Reduplication is creating new words by means of repeating the same

or similar elements. Full (or exact) reduplication reminds of baby-talk: frou-
frou (type of dress), bonbon, bye-bye, couscous, din-din, fifty-fifty, gee-gee, go-
go (shoe style), goody-goody, knock-knock, night-night, no-no, so-so.
Partial reduplication, i.e. using two stems similar in spelling or
pronunciation, is more frequent, particularly in colloquial language and the
domains of fashion and popular alternative cultures. Here belong cases of:
Rhyming reduplication: abracadabra, boogie-woogie, bow-wow, drape
shape, harum-scarum, helter-skelter, hi-fi, hocus-pocus, honey-bunny, hot-pot,
hotch-potch, hurry-scurry, lovey-dovey, nitty-gritty, nitwit, okey-dokey, pall-
mall, picnic, razzle-dazzle, reet pleat, sci-fi, super-duper, teenie-weenie, tidbit,
tie-dye, touchy-feely, walkie-talkie, willy-nilly, wingding, zoot suit.
3. WORD-FORMATION
Ablaut reduplication (changing the inner vowel of the second element):

bric-a-brac, chit-chat, criss-cross, ding-dong, flip-flop, hip-hop, kitty-cat, knick-
knack, ping-pong, see-saw, sing-song, splish-splash, tic-tac-toe, tick-tock, tip-
top, wish-wash, zig-zag.
Reduplicatives are used in a variety of ways:
 Some simply imitate sounds: ding-dong, bow-wow.
 Some suggest alternative movements: flip-flop, ping-pong.
 Some are disparaging: dilly-dally, wishy-washy.
 And some intensify meaning: teeny-weeny, tip-top.
Mass media and advertisers frequently use phonetic reduplication (the
repetition of the same sounds in a word-combination) in order to attract
attention. Among the collocations, often used by media, are: disco diva, bold
gold, petite fit, makeup maven, luxe looks, cool look, beauty beat.
Abbreviations are words produced by means of combining initial

letters or parts of two or more words.
“Often thought to be an exclusively modern habit, the fashion for
abbreviations can be traced back over 150 years. In 1839, a writer in the New
York Evening Tatter comments on what he calls 'the initial language ... a species
of spoken short-hand, which is getting into very general we among loafers and
gentlemen of the fancy, besides Editors, to whom it saves much trouble in
writing'. He was referring to OK ('all correct'), PDQ ('pretty damn quick') – two
which have lasted – GT ('gone to Texas'), LL ('liver loafers), and many other
forms introduced, often with a humorous or satirical intent, by society people
(Crystal, 1995, p.120).
The fashionable use of abbreviation – a kind of society slang –comes and
goes in waves, though it is never totally absent. In the XX th century, however,
3.2 Affixation
there started an abbreviation boom with the emergence of abbreviations in

science, technology, and other special fields, such as cricket, baseball, drug
trafficking, the armed forces, and the media.
The reasons for using abbreviated forms are: linguistic economy,
succinctness and precision, conveying a sense of social identity (to use an
abbreviated form is to be 'in the know’ – part of the social group to which the
abbreviation belongs).
There exist several types of abbreviation:
Initialisms are the items which are spoken as individual letters, such as
BBC, DJ, MP, EEC, e.g.. They are also called alphabetisms. The vast majority
of abbreviations fall into this category. Not all of them use only the first letters
of the constituent words: PhD, for example, uses the first two letters of the word
philosophy, and GHQ and TV take a letter from the middle of the word.
Acronyms are the initialisms which are pronounced as single words,

such as NATO, laser, UNESCO, and SALT (talks). Such items would never have
periods separating the letters – a contrast with initialisms, where punctuation is
often present (especially in older styles of English). However, some linguists do
not recognize a sharp distinction between acronyms and initialisms, but use the
former term for both.
Another group of acronyms are those produced by means of initial parts
of their constituent words bigger than one letter. One of the most well-known
examples is cyborg, a term which is commonly used to refer to a cybernetic
organism. Other examples are: Velcro (velvet + crochet) – a name of a peculiar
fabric type that sticks to itself and is used instead of buttons in clothes; adidas –
a sportswear company name that is a combination of the initial parts of its
founder’s name (Adi Dassler).
3. WORD-FORMATION
There are also awkward cases - abbreviations which do not fall clearly
into neither of the above categories. Some forms can be used either as
initialisms or acronyms (UFO – 'U F 0' or 'you-foe'). Some mix these types in
one word (CDROM, pronounced 'see-dee-rom'; JPEG, pronounced ‘jay-peg’
and MS-DOS, pronounced ‘em-es-dos’). These abbreviations are sometimes
described as acronym–initialism hybrids. Some can form part of a larger word,
using affixes (ex-JP, pro-BBC, ICBMs). Some are used only in writing (Mr, St.
are always pronounced in full in speech).
There also exist facetious forms, used particularly in electronic
comunication (TGIF –Thank God It's Friday).
Traditionally, in English, abbreviations have been written with a full stop
in place of the deleted part. In the case of most acronyms and initialisms, each
letter is an abbreviation of a separate word and, in theory, should get its own
termination mark. Such punctuation is diminishing with the belief that the
presence of all-capital letters is sufficient to indicate that the word is an
abbreviation. Some influential style guides, such as that of the BBC, no longer
require punctuation, or even proscribe it. Larry Trask, American author of The
Penguin Guide to Punctuation, states categorically that, in British English, "this
tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete" (Trask, 1997). Nevertheless,
some American style guides still require periods in certain instances. The New
York Times’ guide recommends separating each segment with a period when the
letters are pronounced individually, as in K.G.B., C.I.A., but not when
pronounced as a word, as in NATO. When a multiple-letter abbreviation is
formed from a single word, periods are generally proscribed, although there are
exceptions. TV, for example, may stand for a single word (television), and is
generally spelled without punctuation (except in the plural). Although PS stands
for the single word postscript (or the Latin postscriptum), it is often spelled with
periods (P.S.).
3.2 Affixation
Some style manuals also base the letters' case on their number. The New
York Times, for example, keeps NATO in all capitals (while several guides in the
British press may render it Nato), but uses lowercase in Unicef (from United
Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) because it is more than four
letters. Some abbreviations undergo assimilation into ordinary words, when they
become common: for example, when technical terms become commonplace
among non-technical people. Often they are then written in lower case, and
eventually it is widely forgotten that the word was derived from the initials of
others: scuba (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) and laser
(Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), for instance.
In some cases, an acronym or initialism has been turned into a name,
creating a pseudo-acronym (this term is generally used for all abbreviations
of the type, in spite of the fact that most of them are actually initialisms).This
trend has been common with many companies hoping to retain their brand
recognition while simultaneously moving away from what they saw as an
outdated image: American Telephone and Telegraph became AT&T, SBC
followed suit changing from Southwestern Bell Corporation, Kentucky Fried
Chicken became KFC, British Petroleum became BP to emphasize that it was no
longer only an oil company (captured by its motto ‘beyond petroleum’), Silicon
Graphics, Incorporated became SGI to emphasize that it was no longer only a
computer graphics company. DVD now has no official meaning: its advocates
couldn't agree on whether the initials stood for Digital Video Disc or Digital
Versatile Disc, and now both terms are used.
Initialisms may have advantages in international markets: for example,
some national affiliates of International Business Machines are legally
incorporated as IBM (or, for example, IBM Canada) to avoid translating the full
name into local languages. Similarly, UBS is the name of the merged Union
Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation.
3. WORD-FORMATION
Rebranding can lead to redundant-acronym syndrome, as when

Trustee Savings Bank became TSB Bank. A few high-tech companies have taken
the redundant acronym to the extreme: for example, ISM Information Systems
Management Corp. and SHL Systemhouse Ltd. Another common example is
RAM memory, which is redundant because RAM (random-access memory)
includes the initial of the word memory; NIC card is similarly redundant, NIC
standing for network-interface card. PIN stands for personal identification
number, obviating the second word in PIN number. Other examples include
ATM machine (Automatic Teller Machine machine), EAB bank (European
American Bank bank), HIV virus (Human Immunodeficiency Virus virus), SAT
test (Scholastic Achievement/Aptitude/Assessment Test test, now simply SAT
Reasoning Test).
There are a number of words in the English language that are not
acronyms originally, but were interpreted as such later. The words interpreted as
acronyms are sometimes called backronyms. For example, the word posh
(fashionable, chic) did not originally stand for Port Outward Starboard Home
(referring to the 1st class cabins shaded from the sun on outbound voyages East,
and homeward heading voyages West). The musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
popularised this erroneous etymology.
The same way, the word Golf is not an acronym for Gentlemen Only,
Ladies Forbidden as has been suggested. It is actually derived from the Scottish
name for the game, gowf.
SOS, the international distress signal, chosen solely for its easy
recognizability in Morse code (...---...), as drawn up in the International Wireless
Telegraph Convention, was later interpreted as standing gor the English save our
ship or even save our souls.
3.2 Affixation
GI, slang for a U.S. soldier, often thought to stand for Government Issue
as G.I. was supposedly stamped on soldiers' equipment. Sometimes thought to
stand for General Infantry, or in Europe for General Invasion. In fact, the
abbreviation GI comes from galvanized iron, GI being used in US Army
bookkeeping to describe items such as trash cans made from it.
Iconic derivation is quite a rare word-formation type that consists in
using alphabetic letters to denote different kinds of shape. The term iconic
comes from semiotics, where it is used to denote a type of signs. “According to
Charles Peirce an icon is a sign exhibiting a resemblance with the object it
denotes. An iconic sign in language is one whose signans (the signifier) shows a
relation of similarity or analogy with signatum (the signified)” (Galéas, 1997). A
photograph is a typical example of an iconic sign.
Iconic words are the words consisting of two parts – the first part being a
letter of the English alphabet used to show shape, and the second – usually a
noun that names an object whose shape is described: A-skirt, H-line (dress), T-
junction, T-strap (shoes), S-curve, V-neck, X-crossing, Y-silhouette.
⁂
REVISION:
1. Give an extended definition of back-formation.
2. Speak about clipping and its types. Exemplify your answers.
3. Explain the notion of blending. What other terms are used for
this phenomenon? What types of clipping do you know? Give
examples.
4. What is reduplication? Describe its types, illustrating your
answer with examples.
5. Give a definition of abbreviation. What are the reasons for
using abbreviation?
6. Speaks about the types of abbreviation with as many
examples as possible.
7. What spelling rules apply to abbreviations?
8. Explain the notion of pseudo-acronyms. Exemplify your
answer.
9. What is redundant abbreviation syndrome? Give examples.
10. Give an extended definition of backronyms.
11. What is iconic derivation? Illustrate your answer with
examples.
3. WORD-FORMATION
READING:
2. Гусак І. П. Структура та прагматика фрагментованих
лексичних одиниць у сучасній англійській мові (на матеріалі
мови мас-медіа): дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Гусак
Ігор Петрович. — Львів., 2005. — 226 c.
3. Acronym and initialism. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym - 6 September 2009 at
00:35.
4. Back-formation. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[Електронний ресурс]. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-
formation – 27 August 2009 at 15:17.
5. Backronym. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym - 9 September 2009
at 09:35.
6. Galèas C.G. Scalar Categorization [Електронний ресурс] /
C.G. Galèas // The Web Journal of Modern Language
Linguistics – 1998. – Issue 3. – P. 10.
http://wjmll.ncl.ac.uk/issue03/crocco.htm
7. Trask L. Abbreviations [Електронний ресурс] / L.Trask. –
1997.
http://www.informatics.susx.ac.uk/doc/punctuation/node28.ht
ml Copyright © Larry Trask, 1997.
3.5 NON-LINEAR DERIVATION
Definition of non-linear derivation /Definition of conversion /

Types of word-class conversion / Conversion between language levels /
Conversion within one word-class / Compression /Partial substantivation /
Noun adjunct /Metaphoric nomination / Connotation shift
Unlike the cases of linear derivation, non-linear derivation process

takes place without changes of the word-form. S.V. Semchinsky uses the term
3.2 Affixation
‘inner derivation’ (Уфимцева, 1977, с.53). Non-linear derivation implies

redistribution (Уфимцева, 1977, с. 64, 65): the transition to a different part of
speech (i.e. the change of word class) and, respectively, the change of paradigm.
Conversion is one of the inner derivation types. Lexemes change their
word-class without the addition of an affix. The items chiefly produced in this
way are nouns, adjectives, and verbs – especially the verbs which come from
nouns (de-nominal verbs, e.g. to bottle) and the nouns which come from verbs
(de-verbal nouns, e.g. a doubt).
A specific type of de-verbal nouns come from phrasal verbs: a cutoff (the
line where something was cut off), a knockoff (a fake copy), hold-ups (strings
that hold up stockings).
Not all the senses of a lexeme are usually carried through into the de-
rived form, however. The noun paper has several meanings, such as 'newspa-
per', 'wallpaper', and 'academic article'. The verb to paper relates only to the
second of these. Lecturers and editors may paper their rooms, but not their audi-
ences or readers.
Thus, when the noun sign shifts to the verb sign(ed) without any change
in the word-form we can say this is a case of conversion. Compare:
 Gore showed no sign of pain or remorse.
 The Goreans quickly pointed out that there had already been a
hand count in the Florida presidential race, and that Bush himself had signed a
law calling for their use in Texas.
However, it does not mean that this process takes place in all the cases
of homophones. Sometimes, the connection has to do with coincidences or old
etymological ties that have been lost. For example, mind and matter are cases of
this grammatical sameness without connection by conversion—the verbs have
nothing to do today with their respective noun forms in terms of semantics.
Compare:
3. WORD-FORMATION
 “Hillary's going to be working, and I wouldn't mind sticking

around," he told a close friend the other day.
 Twice a month, Ralph Petley stands at rapt attention in the fluid
semicircle of about 80 bidders, his mind on the single goal of sending a
shipment of antiques to Texas auction houses.
 At times during the campaign, Mr. Bush simply seemed to be selling
his infectious optimism to the point that it almost did not seem to matter how
much he tortured the English language or what he was really trying to say.
 For that matter, it was still not quite clear what "the right thing"
was.
All in all, one can mention at least 7 types of word-class conversion:
1. Verb to Noun (de-verbal nouns): a swim, a hit, a cheat, a
bore, a showoff, a drivein. Nouns coming from verbs can express:
 the state of mind or sensation, for example experience, fear, feel,
hope;
 events or activities: attack, alert(s), laugh;
 the object to whom the action of the original verb is directed or the
performer of the action: clone (the living being that has been cloned), contacts
(the people you’re in contact with) or judge (the person who performs the
judging action);
 the instrument of the original verb: cover (something to cover with).
2. Adjective to Noun (de-adjectival nouns): a bitter, a natural,
a final, a monthly, a regular, a wet. The generalised meaning of de- adjectival
nouns is ‘an object having the quality of (original adjective)’.
3. Noun to Verb (de-nominal verbs): to bottle, to catalogue, to
oil, to brake, to referee, to bicycle. Nouns that have served the base for the de-
nominal verbs have the following generalised meanings in relation to the
derived verbs:
3.2 Affixation
 place: to pocket, to film;

 something that is given: to name, to shape, to fuel;
 instrument or medium: to hammer, to yo-yo, to dot, to brake, to
ship, to telephone;
 result: to schedule, to rule;
4. Adjective to Verb (de-adjectival verbs): to dirty, to empty, to
dry, to calm down, to sober up. De-adjectival verbs have the generalised
meaning of ‘to make like (the adjective)’.
5. Noun to Adjective (de-nominal adjectives): it's cotton, it’s
brick, it’s reproduction (problem). Most de-nominal adjectives have a
generalised meaning of ‘material’ (e.g. silk). Abstract nouns used in the
adjectival position (like communication competence) can generally be grouped
under the term ‘noun-adjunct’ (see below).
6. Grammatical word to Noun, among them:
 prepositions: the inside, the outside;
 conjunctions: too many ifs and buts;
 modal verbs: that's a must;
 question words: the how and the why.
7. Grammatical word to Verb: to down tools, to up and do it.
Conversion also takes place between language levels. Thus, a
morpheme can be used as a separate word, usually a noun:
 Suffixes: ologis and isms.
 Prefixes: a mini, a maxi, a midi.
Certain cases of change of word-combinations into lexemes can also be
regarded as inter-level conversion, though there is no clear distinction between
conversion, compounding and the nonce-words. As the examples of conversion
of phrases to nouns the following can be listed: a has-been; a free-for-all; an
also-ran; a down-and-out.
3. WORD-FORMATION
There are cases of semantic change and the change of distribution within
one and the same word-class which can as well be classified as conversion. In
such cases a shift between word-class subcategories takes place, for
example:
 the shift from uncountable noun to countable: supplies;
 the shift from countable noun to uncountable: Because cabaret,
that's the whole idea of it—you're sort of sitting in the audience's lap for an hour
and a half;
 the switch from proper noun to common noun: Edinburgh is the
Athens of the North.
The third of the above examples illustrates an occasional case of the
word-class subcategories shift. Though, personal and geographical names do
become a source of naming objects. When a personal name is used in this way,
it is known as an eponym, and the process as eponymy. Confusingly, the
same term is also sometimes used for the derived form. So, the name of the
French acrobat Jules Leotard (1842-70) as well as the close-fitting one-piece
costume (leotards) which he introduced in his circus act could both be referred
to as eponyms. Similarly, lexemes which are derived from place names, as well
as the place names themselves, are often known as toponyms.
Here are some examples of eponyms:
 Cardigan – a knitted jacket fastened with buttons, first worn during
the Crimean War as protection against cold winters. Source: English cavalry
officer James Thomas Brudnell, seventh Earl of Cardigan (1797-1868), who led
the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ at Balaclava (1854).
 Maverick – an independent person who refuses to conform. Source:
US pioneer Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803-1870), who did not brand his
calves.
3.2 Affixation
 Nicotine – a chemical compound, known for its presence in

tobacco. Source: French diplomat and scholar Jean Nicot (1530-1600), who
introduced tobacco into France.
 Teddy bear – a soft toy in the shape of a bear. Source: US President
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), whose nickname was Teddy. The usage
emerged after a cartoon showed Roosevelt, known as a bear-hunter, sparing the
life of a bear cub.
Fictitious or mythical people can also be eponymous: He's a real Romeo;
What a Scrooge! Here are some more examples: atlas (Greek Titan, Atlas);
Cinderella (fairy tale character); herculean (Greek god, Hercules); Jekyll and
Hyde (characters in a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson); June (Roman goddess,
Juno); keeping up With the Joneses (characters in a US comic strip (1913));
man Friday (character in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe); mentor (Mentor, a
character in Homer's Odyssey); quixotic (hero of Cervantes' novel, Don
Quixote de la Mancha); Romeo (character in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet);
Scrooge (character in Dickens' story, A Christmas Carol); Shylock (character in
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice); Thursday (Norse god, Thor).
Place names are a common source of lexemes. Here are some examples
of toponymic derivatives: alsatian (Alsace, France); balaclava (Balaclava,
Crimea); bikini (Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands); bourbon (Bourbon County,
Kentucky); Brussels sprouts (Brussels, Belgium); champagne (Champagne,
France); conga (Congo, Africa); copper (Cyprus); currant (Corinth, North
Africa); denim (Nimes, France; originally, serge de Nim); dollar (St
Joachimsthal, Bohemia, which minted silver coins, called joachimsthalers,
shortened to thalers, hence dollars); duffle coat (Duffel, Antwerp); gauze (Gaza,
Israel); gypsy (Egypt); hamburger (Hamburg, Germany); jeans (Genoa, Italy);
jersey (Jersey, Channel Islands); kaolin (Kao-ling, China); labrador (Labrador,
Canada); lesbian (Lesbos, Aegean island); marathon (Marathon, Greece);
3. WORD-FORMATION
mayonnaise (Mahón, Minorca); mazurka (Mazowia, Poland); muslin (Mosul,

Iraq); pheasant (Phasis, Georgia); pistol (Pistoia, Italy); rugby (Rugby
(School), UK); sardine (Sardinia); sherry (Jerez, Spain); suede (Sweden);
tangerine (Tangier); turquoise (Turkey); tuxedo (Tuxedo Park Country Club,
New York); Venetian blind (Venice, Italy).
Compression (elliptical nomination) is quite a different word-
building mechanism (Левицький, 2001, p.102). The material for compression is
usually set word-combinations. The core element of a word-combination is
severed, and the meaning of the whole word-combination shifts to the modifier.
Thus, a pin-up girl becomes a pin-up. This type of word-building is particularly
typical for the fashion language: comb-over (comb-over hairstyle), iron-on (an
iron-on picture), push-up (a push-up bra), slip (a slip dress).
If the word-combination denotes a pair of objects (boots, tights), the
plural ending -s shifts to the modifier: slide shoes – slides, knee high socks –
knee highs, “Demi-john” pants – Demi-johns, short pants – shorts, slack pants –
slacks, Oxford baggy pants – oxford bags, Long John pants – long johns, Capri
pants – the Capris, corduroy pants – the cords, nylon stockings – the nylons.
Later, in the American English the names of certain types of trousers began to
be used without the plural ending: pant, slack, coulotte.
By analogy with word-combinations, compound words can serve as the
material for compression, e.g. dreads from dreadlocks.
A separate group of words created by means of compression come from
word-combinations with proper names in the position of the modifier. In this
case, compression is accompanied by the shift in word-class subcategories
(from the category of proper noun to the category of common noun): fedora
from fedora hat (named after the character of the play “Dora” (1877) by
Victorien Sardou), melton from melton wool (after the name of the town Melton
Mowbray in Leicestershire County, which used to produce this type of wool);
3.2 Affixation
jersey from jersey cotton (after the Isle of Jersey in the North Sea); ascot from
Ascot tie (after Ascot, a place near Windsor); tuxedo from tuxedo jacket (after
Tuxedo Club in Tuxedo Park, New York); bikini from bikini bathingsuit (after
the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean).
The adjectives like the good, the rich, the poor are also the result of
compression, not conversion, as they originate from the word-combinations (the
rich people, the good people, the poor people). P.M. Karaschuk calls this
process ‘substantivation as the result of ellypsis’ (Каращук, 1977). Cases like
these can also be called the results of partial substantivation, as they do not
acquire the whole noun paradigm (they cannot be used in the singular)
(Левицький, 2001).
Noun adjuncts are regarded as the result of partial conversion. This

means that the nouns are used in an attributive position before other nouns (like
adjectives), but they do not acquire the whole adjectival paradigm. If the de-
nominal adjective can be used in a predicative position as well as in an
attributive, it is the result of full conversion. For example, the word-
combination mahogany music box can be turned into a sentence: The music box
is mahogany, with the de-nominal adjective mahogany in a predicative position.
At the same time, the word-combination antiques dealers cannot be
transformed in the same way (we can’t say dealers are antiques). Thus, the
word antiques cannot be treated as an adjective.
Noun adjuncts traditionally used to be singular in most cases (e.g.,
trouser press) except when there were lexical restrictions (e.g., arms race), but
there is a recent trend towards more use of plural ones, especially in the British
English. Many of these can also be and/or were originally interpreted and
spelled as plural possessives (e.g., chemicals' agency, writers' conference,
3. WORD-FORMATION
Rangers' hockey game) (Chicago Manual of Style), but they are now often
written without the apostrophe although this is criticised by some authorities.
Expressions with plural possessives are increasingly interpreted as
having a plural noun adjunct even in cases where this is incorrect because the
form cannot be interpreted as not being a possessive, e.g., mens club for men's
club9.
Derivation due to semantic shift (within the same word-class and
preserving the same word-class subcategories) can be of two types: metaphoric
nomination (the change on the denotation level) and connotation shift.
Potentially every word is capable of naming new objects and phenomena

by association (Кубрякова, 2004). In cases of metaphoric nomination a part
of the original word’s meaning is transferred to the new word (usually a noun).
The metaphor is the most typical kind of meaning transference. The
meaning transference is usually based upon a feature common between two
objects (it may be colour, shape, movement, etc.) (Семчинський, 1963, p.83).
The association between the two objects is so strong, that the new object
acquires the name of the already existing one. In this way, some hairstyles were
named: beehive, pageboy, pigtails, ponytail. Several kinds of shoes (clogs, tote,
wallabies, winkle picker) and clothes (boa, fishnets, thong, toughskins,
turtleneck) were also named by means of metaphoric nomimation.
Connotation shift takes place when a new word receives a positive or
negative evaluation element in meaning, different from that of the original word.
The cases of elevation of connotative meaning are called amelioration. Good
examples of lexical amelioration are the names of youth cultures and their
representatives. Young people representing alternative cultures quite often select
the words to denote their groups which originally possess negative connotation,
9
http://www.stpaulsmensclub.org/
3.2 Affixation
but which gradually receive a positive connotation within the cultural group,
e.g., geek, grunge, nerd, punk.
Pejoration of meaning takes place when the word denoting a new object
receives a negative connotation compared to that of the original word. For
example, the word silly formerly meant ‘deserving sympathy, helpless or
simple’, and has come to mean ‘showing a lack of good sense, frivolous.’(The
Free Dictionary)10
⁂
REVISION:
1. Give a definition of non-linear derivation.
2. What is conversion? What types of word-class conversion do
you know?
3. Give examples of conversion between language levels.
4. Can conversion take place within one and the same word-
class? Illustrate your answer with examples.
5. Explain the notion of ‘eponyms’. Give examples.
6. What is a toponym? Giva examples of toponymic derivatives.
7. Describe the mechanism of compression. Why is it also called
elliptical nomination?
8. What is special about the compression of word-combinations
with a plural noun?
9. Describe the compression process in case of word-
combinations with proper nouns.
10. What is partial substantivation? Give examples.
11. What is a noun adjunct? Explain the difference between noun
adjuncts and de-nominal adjectives.
12. What is a semantic shift? What types of semantic shifts can
take place in the nomination process?
13. Give an extended description of metaphoric nomination.
14. What types of connotations shifts do you know? Give
examples.
READING:
10
"Hierarchy shows a similar, though more pronounced, deterioration. Originally applied to an order or a host of
angels from the fourteenth century, it has steadily moved down the scale of being, referring to 'a collective body
of ecclesiastical rulers' from c. 1619, from whence the similar secular sense develops c.1643 (in Milton's tract on
divorce). . . . Today one frequently hears of 'the party hierarchy,' 'business hierarchies,' and the like, denoting
only the top of the hierarchy, not the whole order, and conveying the same nuances of hostility and envy implied
in elite."
(Geoffrey Hughes, Words in Time: A Social History of the English Vocabulary, Basil Blackwell, 1988) from
http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/pejorterm.htm
3. WORD-FORMATION

2. Дегтярь И. Г. Имена собственные, употребляемые как
нарицательные в современном английском языке: [пособие
по лексикологии англ. яз. для студ. языковых вузов] /
Дегтярь И. Г., Прохорова О. Н., Дворник О. Д. — Белгород,
2000. — 146 с. — (Белгородский гос. ун-т).
3. Каращук П.М. Словообразование английского языка / П.М.
Каращук. – М.: ВШ, 1977. – 303 с.
4. Кубрякова Е.С. Язык и знание: На пути получения знаний о
языке: части речи с когнитивной точки зрения. Роль языка
в познании мира / Елена Самойловна Кубрякова. — М.:
Языки славянской культуры, 2004. — 555с.
5. Левицький А.Е. Зіставлення функціональних особливостей
систем номінативних одиниць англійської й української
мов / Андрій Едуардович Левицький // Вісн. Житомир. держ.
пед. ун-ту. — 2001. — N 8. — С. 101-105.
6. Реформаторский А.А. Введение в языковедение: [под ред.
А.А. Виноградова] / А.А. Реформаторский. – М.: “Аспект
Пресс”, 1999. – 536 c.
7. Семчинський С.В. Шляхи збагачення лексики / Станіслав
Володимирович Семчинський. – Львів: в-во Львівского
університету, 1963. – 132 с .
8. Уфимцева А.А. Лексическая номинация: [отв. ред.
Серебренников, Уфимцева] // Языковая номинация / Анна
Анфилофьевна Уфимцева. – М.: Наука, 1977. – с. 5-85.
9. Chicago Manual of Style [Електронний ресурс]. –
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/Possessivesa
ndAttributives/PossessivesandAttributives07.html
10. Grammar [Електронний ресурс]. –
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/compounds.htm
11. The Free Dictionary [Електронний ресурс]. –
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pejoration
4. Word-Combination
WORD-COMBINATION:
FREE COMBINATIONS, COLLOCATIONS,
LEXICAL PHRASES, CATCH PHRASES, QUOTATIONS
Free combination / Collocation / Collocational restriction / Lexical
phrases / Catch phrases / Quotations
A free combination is a sequence of lexemes governed by factors
which are controlled by an individual speaker, and not by tendencies in the
language as a whole. For example, the sentence I like … gives us no clue about
which lexeme will come next. Almost anything that exists can be liked. It is up
to the individual to choose. In such sequences as I like potatoes or I like films
there is no mutual expectancy between the items. Thousands of lexical
juxtapositions in everyday speech and writing fall into this category.
Collocation is defined as a sequence of words or terms which co-occur
more often than would be expected by chance (this definition was first used
within the area of corpus linguistics).
If the expression is heard often, the words become 'glued' together in our
minds. 'Crystal clear', 'middle management', 'nuclear family', and 'cosmetic
surgery' are examples of collocated pairs of words. In collocations there are
certain restrictions on how words can be used together, for example which
prepositions are used with particular verbs, or which verbs and nouns are used
together.
“There is a certain mutual expectancy between the main lexemes in the
sentence It writhed on the ground in excruciating pain. Our linguistic intuition
tells us that excruciating tends to occur with pain, agony, and a few other
lexemes, and not with joy, ignorance, and most other nouns in the language.
Likewise, writhe and agony commonly co-occur, as do writhe and ground.
‘Horizontal11’ expectancies of this kind are known as collocations, or selectional
11
Syntagmatic, as opposed to the paradigmatic (or vertical) relations.
4. WORD-COMBINATION
restrictions. Excruciating, we can say, ‘selects’ or ‘collocates with’ pain”

(Crystal, 1995, p. 160).
Most lexemes enter into many more predictable contexts, for example
there are nearly 150 predictable contexts for the word line (Crystal, 1995, p.
161). Traditional dictionary entries do not give this kind of information.
All that is required, for a sequence of lexemes to be described as a
collocation, is “for one item to 'call up' another, to some extent, in the mind of a
native speaker” (Crystal, 1995, p. 160). Sometimes the predictability is weak:
heavy collocates with quite a diverse range of items (loss, wear, traffic, burden,
defeat, etc.), as does line, mentioned before.
Sometimes the predictability is strong: auspicious collocates only with
occasion, and a few other closely-related items (event, moment, etc.); circuit
collocates with break/broken, close(d), integrated, printed, short, make, a few
figurative expressions to do with travelling (e.g. lecture, rodeo, talk-show), but
little more. However, when sequences are so highly predictable that they allow
little or no change in their lexical elements (as with spick and span or run
amok), they are usually referred to as fixed expressions, phraseologisms or
idioms, and require a separate analysis.
Here are some more examples of collocations: we can say highly
sophisticated, and we can say extremely happy; both adverbs have the same
intensifying lexical functions, however, they are not interchangeable. Still, other
adverbs can replace both highly and extremely, very is one of them. Another
example is the different adjectives that are used to describe a good-looking man
and a good-looking woman. We talk of a beautiful woman and of a handsome
man, but rarely of a beautiful man or a handsome woman12.
12
It is quite possible, in fact, to describe a woman as handsome. However, this implies that she is not beautiful at
all in the traditional sense of female beauty, but rather that she is mature in age, has large features and a certain
strength of character. Similarly, a man could be described as beautiful, but this would usually imply that he had
feminine features. Calling a man pretty is most often done perjoratively to suggest effeminacy. (from
http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/easy/colloc.htm)
4. Word-Combination
We talk of high mountains and tall trees, but not usually of tall
mountains and high trees. Similarly a man can be tall but never high (except in
the sense of being intoxicated!), whereas a ceiling can only be high, not tall. A
window can be both tall or high, but a tall window is not the same as a high
window. We get old and tired, but we go bald or grey. We get sick but we fall
ill. A big house, a large house and a great house have the same meaning, but a
great man is not the same as a big man or a large man. You can make a big
mistake or a great mistake, but you cannot make a large mistake. You can be a
little sad but not a little happy. We say very pleased and very tiny, but we do not
say very delighted or very huge.
All mature native speakers use such sequences as commit a murder and
not, say, commit a task even though the sense of 'carry out' would be applicable
in the latter case. And everyone says monumental ignorance, not monumental
brilliance.
Collocations cannot be predicted from a knowledge of the world.
Knowledge of collocations is vital for the competent use of a language: a
grammatically correct sentence will stand out as 'awkward' if collocational
preferences are violated.
Unlike the majority of idioms, collocations are subject to syntactic
modification. For example, we can say effective writing and write effectively.
Collocational restriction is a linguistic term which refers to the fact
that in certain two-word phrases the meaning of an individual word is restricted
to that particular phrase. For instance: the adjective dry can only mean 'not
sweet' in combination with the noun wine.
Another example involves collocations with white: white wine, white
coffee, white noise, white man. All four instances of white can be said to be
idiomatic because in combination with certain nouns the meaning of white
changes. In none of the examples does white have its usual meaning. Instead, in
4. WORD-COMBINATION
the examples above it means 'yellowish', 'brownish', 'containing many

frequencies with about equal amplitude', and 'pinkish' or 'pale brown',
respectively.
Lexical phrases (sentence stems, composite forms) are “the
prefabricated components, chunks of language” (Crystal, 1995, p. 163) used to
make texts coherent. Hundreds of such phrases exist, of varying length and
complexity, such as it seems to me..., would you mind..., on the one hand... on
the other hand..., and... lived happily ever after. Some resemble formulae: let me
start by Xing a/the Y (e.g. making the point, asking a question) or the Xer you Y,
the Aer you B (e.g. the longer you wait the angrier you get). Such phrases are
used frequently in both speech and writing, but they are especially important in
conversation, where they perform a number of roles – for instance, expressing
agreement, summing up an argument, introducing an example, or changing a
topic.
A catch phrase is “a phrase which is so appealing that people take
pleasure in using it” (Crystal, 1995, p. 178). The richest sources of catch phrases
are cinema, television and mass media. In some cases, a phrase comes and goes
within a few weeks. More usually, it stays for a few years. And, every now and
then, it stays in use for decades, at least among older people. “It is even possible
for catch phrases to be so useful that they become permanent additions to the
language, in the form of rather self-conscious and often jocular expressions
whose origins people may have long forgotten” (Crystal, 1995, p. 178). Anyone
who says (or adapts) “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do”, “They went
thataway”, or “This town isn't big enough for both of us” is 'recalling' the catch
phrases of a generation of cowboy Western films. Now several decades old –
though it is unlikely that anyone could now recollect where they first heard
them.
4. Word-Combination
Catch phrases, typically, have a clearly identifiable source. However, to

identify them, we need to be part of the culture which gave rise to them. Here
are some examples (sources given in brackets): “What's up, doc?” (Bugs
Bunny); “Here's another fine mess you've gotten me into.” (Oliver Hardy from
Laurel and Hardy); “You cannot be serious!” (John McEnroe); “Here's looking
at you, kid.” (Humpfrey Bogart, in Casablanca); “May the Force be with you!”
(various characters in Star Wars).
A quotation is an exact reproduction of somebody’s words (usually
written). “Anything which someone has said or written can be a quotation, but
the term usually refers to those instances which have become 'famous' over the
years” (Crystal, 1995, p.184). Both ”To be or not to be” and “Let me see one”
are extracts from Hamlet, but only the former has come to be treated as
quotation.
It can be useful to distinguish quotations from catch phrases. By
definition, the utterances which fall within both of these categories have impact
and are memorable, and most can be traced to a specific source. Catch phrases
are, indeed, a species of quotation. But there are important differences. Catch
phrases tend to be of spoken origin, very short, subject to variation, relatively
trivial in subject matter, and popular for only a short period. Quotations tend to
be of written origin, indeterminate in length, highly restricted in the contexts
where they may be used, semantically more profound, and capable of standing
the test of time. There is a colloquial tone to the former, and a literary tone to the
latter. There is no identity.
Many quotations have become so well-known that they have entered the
standard language, with their origins all but forgotten. How many now know
that the best-laid schemes of mice and men is a quotation from Robert Butns'
poem “To a Mouse”13, or that all hell broke loose is from Milton's “Paradise
13
Of mice and men is in fact a double quotation, as it was also used by John Steinbeck as the title of a novel.
4. WORD-COMBINATION
Lost”? Several Shakespearian and Biblical quotations have entered the language
in this way.
Quite often, a quotation is adapted in the process. An example is “Ours
not to reason why”, which is an adaptation of “Theirs not to reason why”, from
Tennyson's “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854).
⁂
REVISION:
1. What is a free combination?
2. Give a definition of the term ‘collocation’.
3. Give as many examples of collocations and fixed word
combinability as you can.
4. Explain the notion of ‘collocational restriction’. Illustrate
your explanation with examples.
5. What is a lexical phrase? Give an extended answer
illustrated by examples.
6. Give an extended definition of the term ‘catch phrase’.
7. Speak about everything you know of the quotation. What is
the difference between catch phrases and quotations?
READING:
2. Gledhill C. Collocations in Science Writing / C. Gledhill. –
Tübingen: Narr, 2000.
3. Smadja F. A. Automatically extracting and representing
collocations for language generation / F. A. Smadja, K. R.
McKeown // Proceedings of ACL’90. – 1990. – Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, 1990. – p. 252–259.
4. Hunston S. Pattern Grammar — A Corpus-Driven Approach to
the Lexical Grammar of English / S. Hunston, G.Francis. –
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000.
5. Moon R. Fixed Expressions and Idioms, a Corpus-Based
Approach / R. Moon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
5. Phraseology
5. PHRASEOLOGY
Phraseology and phraseologisms – definition /
Phraseological unit vs word /
Phraseological unit vs word combination / The degree of semantic isolation
/Classifications of phraseologisms /
Stability of phraseological units / Phraseological variants /
Structural synonymy / Proverbs
Phraseology studies such collocations of words (phraseologisms,
phraseological units, idioms), where the meaning of the whole collocation is
different from the simple sum of literal meanings of the words, comprising a
phraseological unit. Ex. Dutch auction is not an auction taking place in
Netherlands. The meaning of this phraseological unit refers to any auction,
where instead of rising, the prices fall (compare Dutch comfort, Dutch courage,
Dutch treat reflecting complicated historical factors).
Phraseologisms, according to V.N. Telia, are a general name of all
semantically rigid combinations of words which, unlike similar free syntactic
structures, are not created according to the general laws of word combinability
but are repdroduced in speech in a fixed combination of a certain semantic
strucure and lexical-grammatical composition.
Prof. Kunin A.V. defined phraseological units as stable word-groups
with partially or fully transferred meanings (to kick the bucket, Greek gift, drink
till all's blue, drunk as a fiddler (drunk as a lord, as a boiled owl), as mad as a
hatter (as a march hare)) (Кунин, 1967).
According to Rosemarie Gläser, a phraseological unit is a lexicalized,
reproducible bilexemic or polylexemic word group in common use, which has
relative syntactic and semantic stability, may be idiomatized, may carry
connotations, and may have an emphatic or intensifying function in a text.
5. PHRASEOLOGY
Phraseological Unit vs Word

The theory of the equivalence of phraseological units to words comes
down to the theory of the identification of expressive factors, developed by
Charles Bally, who has noted that the most general quality of a phraseological
expression, which can substitute all other qualities, is the ability or inability of a
word-combination to be substituted by a single word. Charles Bally called such
words “words-identifiers”.
Prof. Smirnitsky treats phraseological units as “word equivalents”.
The syntactic equivalence of phraseological units to words is quite
relative, for example comparative phraseologisms (as good as gold) function in
the sentence as attributes the same as adjectives, but, unike adjectives, they are
normally put in post-position to the noun they modify rather than in pre-
position.
Phraseological Unit vs Word Combination
3 types of lexical combinability of words can be mentioned:
1. Free combination: grammatical properties of words are the main
factor of their combinability. Ex.: I’m talking to you. You are writing. Free
combinations permit substitution of any of their elements without semantic
change of the other element.
2. Collocations: At least one member of a collocation is not free, but is
associated with another particular word or words. Speakers become accustomed
to collocations. Very often they are related to the referential and situational
meaning of words. Ex.: to commit a murder; bread & butter; dark night; blue
sky; bright day.
Some collocations involve transferred or figurative meanings of words,
in particular collocations involving colour words. Ex.: to be green with jealousy.
5. Phraseology
3. Idioms. Idioms are also collocations, because they consist of several

words that tend to be used together, but the difference is that we can’t guess the
meaning of the whole idiom from the meanings of its parts. Ex.: to cry a blue
murder = to complain loudly. This criterion is called the degree of semantic
isolation. In different types of idioms it is different.
The most basic and universal features of phraseologisms are
considered to be:
 Semantic transposition: the meaning of the constituent parts of a
phraseologism do not correspond to the meaning of the whole phraseologism.
For example, to see red means ‘to get really angry’ which doesn’t have to do
with neither seeing, nor red colour, except by association.
 The transposition of lexical-grammatical composition: semantic
and grammatical relations between the constituent parts of a free or even fixed
word-combination are different from those between the constituent parts of a
phraseologism built according to the same model. The semantic relations
between the components in the word-combination to cry vengeance (‘to demand
revenge’) are ‘Verb+Object.’ The semantic structure of the phraseologism to cry
blue murder (apparently built according to the same model) cannot be described
in terms of ‘Verb+Object’ semantic relations. It rather functions as an insepar-
able whole, with a semantic role of a verb (‘to complain loudly’).
 Repeatability: the structure of a phraseologism does not change
from use to use. It is an indivisible unit with the qualities of a lexeme. Slight
changes in the structure are possible though, desctibed as phraseological vari-
ants and structural synonyms (see below). Thus, beside the classical phraseo-
logical variant no rhyme or reason, British National Corpus gives a more collo-
quial and more rarely used neither rhyme nor reason. Still, no change of mean-
ingful components is possible: the variant, say, no ryme or sense* does not exist.
5. PHRASEOLOGY
Professor V.V. Vinogradov defined 4 types of phraseologisms based on

the degrees of motivation and semantic isolation:
1. Idioms (phraseological fusions, opaque phraseologisms),
whose meaning is completely unmotivated (i.e. cannot be deduced neither from
the literal nor from the figurative meanings of their components): to kick the
bucket; dog days; to wear your heart on your sleeve.
2. Phraseological unities (semi-opaque phraseologisms),
idioms, whose inner structure remains transparent, i.e. their meanings can be
guessed from the figurative meanings of their components: to be a dime a
dozen; to come back down to earth; a sting in the tail; the calm before the
storm; leave no stone unturned; to win hands down; to take the wind out of sb's
sails; any port in a storm.
3. Phraseological combinations (transparent phraseolo-
gisms), whose meanings can be deduced from the literal meanings of their com-
ponents: a firm character; a field of activity, to see the light.
4. Phraseological expressions are set phrases or sentences with a
transposed meaning (here belong proverbs and sayings): let the sleeping dogs
lie; a bird in a hand is worth to in the bush.
The components of phraseological units can have different levels of
component interdependance (according to Prof. A. Koonin) (Кунин, 1967,
с. 1233-1264):
1. Phraseological units with interdependable components that cannot
be substituted by any others, i.e. constant components that need each other to ex-
press a certain meaning (constant component interdependance) ex. birds of a
feather, green room, kick the bucket, the proof of the pudding is in the eating,
etc.
5. Phraseology
2. Collocations that have variants or structural synonyms but that do

not allow any free elements in their structure (constant-variable interdepend-
ance), ex. not to lift (raise, stir, turn) a finger, strait as a poker (as a ramrod).
3. Collocations that have variants or structural synonyms and at the
same time allow free elements in their structure (constant variable-free inter-
dependance), ex. give somebody a bit (a piece)of one's mind, close (shut) one's
eyes to something, lay (put) somebody on the shelf.
4. Collocations that allow free elements but that do not have variants
or structural synonyms (constant interdependence with free elements), ex.
give somebody a run for his money, take one's time, etc.
The principle of structural-semantic patterns doesn't work for
phraseological units, which means that unlike free collocations phraseologisms
can't be built by means of combining different words within a certain pattern.
Stability of phraseological units
O. Jespersen explained the phenomenon of stability of phraseological
units by the fact that while free expressions are created in speech according to a
certain pattern, phraseological units are used in a ready shape (Кунин, 1967).
A. Koonin names 6 levels of the stability of phraseological units
(Кунин, 1967, p. 1233-1264):
1. Usage stability. The fact that a phraseological unit is a unit of lan-
guage, and not an individual formation.
2. Stability on the structural-semantic level. A phraseological unit
possesses a stable non-typical meaning, which means that it cannot be created
with the help of a structural-semantic pattern.
3. Stability on the semantic level, which implies meaning invari-

ance.
5. PHRASEOLOGY
4. Stability on the lexical level, i.e. the possibility to interchange the

components of a phraseological unit only within the limits of phraseological
variability and structural synonymy and under condition that the semantic in-
variant is preserved.
5. Stability on the morphological level is created due to the pres-
ence of:
 a component (components) with zero paradigm:
- verbal word-forms: How do you do?
- noun word-forms in the singular or plural are used in phraseologisms
quite often: Cook one's own goose, like a shot, sit on the fence, be on pins and
needles, my aunt! my stars! Put up the shutters;
- adjectival word-forms of different degrees of comparison: one's better
half, the last great chance, put one's best foot forward.
 a component with an incomplete paradigm: it goes (went) without
saying, as the day is (was) long.
6. Stability on the syntactic level i.e. the stability of the word-order
within the phraseological unit, where the change is possible only within the lim-
its of variability, structural synonymy or occasional deformation.
Phraseological variants and structural synonymy
Phraseological variants are the variants of a phraseological unit,
equal in the quality and quantity of meanings, stylistic and syntactic functions,
as well as the combinability with other words, and different in lexical
composition, word-forms or the word-order.
There exist the following types of phraseological variants:
1. Lexical variants: bear (give, lend) a hand, close (near) at
hand, bear (lead) a charmed life (existence).
2. Grammatical variants:
5. Phraseology
- morphological: in deep water = in deep waters; in Procrustes' bed = in

Procrustean bed;
- syntactic: take away somebody's breath = take somebody's breath
away;
- morphological-syntactic: pay nature's debt = pay one's debt to nature;
the promised land = the land of promise.
3. Lexical-grammatical variants:
- lexical-morphological: keep one's eyes (eye) peeled (skinned) = keep
an eye peeled; close (shut) a (the) door (doors) upon (to) something; a lot of
(much) water has flowd (flown) under the bridge (bridges) since;
- lexical-syntactic: bad news has wings = ill news flies fast; every tub
must (should) stand on its own bottom = let every tub stand on its own bottom.
4. Positional variants:
- monostructural: dot the i's and cross the t's = cross the t's and dot the
i's; on and off = off and on;
- variants with different structures: head over ears = over head and ears.
5. Quantitative variants:
- with truncated elements: be in for it = be for it;
- with added elements: lead somebody a dance = lead somebody a pretty
dance.
6. Punctuational variants: how do you do? = how do you do.
What do you know about it?= What do you know about it!
7. Spelling variants: hand in glove = hand-in-glove.
8. Combined variants: arouse (stir up) a nest of hornets = raise
(stir up) a hornet's (hornets') nest about one's ears.
When the lexical composition partially coincides, but the shades of
meaning, stylistic shades or combinability are different, we speak about
structural synonyms.
5. PHRASEOLOGY
Structural synonyms can be of the following types:

1. Ideographical structural synonyms, that differ in the shades
of meaning: to set one's heart on and to set one's mind on.
2. Stylistic structural synonyms, which differ in stylistic shades:
not to care a straw is a colloquial expression, while not to care a damn is con-
sidered to be rude.
3. Regional structural synonyms: Br.E. on the cards vs Am.E.
in the cards; literary variant to be the worse for drink (for liquor) vs to be the
worse of drink (of liquor) (Scottish regional variants).
4. Structural synonyms that differ in combinability : turn (set,
put) the clock back (40 years, to the Middle Ages) vs turn back the clock (of his-
tory, of progress); adjective + as anything vs verb + like anything (verbal vs ad-
jectival intensifier).
Proverbs are considered to be a separate type of phraseologisms.
A proverb (from the Latin proverbium) is a simple and concrete saying
popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense
or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. Proverbs
and proverbial expressions have been given a variety of labels: adages,
dictums, maxims, mottoes, precepts, saws, truisms. The terms all convey
the notion of a piece of traditional wisdom, handed down by previous
generations. In most cases, the origin of a proverb is unknown.
Proverbs are often borrowed from similar languages and cultures, and
sometimes come down to the present through more than one language. Both the
Bible (Book of Proverbs) and Medieval Latin have played a considerable role in
distributing proverbs across Europe, although almost every culture has examples
of its own.
The effectiveness of a proverb lies largely in its brevity and directness.
The syntax is simple, the images vivid, and the allusions domestic, and thus easy
5. Phraseology
to understand. Memorability is aided through the use of alliteration, rhythm, and

rhyme.
Subgenres include proverbial comparisons (as busy as a bee),
proverbial interrogatives (Does a chicken have lips?) and twin formulae (give
and take).
A similar form is proverbial expressions (to bite the dust). The
difference is that proverbs are unchangeable sentences, while proverbial
expressions permit alterations to fit the grammar of the context.
Another close construction is an allusion to a proverb, such as ’The
new broom will sweep clean’.
Typical stylistic features of proverbs (Arora, 1995) are:
 alliteration (forgive and forget)
 parallelism (nothing ventured, nothing gained)
 rhyme (when the cat is away, the mice will play)
 ellipsis (once bitten, twice shy)
 hyperbole (all is fair in love and war)
 paradox (for there to be peace there must first be war)
 personification (hunger is the best cook)
Here is the list of some examples of proverbs in general English, Scottish
and American:
 General: Children should be seen and not heard. Still waters run
deep. Once bitten, twice shy. Look before you leap. A cat may look at a king. An
apple a day keeps the doctor away. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Every
little helps. Curiosity killed the cat. Ask no questions, hear no lies. It never rains
but it pours. The pen is mightier than the sword.
 Scottish: Fools and children never know when they're well off. You
can't take clean water out of a foul well. Much whistling but little ploughed land.
There's always some water where the steer drowns (5, p. 184).
5. PHRASEOLOGY
 American: There's no such thing as a horse that can't be rode or a

cowboy that can't be throwed. Another day, another dollar. Nothing is certain
except death and taxes. A friend in power is a friend lost. The wheel that does
the squeaking is the one that gets the grease. The big possum walks just before
dawn. Every man must skin his own skunk. Never trust a fellow that wears a suit.
Puttin' feathers on a buzzard don't make it no eagle. Too many Eskimos, too few
seals.
⁂
REVISION:
1. Give a definition of phraseology and phraseologisms
(phraseological units).
2. What is the difference between phraseological units and
words?
3. What makes phraseological units different from word-
combinations?
4. Speak about the classification of phraseologisms after prof.
Vinogradov.
5. What is ‘the level of component interdependence’? How
many and which levels do you know?
6. Give an extended explanation of the notion of ‘stability of
phraseological units’. Which levels of stability are there?
7. Give a definition of phraseological variants. What types of
phraseological variants do you know?
8. What is structural synonymy? List all the types of structural
synonyms.
9. Give a definition of a proverb.
10. Speak about genres and types of proverbs.
11. What are the main stylistic features of proverbs?
12. Give as many examples as you can of general English,
Scottish and American proverbs. Make sure you know them
by heart.
READING:
1. Bland D. L. A Rhetorical Perspective on the Sentence Sayings
of the Book of Proverbs / Dave Lawrence Bland. – Diss.
University of Washington, 1994. – 273 pp.
2. Chlosta Ch. Empirical and Folkloristic Paremiology: Two to
Quarrel or to Tango? / Christoph Chlosta and Peter Grzybek //
Proverbium. – 1995. – No. 12. – p. 67-85.
5. Phraseology

4. Виговський В. Л. Фразеологізація словосполучень як
джерело омофразії (на матеріалі англомовної військової
лексики) / В.Л. Виговський. — Житомир, 1998. — 44 с. –
(Житомирський держ. педагогічний ін-т ім. І.Я.Франка).
5. Квеселевич Д.И. Русско-английский фразеологический
словарь: Около 7000 фразеологических единиц / Дмитрий
Иванович Квеселевич. — 2-е изд., стер. — М. : Русский
язык, 2000. — 705с.
6. Кунин А.В. Англо-русский фразеологический словарь /
Александр Владимирович Кунин. – М., 1967. – Т.2. – с. 739
– 1264.
7. Кунин А.В. Фразеология современного английского языка /
Александр Владимирович Кунин. – М., 1972.
8. Кунин А.В. Курс фразеологии современного английского
языка / Александр Владимирович Кунин. – М., 1986.
9. Arora Sh. The Perception Of Proverbiality [Електронний
ресурс] / Shirley Arora // De Proverbio: An Electronic Journal
of International Proverb Studies. – 1995. - Vol. 1. - No. 1.
http://www.utas.edu.au.flonta/
10. Charteris-Black J. Still Waters Run Deep - Proverbs About
Speech And Silence: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective
[Електронний ресурс] / Jonathan Charteris-Black // De
Proverbio: An Electronic Journal of International Proverb
Studies. - 1995. - Vol. 1. - No. 2.
http://www.utas.edu.au.flonta/
6. VOCABULARY STRATIFICATION
Native vocabulary / Criteria of vocabulary classification /
Semantic fields / Nonce words and neologisms / Archaisms /Loaded lexicon /
Regional dialects / World Englishes /Social stratification of vocabulary /
Political correctness and gender issues
At the core of the English language there is what is called native
vocabulary: “Many lexemes have always been there – in the sense that they
arrived with the Germanic invaders, and have never fallen out of use. The
Anglo-Saxon lexical character continues to dominate everyday conversation,
whether it be grammatical words (in, on, be, that), lexical words (father, love,
name), or affixes (mis-, un-, -ness, -less). Although Anglo-Saxon lexemes
comprise only a relatively small part of the total modern lexicon, they provide
almost all the most frequently used words in the language. In the million-word
Brown University corpus of written American English, the 100 most frequently
used items are almost all Anglo-Saxon. The exceptions are a few. Scandinavian
loans (such as they and are); there is nothing from Romance sources until items
105 (just) and 107 (people)” (Crystal, 1995, p. 124). The other words have been
either derived or borrowed.
The vocabulary stock of any language can be classified using plenty of
different criteria and dimensions. One can speak about semantic and
thematic fields, neologisms and archaisms, stylistically marked and
stylistically neutral vocabulary, neutral and emotionally charged words,
professional and social jargons, colloquialisms and bookish vocabulary,
regional and international dialects and various other ‘lects’ (sociolects,
idiolects, age-lects).
A fruitful notion in investigating lexical structure is the semantic or
lexical field – a “named area of meaning in which lexemes interrelate and
define each other in specific ways” (Crystal, 1995, p. 157). Think, for example,
6. Vocabulary Stratification
of all the lexemes we know to do with 'fruit', or 'parts of the body', or 'vehicles’
or 'buildings', or 'colour'. We shall have no difficulty assigning banana, nostril,
lorry, town hall, and scarlet to their respective fields. To what extent is it
possible to assign all the lexemes in English to a semantic field in an
unambiguous way?
The task is not as straightforward as it might appear, for several reasons.
Some lexemes seem to belong to fields which are very difficult to define, or
which are vague – to what field should noise or difficult belong? Some seem to
belong to more than one field – does orange belong to 'fruit' or 'colour'? There
is also the question of how best to define a semantic field: shall we say that
tractor belongs to the field of 'agricultural vehicles', 'land vehicles', or just
'vehicles'? Is flavour part of the semantic field of 'taste', or taste part of the
semantic field of ‘flavour', or are both members of some broader semantic field,
such as 'sensation'?
These are typical of the problems which semanticists come up with. At
the same time, the existence of these difficulties must not hide the fact that a
very large number of lexemes can be grouped together into fields and subfields
in a fairly clear-cut way. The notion of semantic fields has proved to be useful in
such domains as foreign language teaching and speech therapy, where it is
helpful to present learners with sets of related lexemes, rather than with a series
of randomly chosen items. And young children, too, learn much of their
vocabulary by bringing lexemes together in this way (Crystal, 1995, p. 424).
One of the commonest is chronological vocabulary stratification.
Besides up-to-date vocabulary which forms the basis of the language word-
stock, there are archaisms and neologisms – words that are no more used in
everyday language and those that are only beginning to be used and haven’t yet
found their way to the dictionaries.
Anglo-Saxon forms, borrowings, and the use of affixes account for most
of what appears within the English lexicon, but they do not tell the whole story.
The general term for a newly created lexeme is a coinage, but in technical
usage a distinction can be drawn between nonce words and neologisms.
A nonce word (from the 16th-century phrase for the nonce, meaning
‘for the once') is a lexeme created for temporary use, to solve an immediate
problem of communication. D. Crystal describes an incident he evidently
witnessed in person: “Someone attempting to describe the excess water in a road
after a storm was heard to call it a fluddle. She meant something bigger than a
puddle but smaller than a flood. The newborn lexeme was forgotten (except by a
passing linguist) almost as soon as it was spoken. It was obvious from the
jocularly apologetic way in which the person spoke that she did not consider
fluddle to be a 'proper' word at all. There was no intention to propose it for
inclusion in a dictionary. As far as she was concerned, it was simply that there
seemed to be no word in the language for what she wanted to say, so she made
one up for the nonce” (Crystal, 1995, p. 132).
A neologism is a newly coined word that may be in the process of
entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language.
Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication,
period, or event. A neologism stays new until people start to use it without
thinking, or alternatively until it falls out of fashion, and they stop using it
altogether. But there is never any way of telling which neologisms will stay and
which will go.
Blurb, coined in 1907 by the American humorist Gelett Burgess (1866-
1951), proved to meet a need, and is an established lexeme now. On the other
hand, his coinage of gubble, 'to indulge in meaningless conversation', never
caught on. Lexical history contains thousands of such cases. In the 16th century,
a great age of neologisms, we find disaccustom and disacquaint alongside
disabuse and disagree. Why did the first two neologisms disappear and the last
two survive? We also find effectual, effictuous, effictful, effectuating, and
effective. Why did only two of the five forms survive, and why those two, in
particular? The lexicon is full of such mysteries.
Here is an approximate list of the 20th-21st centuries’ coinages and
their sources (Wikipedia, 2009):
 Science: x-ray, or röntgenograph (November 8, 1895, by
Röntgen); radar (1941) from Radio Detection And Ranging; laser (1960) from
Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation; black hole (1968);
prion (1982); beetle bank (early 1990s); lidar (late 90s) from Light Detection
And Ranging.
 Science fiction: beaming (1931); hyperspace (1934); robotics
(1941); waldo (1942); Dyson sphere (circa 1960); grok (1961); ansible (1966);
phaser (1966); warp speed (1966); ringworld (1971); replicant (1982);
cyberspace (1984); xenocide (1991); metaverse (1992); alien space bats (1998);
teleojuxtaposition (2003).
 Politics: genocide (1943); Dixiecrat (1948); meritocracy (1958);
pro-life (1961); homophobia (1969); political correctness (1970);
Californication (1970s); pro-choice (1975); heterosexism (1979); glocalisation
(1980s); Republicrat (1985); astroturfing (1986); dog-whistle politics (1990);
Islamophobia (1991); soccer mom (1992); fauxtography (1996); affluenza
(1997); red state/blue state/swing state (c. 2000); corporatocracy (2000s);
Islamofascism (2001); santorum (2003); Chindia (2004); NASCAR dad (2004);
datagogy (c. 2005).
 Design: Bauhaus (early 20th century); blobject (1990s); fabject
(2004), a fabricated 3-D object.
 Popular culture: moin (early 20th century); prequel (1958);
Internet (1974); jumping the shark (late 1970s); posterized (c. 1980s); queercore
(mid 1980s); plus-size (1990s); blog (late 1990s); hard-target search (1993);
chav (early 2000s); webinar (early 2000s); wardrobe malfunction (2004);
truthiness (2005); fauxhawk (mid 2000s); consumerization (2004).
 Linguistics: retronym (popularized in 1980); backronym (1983);
aptronym (2003; popularized by Franklin Pierce Adams); snowclone (2004);
protologism (2005).
 The IT: Xerox (mid-1990s); googling (early 2000s); photoshopping
(early 2000s).
Many neologisms have come from popular literature and tend to appear
in different forms. Most commonly, they are simply taken from a word used in
the narrative of a book; a few representative examples are: grok (to achieve
complete intuitive understanding), from Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert
A. Heinlein; McJob, from Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by
Douglas Coupland; cyberspace, from Neuromancer by William Gibson;
nymphet from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
Sometimes the title of a book becomes the neologism, for instance,
Catch-22 (from the title of Joseph Heller's novel). Alternately, the author's name
may become the neologism, although the term is sometimes based on only one
work of that author. This includes such words as Orwellian (from George
Orwell, referring to his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four) and Ballardesque or
Ballardian (from J.G. Ballard, author of Crash). Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle
was the container of the Bokononism family of nonce words.
Lewis Carroll has been called ‘the king of neologistic poems’ because of
his poem, Jabberwocky, which incorporated dozens of invented words. The
early modern English prose writings of Sir Thomas Browne are the source of
many neologisms as recorded by the OED.
An archaism is a feature of an older state of the language, which

continues to be used while retaining the aura of its past. Grammar and the
lexicon provide the chief examples, though older pronunciations will from time
to time be heard, and archaic spellings seen. The clearest cases are those which
are separated by a substantial time-gap, notably those dating from Middle and
Early Modern English.
 Lexical items include behold, damsel, ere ('before'), fain ('rather'),
hither, oft, quoth, smite, unto, wight (‘person'), wot ('know'), yonder, varlet,
forsooth, sire.
 Grammatical features include present-tense verb endings (-est, -
eth) and their irregular forms (wilt, holdst, etc.), contracted forms ('tis, 'twas,
'gainst, e'en (even), ne'er, o'er), past tenses (spake, clothed), pronouns such as
thou and ye, and vocative constructions beginning with O.
“The hunter of archaisms will find them in an unexpectedly diverse
range of contexts. Most obviously, they are used in many historical novels,
plays, poems, and films about such topics as King Arthur or Robin Hood.
Novelists who have used archaic language in a careful way include Walter Scott
in Ivanhoe and William Thackeray in Esmond. In poetry, Spenser and Milton
were influential in maintaining an archaic tradition of usage. Children's
historical stories also tend to use them, albeit in a somewhat stereotyped manner.
Archaisms can be found in religious and legal settings, in nursery rhymes and
fairy tales, and (if the product warrants it) in trade names and commercial
advertising. Rural dialects often retain words which have gone out of use in the
standard language. And many older elements, such as thorpe ('village') and lea
('wood'), are preserved in place names” (Crystal, 1995, p. 173).
Emotionally charged words are opposed to the emotionally neutral

vocabulary. Another term for the emotional words is loaded lexicon, which
implies being charged with connotation. Here belong taboo words, language
of abuse (invective) and swear words.
A few dozen lexemes comprise the special category of taboo
language – items which people avoid using in polite society, either because
they believe them harmful or feel them embarrassing or offensive. The
possibility of harm may be genuinely thought to exist, in the case of notions to
do with death and the supernatural, or there may be merely a vague discomfort
deriving from a half-believed superstition. Embarrassment tends to be associated
with the sexual act and its consequences.
“Offensiveness relates to the various substances exuded by the body, and
to the different forms of physical, mental, and social abnormality. Words
associated with certain other topics may also be called taboo, from time to time,
because society is sensitive to them. During the recession of the early 1990s,
newspapers would talk about 'the R word', and after the 1991 Maastricht
conference would refer to the proposed federalism of the European Community
as 'the F word'. For some people, indeed, all jargon is taboo” (Crystal, 1995, p.
174).
The prohibition on use may be explicit, as in the law courts ('contempt of
court'), the Houses of Parliament ('unparliamentary language'), and the
broadcasting media (words officially banned until after a certain time in the
evening, so that children are less likely to be exposed to them). More commonly,
it is a tacit understanding between people, which occasionally becomes explicit
in the form of a comment, correction, or sanction (such as a parental rebuke).
The comment may be directed to oneself ('Pardon my French') or to others
('Ladies present'), and may be jocular ('Wash your mouth out') or serious ('God
forgive me for sweating').
There are various ways of avoiding a taboo item. One is to replace it

by a more technical term, as commonly happens in medicine. Another,
common in older writing, is to part-spell the item. The everyday method is to
employ an expression which refers to the taboo topic in a vague or indirect way
– a euphemism.
English has thousands of euphemistic expressions, of which these

are a tiny sample: casket (coffin), fall asleep (die), push up the daisies (be dead),
the ultimate sacrifice (be killed), under the weather (ill), after a long illness
(cancer), not all there (mentally subnormal), little girl's room (toilet), spend a
penny (urinate), be economical with the truth (lie), adult video (pornography),
let you go (sack), industrial action (strike), in the family way (pregnant),
expectorate (spit), tired and emotional (drunk).
We need to draw a clear distinction between the language of taboo,

the language of abuse (invective), and the language of swearing. The
three may overlap or coincide: “to call someone a shit is to use a taboo word as
term of abuse, and if said with enough emotional force would be considered an
act of swearing. But there is no necessary identity. Piss is a taboo word which
is not usually employed on its own as invective or a swearword. Wimp is a term
of abuse which is neither a taboo word nor a swear word. And heck is a swear
word which is neither taboo nor invective. Yet other distinctions are often
drawn, some being given legal definition, and invoking sanctions in certain
circumstances. Probably the commonest notions are obscenity, which involves
the expression of indecent sexuality – 'dirty' or 'rude' words; blasphemy, which
shows contempt or lack of reverence specifically towards God or gods; and
profanity, which has a wider range, including irreverent reference to holy things
or people (such as, in Christianity, the cross or the saints). However, despite
these distinctions, the term swearing is often used as a general label for all
kinds of 'foul-mouthed' language, whatever its purpose” (Crystal, 1995, p. 173).
Regiolal variation of language brings to the appearance of dialects.
It is inevitable that people traditionally think of dialects as a purely intranational
matter – local to the country to which they belong. Historically, the English
language was restricted to a single geographical area – the British Isles – and for
centuries, until the growth of urban populations, the only regional variation
which most people would encounter would be associated with neighbouring
communities and the occasional visitor from further afield.
Today the study of local dialects has come to be supplemented by an
international approach to dialectology – the study of ‘world Englishes’.
The regional variation is not as strong in the regional written English, but
in the informal spoken language the differences between regional varieties
dramatically increase. Due to the influence of TV and mass media the borders
between regional variants are becoming blurred, some words from American
English are beginning to be used in Britain (ex., mail), the reverse pattern is less
obvious, but British films and TV programmes are seen sufficiently in the USA
to mean that a growth in awareness of UK vocabulary should not be
discounted.The differences between regional variants are most obvious on the
lexical level. Thus, a dictionary by David Grote has some 6.500 entries, and
deals only with British English for American readers.
Awareness in regional variation in English is evident from the 14th
century, seen in the literature of the time (Chaucer). Extensive lexical variation
is found in the British English dialects: “There are nine chief variants noted for
threshold and a further 34 alternatives. In the case of headache there is a fairly
clear picture. The standard form is used throughout most of the country, but in
the North and parts of East Anglia there is a competing regional form, scull-
ache. The variant form head-wark is found in the far North, with a further
variant, head-warch, mainly in S Lancashire Northumberland opts for a more

prosaic sore head, with bad head used in adjacent localities to the South. There
is also a regional difference between the use of article – some people say ‘a
headache’, while others prefer to say ‘the headache’.” (Crystal, 1995, p. 318-
325).
Among the major dialects of British English Scottish, Welsh and Irish
English should be mentioned.
British vs American Vocabulary. In describing the lexicon of the
two regions, there are three distinctions which have to be made: some words are
found only in American English, some only in British English, and some
(from either source) have become established throughout the world as part of
Standard English. While Congress and Parliament originated in their
respective countries, it is no longer very useful to call one American English
(AmE) and the other British English (BE), from a linguistic point of view. They
are now part of World Standard English (WSE).
 Some words represent cultural differences, but are not WSE: AmE
Ivy League, Groundhog Day, revenue sharing; BE A-levels, giro, VAT. There
are no synonyms in the other variety. Several of these words are likely to enter
the WSE in due course (e.g., groundhog day, after a successful film in 1993).
 Some words are straightforward: they have a single sense, and a
synonym in the other variety: BE current account, estate car – AmE checking
account, station vagon.
 Words that have one WSE meaning and one or more additional
meanings that are specific to either AmE or BE. Caravan is a ‘group of travel-
lers in a desert’ in WSE, but it is also ‘a vehicle towed by a car’ in BE (trailer
in AmE).
 Some words have one meaning in WSE and a synonym in one or
other varieties (sometimes both). Both AmE and BE have undertaker, but only
AmE has mortician, both have pharmacy but AmE has drugstore and BE has
chemist's.
 Some words have no WSE meaning but different meanings in AmE
and BE: AmE flyover – BE flypast, BE flyover – AE overpass.
 Some words are used in both varieties, but are much more common
in one of them: flat and apartment, shop and store, post and mail.
Among the World Englishes, beside American English one should
mention Canadian English, Caribbean English, Australian English, New Zealand
English, South African English.
There is also a term New Englishes, referring to the English language
of the countries where it has an official status as the second language (such as
India and Nigeria) and also the countries where English is recognized as an
important international medium, but has not received any special status (such as
Japan and Brazil).
Social variation of language. While the regional language variation
answers the question “Where are you from?” social language variation provides
an answer to a question “Who are you in the eyes of the English-speaking
society to which you belong?” Age, sex and socio-economic class are the main
factors that influence social variation of language.
RP – received pronunciation, the most ‘prestige’ accent in Britain.
It was first established 400 years ago as the accent of the court and the upper
classes. In due course, RP came to symbolize a person's high position in society.
Today, with the breakdown of rigid divisions between social classes and the
development of the mass media, RP is no longer the preserve of a social elite. It
is at best described as an ‘educated’ accent.
Cockney is known to be the language of London working-class.

Estuary English. The term was coined in the 1980's to identify the
way features of London regional speech seemed to be rapidly spreading
throughout the counties adjoining River Thames (essentially Essex and Kent)
and beyond. It is something of a misnomer, for the influence of London speech
has for some time been evident well beyond the Thames estuary, notably in the
Cambridge – Oxford – London triangle and in the area of the South and the East
of London as far as the coast.
The spread of this variety was mainly governed by the influence of TV
and media. Estuary English is the result of the confluence of two trends: an up-
market movement of originally Cockney speakers, and a down-market trend
towards 'ordinary' (as opposed to 'posh') speech by the middle class and the
trend to avoid the 'establishment' connotations of the Received Pronunciation.
Estuary English has specific grammar features:
 ‘confrontational’ question tag: I said I was going, didn't I.
 Never referring to a single occasion (I never had dinner this night).
 The omission of the -ly adverbial ending: You are turning too slow.
They talked very quiet for a while.
 Certain prepositional uses (omission of the second preposition in a
sequence of two), as I got off the bench, I looked out the window.
 Generalization of the third person singular form: I gets out of the
car, especially in narrative style; also the generalized past tense use of was: We
was walking down the road.
Estuary English is rather an accent than a dialect. It is described as a
continuum of pronunciation possibilities, with Cockney at one end and Received
Pronunciation at the other.
Social variants of vocabulary include such phenomena as jargons,

slang and occupational varieties (religious English, scientific English, legal
English, political English, news media English (journalese, the English of
broadcasting, the English of sports commentary), advertising English).
New varieties of English include: computer-mediated communication,
language of headlines, language of electronic conversations, answerspeak
(Hello, I'm sorry we're not here at the moment... Answerphone conversation:
delayed single-exchange pseudo-dialogue).
Jargon is the technical vocabulary or idiom of a special activity or
group. It is an essential part of the network of occupations and pursuits which
make up society. All jobs present an element of jargon, which workers learn as
they develop their expertise. All hobbies require mastery of a jargon. All sports
and games have their jargon. Each society grouping has its jargon. It is the
jargon element which, in a job, can promote economy and precision of
expression, and thus help make life easier for the workers. It is also the chief
linguistic element which shows professional awareness ('know-how') and social
togetherness ('shop-talk'). An example of jargon is NASA-speak, with such items
as countdown, all systems go, and lift-off.
Slang is defined by The Oxford English Dictionary as 'language of a
highly colloquial type, considered as below the level of educated standard
speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in
some special sense'. In a related definition, it also describes slang as 'language of
a low or vulgar type' and 'the special vocabulary or phraseology of a particular
calling or profession'. There is upper-class slang alongside lower-class slang, the
slang of doctors and of lawyers, the slang of footballers and philatelists, as well
as the slang which cuts across social class and occupation, available to anyone
as the most colloquial variety of language.
Political correctness. Some of the most loaded words in the language

are those associated with the way society talks about itself, and especially about
groups of people whom it perceives to be disadvantaged or oppressed. The most
sensitive domains are to do with race, gender, sexual affinity, ecology, and
(physical or mental) personal development. During the 1980s, an increasing
number of people became concerned to eradicate what they thought to be
prejudice (especially language prejudice) in these areas.
The whole idea of political correctness is to avoid using language that
might be construed as offensive. The word black, for example, was felt to be
offensive if used for the people of African origin, and was substituted by a more
neutral Afro-American. The term ‘mentally handicapped people’ was substituted
by ‘people with learning difficulties’. Disabled people were to become
differently abled. Third World countries have become developing nations.
The trend has been largely criticized for certain exaggerations, e.g., it
was suggested that unhandsome people should be called aesthetically
challenged, people shorter than average – vertically challenged, and overweight
people – horizontally challenged.
People first language is a semantic technique used when discussing
disabilities to avoid perceived and subconscious dehumanization of the people
having the disabilities. The basic idea is to take the emphasis away from a
disability, stressing the fact that it is just a singular feature of a human being,
which does not necessarily define his or her identity. The technique is to replace,
e.g., disabled people with people with disabilities, deaf people with people who
are deaf or individuals who are deaf, etc., putting the handicap quality into a
rear position, emphasizing in this way that they are people first (hence the
concept's name) and anything else second. Further, the concept favours the use
of having rather than being, e.g. she has a learning disability instead of she is
learning-disabled.
Gender Issues. Since the 1960s an awareness has developed of the

ways in which language covertly displays attitudes towards men and women.
English vocabulary has been found biased, reflecting predominantly male-
oriented view of the world. Recently, there has been a tendency to replace
‘male’ words by more neutral equivalents: chair or chairperson instead of
chairman; sales assistant instead of salesman; headmaster instead of
headteacher. Some traditionally female names of professions have also been
replaced by neutral terms: flight attendant instead of Stewardess.
The terms of marital status (Miss and Missis) have received their neutral
alternative Ms. The form (s)he is widely used, his for a mixed gender group
tends to be replaced by their, him – by them, someone, anyone.
⁂
REVISION:
1. What is native vocabulary?
2. What are the major criteria of vocabulary stratification?
3. How can the vocabulary be classified in chronological terms?
4. Explain the meanings of the notions coinage, a nonce word,
neologism. Give examples.
5. What are the main sources of neologisms? Illustrate your
answer with as many examples as possible.
6. Give and extended definition of the term archaism. Exemplify
your answer.
7. What is emotionally charged words? What kinds of vocabulary
are included in this category?
8. Give a definition of taboo. What common ways of avoiding
taboo words do you know? Give some examples of
euphemisms.
9. What is the difference between the language of taboo,
invective language and the language of swearing?
10. Give account of the notion regional variation of vocabulary. On
what levels does variation exist in the English language?
11. List some differences in the British English and American
English variants of vocabulary.
12. Explain the notion of social variation of language. What
examples of social variants do you know?
13. What are the specific features of Estuary English?
14. Give an extended definition of the term jargon.
15. Explain the meaning of the notion slang.
16. What is political correctness and how is it realised in language?
17. Explain the idea of the people first language.

18. Speak about gender issues in terms of language.
READING:
2. Кудрявцев А. Ю. Англо-русский словарь табуированной
лексики и эвфемизмов: [ABC of dirty English: foreigner's
guide: 14 000 слов и выражений] / А. Ю. Кудрявцев, Г. Д.
Куропаткин. — М. : АСТ, 2006. — 382 с.
3. Разинкина Н.М. Функциональная стилистика: На материале
англ. и рус. яз.:Учеб. пособие / Нина Марковна Разинкина
— М. : Высшая школа, 2004. — 270с.
Dissertations:
4. Бєлозьоров М. В. Англійські лексичні та фразеологічні
новотвори у сфері економіки: структурний, семантичний і
соціофункціональний аспекти: Дис... канд. філол. наук:
10.02.04 / Бєлозьоров Максим Віталійович. — Запоріжжя,
2002. — 253 с.
5. Дибчинська Я. С. Англомовна регіональна лексикографія:
сучасний стан і перспективи розвитку: Автореф. дис...
канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Я. С. Дибчинська. — Одеса,
1998. — 16 с.
6. Зарума-Панських О. Р. Англійська лексика міжнародних
договорів: структурні, семантичні та дискурсні особливості:
Автореф. дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / О. Р. Зарума-
Панських. — Л., 2001. — 19 с.
7. Клименко І. М. Полікомпонентні лексичні одиниці в
американському варіанті англійської мови (структурно-
семантичний та функціональний аспекти):
Автореф.дис...канд.філол.наук: 10.02.04 / І. М. Клименко.
— К., 1993. — 15 с.
8. Козлова Т. О. Динаміка розвитку лексичної системи
англійської мови в Австралії: етнолінгвістичний аспект (на
матеріалі лексики з автохтонним компонентом значення):
Автореф. дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Т. О. Козлова.
— Х., 2001. — 19 с.
9. Кудрявцев А. Ю. Англо-русский словарь сленга и
ненормативной лексики: 18000 сл. и выражений / А. Ю.
Кудрявцев, Г. Д. Куропаткин. — М. : АСТ, 2006. — 383 с. —
(ООО "Издательство АСТ").
10. Манютіна О. І. Лексико-семантичні та функціональні
особливості евфемізмів у сучасній англійській мові (на
матеріалі бульварної жіночої прози XX-XXI ст.): автореф.
дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / О. І. Манютіна. —

Чернівці, 2008. — 20 с.
11. Письменна Ю. О. Етнічні особливості концептуалізації
дійсності мовами європейського культурного ареалу (на
матеріалі лексики і фразеології української, російської,
англійської та італійської мов): автореф. дис... канд. філол.
наук: 10.02.15 / Ю. О. Письменна. — К., 2008. — 20 с.
12. Neologism. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[Електронний ресурс]. -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism - 8 September 2009
19:21
13. People-first_language. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[Електронний ресурс]. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-
first_language - 28 July 2009 at 22:13
7. Lexicography
7. LEXICOGRAPHY
Subject matter of lexicography / The history of English dictionary-

making / The criteria of word description in linguistic dictionaries /
Classification of dictionaries / Electronic and online icitonaries
Lexicography is a linguistic discipline dealing with dictionary-making

and dictionary research. In general, the following spheres of interest of
lexicography might be described:
1. dictionary-making including recording (fieldwork), editing (de-
scription) and publishing (presentation);
2. dictionary research including dictionary history, dictionary criti-
cism, dictionary typology, dictionary structure, dictionary use, dictionary IT and
some other fields.
All dictionaries could roughly be divided into encyclopaedias and
linguistic dictionaries. Within the lexicological frame we deal with the latter.
The first glossary of the English language that carried the title Dictionary
was compiled in 1538 by Thomas Knigh, followed by Robert Cawdrey's
Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words (1604).
Speaking about the history of English lexicology, scholars generally
mention two important figures and two dictionaries that achieved profound
influence on the art of English dictionary-making.
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was first
published in 1755. In 1747 he wrote a letter to the Earl of Chesterfield,
describing the need for a new dictionary as he saw it, and the way he would go
about creating it. This statement was called The Plan. Among other
contemplations about how a dictionary should be organized and what purposes it
should serve, he wrote: “It is not enough that a dictionary delights the critic,
7. LEXICOGRAPHY
unless at the same time it instructs the learner” (quoted after Lexicography:
Critical Concepts, 2003).
Johnson's masterwork could be judged as the first “modern” dictionary
as he managed to bring together such elements as textual references for most
words rather than a mere glossary without definitions and an alphabetical order
rather than arrangement by topic (a previously popular form of arrangement,
which meant all animals would be grouped together, etc.).
James Murray started working on what turned out to be another
remarkable dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary about 150 years later. The
work took 20 years to accomplish. The Oxford University Press began writing
and releasing the Oxford English Dictionary in short fascicles from 1884
onwards. It took nearly 50 years to finally complete the huge work, and they
finally released the complete OED in twelve volumes in 1928.
In 1806, Noah Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious
Dictionary of the English Language. In 1807 Webster began compiling an
expanded and fully comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the
English Language; it took twenty-seven years to complete. To evaluate the
etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-six languages, including Old
English (Anglo-Saxon), German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French,
Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit. Webster hoped to standardize American speech.
He completed his dictionary during his year abroad in 1825 in Paris, France, and
at the University of Cambridge. The book contained seventy thousand words, of
which twelve thousand had never appeared in a published dictionary before. As
a spelling reformer, Webster believed that English spelling rules were
unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary introduced American English spellings,
replacing colour with color, substituting wagon for waggon, and printing center
instead of centre. He also added American words, like skunk and squash, that
did not appear in British dictionaries.
7. Lexicography
Words in dictionaries are desctibed according to different criteria:

 The description of pronunciation specifies what sounds (pho-
nemes) a word has, if it has more than one syllable how they are each stressed,
and if the pronunciation is subject to any variation in connected speech (e.g.
vowel reduction or change in stress).
 The description of spelling specifies the letters that make up the
word, any variant spelling, any possibility where the word may be broken at the
end of a line.
 The structure of a word refers to its composition in terms of mor-
phemes.
 The meaning of a word is described as well as any relevant seman-
tic relations (sense relations, collocation).
 The description of grammar includes assigning a word to a word
class, describing the inflections that a word has and how it fits into the syntax of
sentences.
 The description of usage specifies whether a word, or any of its
senses, is restricted to particular contexts.
 Finally, the description of a word includes a specification of its ori-
gin.
As to the content of the word-list, dictionaries can be classified into
general dictionaries and restricted dictionaries. General dictionaries contain
lexical units in ordinary use from various language layers, while restricted
dictionaries include only a certain part of the word-stock. Here belong
terminological, phraseological, dialectal dictionaries, dictionaries of new words,
of foreign words, of abbreviations, etc.
As to the information they provide, all linguistic dictionaries can be
described as either explanatory or specialized. Explanatory dictionaries
provide information on all aspects of the lexical units: graphical, phonetical,
7. LEXICOGRAPHY
grammatical, semantic, stylistic, etymological, etc. Most of these dictionaries

deal with lexical units in Modern English: they are synchronic in their
presentation of words. Diachronic dictionaries are concerned with the historical
development of words.
Specialized dictionaries deal with lexical units only in relation to some
of their charactreristics, e.g. only in relation to their etymology, or frequency, or
pronunciation.
Pronouncing dictionaries record contemporary pronunciation. They
indicate various pronunciaitons as well as the pronunciation of different
grammatical forms.
Etymological dictionaries trace present-day words to the oldest forms
available, establish their primary meanings and give the parent form
reconstructed by means of the comparative-historical method. In case of
borrowings they point out the immediate source of borrowing, its orogin and
parallell forms in cognate language.
Dictionaries of word-frequency inform their user as to the frequency of
occurrence of lexical units in speech. Most of these dictionaries were
constructed to make up lists of words as the basis for teaching English as a
foreign language, the so-called basic vocabulary.
Phraseological dictionaries include vast collections of idiomatic or
colloquial phrases, proverbs, etc. with illustrations.
Dictionaries of slang contain elements from areas of substandard speech
such as vulgarisms, jargonisms, taboo words, curse-words, colloquialisms, etc.
Dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms provide information on all the
lexical units that enter into the given semantic relations with the head lexical
unit. In case of polysemantic words, synonyms and antonyms are given for each
of the meanings.
7. Lexicography
A reverse dictionary is a list of words in which the entry words are

arranged in alphabetical order starting with their final letters.
Translation dictionaries (sometimes also called parallel) are word-
books containing vocabulary items in one language and their equivalents in
another language1.
Some dictionaries are created for a certain prospective user, a target
group of people who are supposed to find it particularly useful. Especially
popular are English learners' dictionaries, designed to help learn the English
language. Some dictionaries even state the learner's level at which the
dictionary is useful, for example Oxford Collocations Dictionary is designed for
Upper-Intermediate to Advanced students.
Collocation dictionaries help students write and speak natural-sounding
English. Collocations are common word combinations such as speak fluently,
meet a challenge and winning formula. They are essential building blocks for
natural sounding spoken and written English. The dictionary shows all the words
that are commonly used in combination with each headword: nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions as well as common phrases.
A new word in dictionary-making is language activators. The Language
Activator takes you form a key word or basic idea, like good, and shows you
more precise words or phrases with information on register, context and
grammar structures thay are used in. An Activator provides detailed definitions
that help students choose the correct word and corpus-based examples show
words in typical usage, giving various collocations and phrases. The index at the
back of the book enables easy cross-referencing.
The development of the IT has lead to the creation of electronic
computer dictionaries. Such dictionaries are available on the CDs and can be
installed on your computer and provide quick search of the necessary entry.
7. LEXICOGRAPHY
Almost all types of the dictionaries described above are available in electronic
versions.
Online dictionaries are very convenient for those who use the Internet
of the permanent basis. An evident advantage of online dictionaries is that their
content is constantly updated so the users enjoy the freshest version of the
dictionary.
⁂
REVISION:
1. What does lexicography study?
2. What important names should be mentioned discussing the
history of dictionary-making?
3. According to what criteria are the words in dictionaries
described?
4. What types of dictionaries are distinguished according to the
content of the word-list?
5. What is the difference between explanatory and specialized
dictionaries?
6. List the kinds of specialized dictionaries and the purpose they
are created for.
7. What are language activators? How are they organized? What
is their purpose?
8. What are the advantages of electronic and on-line dictionaries?
READING:
1. Апресян В. Ю. Языковая картина мира и системная
лексикография / Апресян В. Ю., Апресян Ю. Д., Бабаева Е.
Э., Богуславская О. Ю., Иодмин Б. Л. – РАН; Институт
русского языка им. В.В.Виноградова / Ю.Д. Апресян
(отв.ред.). — М. : Языки славянских культур, 2006. — 911с.
Апресян. — М. : Школа "Языки рус. культуры", 1995. —
(Язык). – Т. 2 : Интегральное описание языка и системная
лексикография. — М. : Школа "Языки рус. культуры" —
767с.
3. Берков В. П. Двуязычная лексикография: Учебник для студ.
Вузов / Валерий Павлович Берков. — М. : Астрель ; АСТ ;
Транзиткнига, 2004. — 237с.
4. Дубичинский В. В. Теоретическая и практическая
лексикография / Владимир Владимирович Дубичинский. —
Вена, 1998. — 156с.
7. Lexicography
5. Лебедева Л. Д. Введение в курс английской

лексикографии: учеб. пособие по англ. яз. / Людмила
Дмитриевна Лебедева. — М. : Высшая школа, 2008. — 285с.
6. Jackson H. Lexicology: Introduction / Howard Jackson. -NY:
Routlege, 2002. - 191 p.
7. Lexicography: An emerging international profession [ed. by
Robert Ilson]. – Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1986. – 149 p.
8. Lexicography: Critical Concepts [ed. by R.R.K. Hartmann]. –
NY: Routlege, 2003. – 413 p.
Dissertations:
9. Голуб Ю. І. Системні відношення в словниковому складі

англійської мови та їх лексикографічне відображення / Ю.І.
Голуб: Автореф. дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 /
Одеський держ. ун-т ім. І.І.Мечникова. — О., 1998. — 17 с.
10. Крупнов В. Н. Англоязычная и англо-русская
лексикография и ее роль в процессе письменного перевода
/ В.Н. Крупнов: Автореф. дис... д-ра филол. наук:
10.02.20 / Московский гос. ун-т им. М.В.Ломоносова.
Филологический факультет. — М., 1989. — 49с.
11. Дибчинська Я. С. Англомовна регіональна лексикографія:
сучасний стан і перспективи розвитку / Я. С. Дибчинська:
Дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Запорізький держ. ун-т.
— Запоріжжя, 1997. — 221 арк.
12. Іваницький Р. В. Лексикографічні аспекти нормалізації
термінів (на матеріалі німецьких, англійських, українських
та російських термінологічних одиниць) / Р. В. Іваницький:
Дис... канд. філол. наук: 10.02.04 / Чернівецький ун-т ім.
Ю.Федьковича. — Чернівці, 1995. — 184 л.
13. Скибина В. И. Распространение национального языка и
проблемы лексикографии (на материале английского
языка) / В. И. Скибина: Дис... д-ра филол. наук: 10.02.04 /
Запорожский гос. ун-т. — Запорожье, 1998. — 396л.+прил.
(110л.)
DICTIONARIES:
1) Cambridge Dictionary of American English. – 2nd Edition. –

Cambridge, 2008. – 1120 p.
2) Cambridge Essential English Dictionary. – Cambridge, 2004. –
380 p.
3) German Loanwords in English. An Historical Dictionary [Ed. by
J. Alan Pfeffer]. – Texas A & M University, 2010. – 415 p.
4) Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (With ad-
ditional material from A Thesaurus of Old English) [Ed. by
7. LEXICOGRAPHY
Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, and Irené

Wotherspoon]. – Oxford, 2009. – 3,952 p.
5) Longman Language Activatior. – NY:Longman Publishing,
2008.
6) Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary. –
2032 p.
7) Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary. – Eleventh Edition.
– 1,664 p.
8) Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus. – 960 p.
9) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. – Oxford: OUP, 2004. –
1541 p.
10) Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English. – NY:
OUP, 2002.
11) The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names [Ed. by Vic-
tor Watts]. – University of Durham, 2004. – 778 p.
12) The Oxford English Dictionary [Ed. by John Simpson and Ed-
mund Weiner]. – Second Edition. – Clarendon Press, 1989. -
21,728 p.
13) Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. –
2,816 p.
Online resources:
14) The Oxford English Dictionary: Oxford, 2009. – [електронний
ресурс]. - http://www.oed.com/
15) Longman English Dictionary Online [електронний ресурс]. -
http://www.ldoceonline.com/
16) Cambridge Dictionaries Online [електронний ресурс]. -
http://www.ldoceonline.com/
17) ABBYY Lingvo Online [електронний ресурс]. - http://ling-
vo.abbyyonline.com/ © 1996-2010 ABBYY
18) British National Corpus [електронний ресурс]. - http://cor-
pus.byu.edu/bnc/
19) Corpus of Contemporary American English [електронний
ресурс]. - http://www.americancorpus.org/
20) The Oxford English Corpus [електронний ресурс]. -http://
www.askoxford.com/oec/mainpage/oec03/?view=uk
21) Answers.com [електронний ресурс]. - http://www.answers.-
com Copyright © 2010 Answers Corporation
22) More Words: a word game wordfinder [електронний ресурс].
- http://www.morewords.com Copyright © 2004-2010 More-
Words.com
Exercises
EXERCISES
Exercise 1. Analyse the lexical meaning of the italicized words.
What do they denote? What do they connote? Is the meaning (and con-
notation in particular) context-dependent?
Money
1. I never resorted to it by necessity, because I never knew what it was to
want money (The Traveller's Story Of A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie
Collins).
2. They preferred to put you to work on a farm or at the mills, so as to
have a little more money (The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet).
3. Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money:
three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise? (A
Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens).
4. I bought this estate, which chanced to be in the market, and I set
myself to do a little good with my money, to make up for the way in which I had
earned it (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Boscombe Valley Mystery by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
5. I wish you and yours every joy in life, old chap, and tons of money,
and may you never die till I shoot you. And that's the wish of a sincere friend, an
old friend. You know that? (A Little Cloud by James Joyce).
6. If ever it occurs, you may bet your bottom dollar there'll be no
mooning and spooning about it. I mean to marry money. She'll have a good fat
account at the bank or she won't do for me (A Little Cloud by James Joyce).
7. The failure made deep lines come into her face. Her children were
growing up, they would have to go to school. There must be more money, there
must be more money. The father, who was always very handsome and expensive
in his tastes, seemed as if he never would be able to do anything worth doing
(The Rocking-Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence).
Exercises
8. "Is luck money, mother?" he asked, rather timidly.

"No, Paul. Not quite. It's what causes you to have money."
"Oh!" said Paul vaguely. "I thought when Uncle Oscar said filthy
lucker, it meant money."
"Filthy lucre does mean money," said the mother. "But it's lucre, not
luck." (The Rocking-Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence).
Love
1. ‘But why?’ cried Scrooge’s nephew. ‘Why?’
‘Why did you get married?’ said Scrooge.
‘Because I fell in love.’
‘Because you fell in love!’ growled Scrooge, as if that were the only
one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas (A Christmas
Carol by Charles Dickens).
2. The lady was very beautiful, but the fact of her foreign birth and of
her alien religion always caused a separation of interests and of feelings between
husband and wife, so that after a time his love may have cooled towards her and
he may have come to regard their union as a mistake (The Adventure of The
Sussex Vampire by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
3. Yes, she is very jealous — jealous with all the strength of her fiery
tropical love (The Adventure of The Sussex Vampire by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle).
4. You have to face it, Mr. Ferguson. It is the more painful because it is a
distorted love, a maniacal exaggerated love for you, and possibly for his dead
mother, which has prompted his action (The Adventure of The Sussex Vampire
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
5. Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as
the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature can
Exercises
conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more (Young Goodman Brown by
Nathaniel Hawthorn).
6. His shop was filled with all manner of strange things that never
would, or could, be sold – things he had made for the pure love of making them
(The Dancing Partner by Jerome K. Jerome).
7. There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the ad-
vantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust.
She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she
could not love them (The Rocking-Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence).
8. Only she herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a hard little
place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody (The Rocking-Horse Winner
by D.H. Lawrence).
Friend
1. Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened
to be staying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then, and
lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the delightful city of our sojourn (The
Traveller's Story Of A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins).
2. "My dear friend," answered the old soldier – and even his voice
seemed to be bobbing up and down as he spoke – "my dear friend, it would be
madness to go home in your state; you would be sure to lose your money; you
might be robbed and murdered with the greatest ease (The Traveller's Story Of A
Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins).
3. She knew the brigadier well – an old friend, familiar and re-
spectful, saying heartily, "To your good health, Madame!" before lifting to his
lips the small glass of cognac – out of the special bottle she kept for friends. And
now! . . . She was losing her head (The Idiots by Joseph Conrad).
Exercises
4. My books, that had seemed such a nuisance a while ago, so

heavy to carry, my grammar, and my history of the saints, were old friends now
that I couldn’t give up (The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet).
5. Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years.
Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole re-
siduary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner.(A Christmas Carol by Charles
Dickens).
6. To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on

such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and
to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his busi-
ness friends in the City, indeed (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens).
7. "I will soon make it clear to you," said she; "And I'd have done so
before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar. If there's police-court business
over this, you'll remember that I was the one that stood your friend, and that I
was Miss Alice's friend too (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The Copper
Beeches by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
8. Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home
and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world (Rip Van Winkle by
Washington Irving).
Exercise 2. What do the italicized polysemantic words mean in the

following sentences? How are certain meanings actualized through con-
text?
City
1. For the City has not been prepared to back his business with hard
cash.
2. One victim is a city housewife who revealed the PIN number of her
husband's account.
Exercises
3. Exclusion and intolerance of differences are not new to city life.

The groups with disproportionate power and autonomy tend to monopolize
facilities.
4. Councillors hope a "zone of tolerance" will help clean up their vice-
plagued city.
5. She has not received assistance or attention from the city or church
governing bodies, so she sells her paintings, as well as clothing.
6. A man is taken suddenly ill when walking alone along a busy city
street. He staggers and falls near the door of an evidently prosperous shop.
Light
1. Sylvia stood well aside from his path, half hidden in a thick growth
of whortle bushes, and watched him swing stiffly upward, his flanks dark with
sweat, the coarse hair on his neck showing light by contrast (The Music on the
Hill by Saki).
2. With a light heart I turned down the side road through the
deepening valley to which Johann had objected (Dracula's Guest by Bram
Stoker).
3. Here he had not been long, ruminating on his new love, when Juliet
appeared above at a window, through which her exceeding beauty seemed to
break like the light of the sun in the east; and the moon, which shone in the
orchard with a faint light, appeared to Romeo as if sick and pale with grief at the
superior luster of this new sun (Tales from Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet by
Charles and Mary Lamb).
4. He had provided a light, and a spade, and wrenching-iron, and was
proceeding to break open the monument when he was interrupted by a voice,
which by the name of Vile Montague bade him desist from his unlawful
Exercises
business (Tales from Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet by Charles and Mary
Lamb).
5. Lights and shadows were moving among the trees, and I heard men
call to one another. They drew together, uttering frightened exclamations; and
the lights flashed as the others came pouring out of the cemetery pell-mell, like
men possessed (Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker).
6. “Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. “Long
years” – he sighs. “Again you found me.” “Here,” she murmurs, “sleeping; in
the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our
treasure” – Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. “Safe! safe! safe!”
the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried
treasure? The light in the heart” (A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf).
Move
1. Endeavouring to orient himself, as a surveyor or navigator might
say, the man moved his eyes slowly along its visible length and at a distance of a
quarter-mile to the south of his station saw, dim and grey in the haze, a group of
horsemen riding to the north (Resumed Identity by Ambrose Bierce).
2. Susan moved her lips. No sound came (The Idiots by Joseph
Conrad).
3. Behind them were men afoot, marching in column, with dimly
gleaming rifles aslant above their shoulders. They moved slowly and in silence
(Resumed Identity by Ambrose Bierce).
4. If I had heard footsteps behind me, I could not have turned round; if
a means of escape had been miraculously provided for me, I could not have
moved to take advantage of it (The Traveller's Story Of A Terribly Strange Bed
by Wilkie Collins).
Exercises
5. Besides locking and bolting my door, I had moved an old wooden

chest against it, which I had found under the bed (The Traveller's Story Of A
Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins).
6. Professor, with all the principal members of his gang, will be in the
hands of the police. Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the
clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all of them; but if we move
at all prematurely, you understand, they may slip out of our hands even at the
last moment (The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. The Final Problem by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle).
7. We saw the other two: a boy and a girl, as the driver said. They
were dressed exactly alike, in shapeless garments with petticoat-like skirts. The
imperfect thing that lived within them moved those beings to howl at us from the
top of the bank, where they sprawled amongst the tough stalks of furze (The
Idiots by Joseph Conrad).
8. The feeble old fellow seemed to suspect that there was something
wrong with his grandsons. Only once, moved either by affection or by the sense
of proprieties, he attempted to nurse the youngest (The Idiots by Joseph Conrad).
9. "I`d beg him not to go sometimes," she said, "or at least to wait
till the weather was more settled, but he`d never listen. He`s obstinate, and
when he`s once made up his mind, nothing can move him" (Rain by W.
Somerset Maugham).
10. Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my of-
fices; I will move elsewhere, and give him fair notice that if I find him on my
new premises I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser (Bartleby
the Scrivener by Herman Melville).
Exercise 3. Give at least 5 examples of polysemantic words. Illus-

trate their different meanings by the sentences of your own.
Exercises
Exercise 4. Are the following groups of words A) absolute hom-

onyms? B) homophones? C) homographs? State whether they are full or
partial homonyms.
1) 2) 3)
ade – fruit beverage desert – an arid region cast – to throw
aid – to assist desert – leave caste – a social class
aide – an assistant
4) 5) 6)
agape – with mouth open sewer – drain row – line
agape – love sewer – person who sews row – propel a boat
row – argument
7) 8) 9)
ascent – the climb bailing – pumping water wound – past tense of
assent – to agree out of a boat wind
baling – wire used to tie wound – to injure
bales
10) 11) 12)
number – more numb moped – was gloomy allowed – permitted
number – numerical moped –motorcyle aloud – spoken
value
13) 14) 15)
minute – tiny fine – of good quality evening – smoothing out
minute – unit of time fine – a levy evening – after sunset
16) 17) 18)
entrance – the way in down – a lower place bow – type of knot
entrance – to delight, to down – soft fluff on a bow – to incline
charm bird
Exercises
19) 20) 21)

bat – piece of sports bass – type of fish present – a gift
equipment bass – low, deep voice present – to introduce
bat – an animal
Exercise 5. Give definitions to the following homophones. Make sure you pronounce
them correctly. Use 15 of them in the sentences of your own.
warship – worship cession – session aural – oral
draft – draught discreet – discrete elicit – illicit
hoard – horde faint – feint ordinance – ordnance
pallet – pallette peal – peel pedal – peddle
pleural – plural principal – principle rack – wrack
racket – racquet recede – reseed resister – resistor
rest – wrest rhyme – rime ring – wring
root – route saver – savor sear – seer
serf – surf shear – sheer slay – sleigh
stationary – stationery stoop – stoup summary – summery
tailer – tailor troop – troup waiver – waver
complementary – complimentary complacence – complaisance

Exercises
Exercise 6. Give definitions to the italicized words. Pay special at-

tention to the English and Ukrainian meanings of heterologues.
1. Normally, price disparities like these are quickly exploited by
arbitrage traders who buy goods in the cheap market and sell them in the
expensive one.
2. The 729-foot cascading cataract at Amicalola Falls State Park is the
highest in the eastern United States.
3. The codex dodged extinction, abiding in safe collections or
languishing in parlous circumstances.
4. And in this inferno the gallant Major had captured a horse, and
rallied the remains of his shattered command.
5. They moved there in 1965 to take on the joint roles of warden and
matron at the then residential and day training centre for the mentally
handicapped.
6. Chocolate and Toffee Assortment includes Orange Creme, Coconut
Dessert, Chocolate Caramel and Macaroon.
7. It enjoys a reputation as a one-stop wedding destination with an
outdoor chapel and an in-house minister.
8. There seem to be three broad influences at work here: a partisan
influence, which was the most powerful and consistent, plus information-based
and propaganda-based influences.
9. The idea that mankind is too profane to interfere in natural
processes has already gained enough acceptance to affect global policy making.
10. Many people within the trade union movement took part in a
massive rally in London to call on the government to review its policy.
11. The infant can not give a receipt which executors, administrators or
trustees can safely take.
Exercises
12. The exhibition includes displays of original and replica armour,

together with military uniforms and hand weapons of the time.
13. My mother's fingers moved from her rosary to the silk sash at her
waist. Her voice remained level.
14. Wind and snow had smeared the makeup around her eyes, the talon
streaks of some huge bird.
15. Toss tomatoes, 2 tablespoons red wine vinaigrette, and teaspoon
salt in a medium bowl. Lower grill temperature to medium.
16. Ensure that air can move freely through the compressor-condenser
by using a shop vacuum to remove grass clippings, leaves, dryer lint and any
dust discharged.
17. The authors reported a statistically significant improvement in
academic performance for students who participated 30 days or more in the
after-school programs.
18. A student should go beyond memorizing to demonstrate
understanding by an accurate explanation.
19. Wash it: Hand-wash in a tub, or use a front-loader; the agitator in a
top-loader can tear baffles. Always opt for the gentle cycle with cold water.
20. I'd better not drink any more! That’s Warninks. Or advocaat you
like? Yeah. I do like that.
Exercise 7. Give the definitions to the following words. Use them

in the sentences of your own so that their meaning is clear.
Accent, accord, alley, ammunition, anecdotal, angina, approbate, aspir-
ant, Astrakhan, babushka, barrack (verb), baton, biscuit, cabinet, carcass,
champion (verb), complexion, compositor, concrete (noun), cutlet, deputy, dir-
ector, directory, Dutch, extravagance, fabric, gazette, gymnasium, insult, integ-
ral, intelligence, invalid, java.
Exercises
Exercise 8. Give definitions to the following words. Note their

Ukrainian heterologues. Use them in the sentences of your own so that
their meaning is clear.
Lily of the valley, liquidize, lyrics, magazine, marshal, matrass, mayor,
mezzanine, militia, monitor, multiplication, officer, official, original, palm, pa-
role, pasta, physician, preservative, pretend, principal, rationalize, realize, re-
cord, resin, satin, saucer, solid, speculation, sympathetic, tank, technique, ter-
minus, urbane, valet, velvet, venerable, virtuous.
Exercise 9. Insert the following paronyms into the sentences.
1. Avenge / revenge
He (a) ______________the murder by taking vengeance on the killer.
If you seek (b) ______________ in the pursuit of justice you want to
(c) ______________ wrongs: not (d) ______________them.
2. Aesthetic / ascetic
“(a) ______________” has to do with beauty, whereas “(b)
______________” has to do with avoiding pleasure, including presumably the
pleasure of looking at beautiful things. St. Francis had an (c) ______________
attitude toward life, whereas Oscar Wilde had an (d)______________ attitude
toward life.
3. Discrete /discreet
The more common word is “(a) ______________,” meaning “prudent,
circumspect”: “When arranging the party for Agnes, be sure to be
(b) ______________; we want her to be surprised.” “(c) ______________”
means “separate, distinct”: “He arranged the guest list into two (d)
______________ groups: meat-eaters and vegetarians.”
4. Exult / exalt
When you celebrate joyfully, you (a) ______________. When you raise
something high (even if only in your opinion), you (b) ______________ it.
Exercises
5. Device / devise
“(a) ______________” is a noun. A can-opener is a (b)
______________. “
(c) ______________” is a verb. You can (d) ______________ a plan for open-
ing a can with a sharp rock instead.
6. Lightening / lightning
Those bright flashes in the storm clouds are simply “(a)
______________.”
“(b) ______________” has a quite different meaning in modern English: making
lighter, as in (c) ______________ your load or (d) ______________ the color of
your hair.
7. Mantle / mantel
Though they stem from the same word, a “(a) ______________” today is
usually a cloak, while the shelf over a fireplace is most often spelled “(b)
______________.”
8. Historic / historical
The meaning of “(a) ______________” has been narrowed down to
“famous in history.” One should not call a building, site, district, or event
“(b) ______________.” Sites may be of (c) ______________ interest if
historians are interested in them, but not just because they are old. In America
“(d) ______________” is grossly overused as a synonym for “older than my
father’s day.”
9. Fowl / foul
A chicken is a (a) ______________. A poke in the eye is a (b)
______________.
10. Ceremonial / ceremonious
If you are talking about the performance of a ceremony, the word you
will usually want is “(a) ______________” as in “(b) ______________dance.”
Exercises
Sikhs traditionally wear (c) ______________ daggers. “(d) ______________” is

mostly used to describe formal behavior which often has little or no connection
with a literal ceremony: “(e) ______________ manners,” “(f) ______________
welcome,” or “(g) ______________ speech.”
11. Premier / premiere
These words are, respectively, the masculine and feminine forms of the
word for “first” in French; but they have become differentiated in English. Only
the masculine form is used as an adjective, as in “Tidy-Pool is the
(a) ______________ pool-cleaning firm in Orange County.” The confusion
arises when these words are used as nouns. The prime minister of a
parliamentary government is known as a “(b) ______________.” The opening
night of a film or play is its “(c) ______________.” “(d) ______________” as a
verb is common in the arts and in show business (“the show (e)
______________ on PBS”), but it is less acceptable in other contexts ("the state
government (f) ______________ its new welfare system”). Use “introduced,”
or, if real innovation is involved, “pioneered.”
12. Revue / review
You can attend a musical (a) ______________ in a theatre, but when you
write up your reactions for a newspaper, you’re writing a (b) ______________.
Exercise 10. Think of 10 pairs of paronyms other than in Exercise

9. Use them in the sentences of your own so that their meaning is clear.
Exercise 11. Insert the words into the sentences correctly:

1) Wreath / wreathe
a. President Obama will be laying a __________ there later today.
And across the country, there are parades and ceremonies.
b. The quarry I hunted today could make my career, __________ me
in glory. But I couldn't make the collar here.
Exercises
2) Venal / venial
a. Mr. Fazlullah says he joined the insurgency after disappointment at
a __________ government and the lack of economic progress in his area.
b. I could risk __________ sin for the sake of my baby, I told myself.
3) Turbid / turgid
a. Village streets carried slow, __________ crowds of sightseers,
especially MacDougal Street, the main drag between Eighth and Bleecker.
b. Newly formed lakes are initially __________ from glacial silts and
clays, but quickly clear as ice retreats from the catchment.
4) Titillate / titivate
a. Now, I don't watch anything that uses violence to shock or
__________ its audience or enrich its cynical producers at the expense of human
decency.
b. Well perhaps, is there anything he can __________ in that flat?
5) Stationary / stationery
a. And the unused __________ was stacked in a general office for use
by lowly clerks.
b. We quickly sought assurance that the aircraft would remain
__________ long enough for us to get off.
6) Proscribe / prescribe
a. Doctors are now increasingly reluctant to __________ tranquillisers
for fear of being sued by patients who become addicted to them.
b. They are generally seen as anti-competitive and necessitating
legislation to __________ them, since they almost invariably create the
detrimental effects of monopoly.
7) Perquisite / prerequisite
a. Improved economic performance is, on the contrary, a __________
to the solution of the problems we and they face.
Exercises
b. To him an important embassy was a __________ of birth rather

than the culmination of years of painstaking effort.
8) Marital / martial
a. We knew they were having __________ difficulties, but Jane
wouldn't tell anyone why she wanted a divorce.
b. There was revolt in Catalonia, with __________ law declared
throughout Spain and street-battles in Madrid.
9) Luxuriant / luxurious
a. She and Luc share a __________ flat just a stone's throw from the
famous Hollywood sign.
b. A tall, haughty man with __________ black whiskers and beard, he
wore a formal uniform of horizon blue.
10) Hoard / horde
a. The finds from this interesting __________ are basically Celtic and
include, above the club and the figure of Taranis.
b. He was just about to be attacked by a __________ of anxious faces
when he felt himself being gently shaken.
11) Loath / loathe
a. He has bought me a drink. How I __________ that expression. At
home we say: "Would you like a beer?”
b. Having made up the fire I knelt on the hearthrug, __________ to
leave the fierce heat of the flames.
12) Envelop / envelope
a. It had been used to stiffen an __________ posted from the Palace
which contained photographs of other members of the Royal Family.
b. The warmth from him seemed to __________ her, like the
comforting heat of the sun.
Exercises
Exercise 12. Do the multiple choice task. One or more synonyms

may fit each sentence.
1) The democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to
peacefully _____________, all those are universal values and need to be
respected.
A) disagree B ) differ C) dissent D) take issue
2) It could be something magically _____________ such as
Givenchy's ethereal organza blouse, or Marc Jacobs's delicately sprigged obi-
belted dresses.
A) capricious B) impulsive C) whimsical
3) And her immediate priority will be helping her daughters adjust and
not get too _______________ because their daddy is president.
A) proud B) arrogant C) vainglorious D) bigheaded
4) Out of the corner of my eye, I'd catch some young guy
___________ his arms out and skate with exaggerated flair.
A) discard B) fling C) toss out D) cast aside
5) Dickens watched a man ____________ towards him, arms
outstretched as if for a welcoming hug.
A) stagger B) reel C) lurch D) swag
6) Agatha Strangelove was a dancer at the opera house. She had
__________ blond curls and ringlets, a pouting rosebud mouth, a figure that was
overgenerous.
A) tasty B) dainty C) yummy D) luscious
7) In the silence, Don let his _____________ eyes meet Joel in the
center of the hallway, confirming the warning was duly performed.
A) egregious B) flagrant C) glaring D) gross
8) Encourage the continued effort needed to become computer literate
and be motivated to ______________ up-to-date. Bear in mind that some adults
are inclined to give up following failure
Exercises
A) stay B) remain C) rest D) continue

9) Like about 70 percent of their compatriots, they build their homes
near a river, plant crops in the fertile floodplain, and ___________ cattle in the
nearby savanna.
A) crop B) graze C) pasture D) grass
10) Bend the shoe to _____________ walking and see if the leather is
still wrinkled after it has returned to the flat position.
A) imitate B) copy C) simulate D) replicate
11) Our third aim was to _________________ the hypothesis that
bacterial counts on surfaces increase significantly across the working day.
A) test B) prove C) try out D) examine
12) " And I said to them,' Think of the children!' The ______________
removal of a parent from a child's life is traumatic.
A) abrupt B) sudden C) jerky D) emergent
Exercise 13. Give definitions to the synonyms below. Insert each

of the synonyms into the gapped sentences. Give grounds to your choice.
unusual strange weird unexpected funny peculiar
bizarre curious odd incongruous uncanny extraordin-
ary
1) The older man smelled of sandalwood and the ___________ thin
scent of clean train cars.
2) The entire mountainside, brilliant and ____________, looked
severely freezer-burned.
3) It wasn't _____________ to walk through the mall and see
teammates at Foot Locker buying cleats.
4) I liked the challenge of finding those ____________ little things
that make a room come alive.
Exercises
5) He was a basketball star and a folk hero, a homegrown kid with

a(n)__________ name, a bowl haircut, a 6-foot-11 frame covered in tattoos.
6) You might want to create experiments with heated air in the
classroom to create these ____________ displays and get kids interested in the
playful wonders of the open air.
7) I should have known Pandora would pick a profession suited to her
rather ___________ mentality.
8) His chest was tight, and he was experiencing a __________ panicky
sensation. It was as if those threatening clouds were alive and stalking him.
9) For a big man, Galen himself moved with __________ silence, but
that wasn't the trait she was interested in right now.
10) In 1965, Congress passed an ___________ law with scarcely any
public debate--the Immigration and Naturalization Act--which eventually
created sweeping demographic changes.
11) But some vitamin studies have also shown ___________ harm, like
higher lung cancer rates in two studies of beta carotene use.
12) She looked at him blankly. There was something _________ about
the sight of him on this property. He didn't seem to belong here.
Exercise 14.Group the italicized words into three synonymic fields

around the following central field members.
make sure, create, found, secure, ground, maturity, set down, insure,
provide, settle, participation, stabilize, assure, make certain, warrant,
empiricism, existence, evidence, reality, safeguard, confirm, authorize, nail
down, okay,enact, endow, involvement,originate, lay foundation, wisdom,
background, practice, arrange, inculcate.
Establish, ... Experience, ... Ensure, ...
Exercises
Exercise 15.Find antonyms to the italicized words. There are 3

words in –ful that do not have antonyms. What is the meaning of the suf-
fix in these cases? Translate the sentences into Ukrinian.
1) Her hair has now become an embodiment of herself – another
beautiful woman with a pathetic fate.
2) I know coffee can make you more wakeful, maybe even more
cheerful.
3) The twenty year period has been particularly changeful in Scotland,
encompassing the discovery of oil, recession, and some other events.
4) There are plenty of examples in English criminal law of crimes
which appear to include harmful consequences as a definitional element
irrespective of any actual state of mind referable thereto.
5) We're also very hopeful that we will have some extra support and
assistance in this field at NC.
6) Vernon returned to Mount Carmel with his young wife and a
handful of followers, the undisputed leader of the sect.
7) The flower peeked out of the fidelia like a bashful woman. Its petals
were silver, the leaves around it a faint veiny green.
8) A sprinkle of sugar and a dollop of whipped cream can turn a
humble bowlful of berries into a dessert fit for royalty.
9) Did I mention already that Natalie, my mockingbird pal, is as sharp
as a pocketful of pins (but without the annoying tendency to stick into your
fingers)?
10) . Khalid was there, dark-skinned and tearful, leaning his head
against the wall. He talked to Alia about health insurance.
11) I have so much for which to be grateful. I'm alive and cancer-free.
I'm married to a man I adore.
Exercises
Exercise 16. Do the words with the suffixes –ful and –less always
mean the opposite of each other? Give examples when they do not.
Exercise 17. Group the following words into the pairs of antonyms. State the types of
antonyms. Use them in the sentences of your own.
1. Pretty a. Joy
2. Serious b. Sunny
3. Sense c. Customer
4. Sober d. Trivial
5. Sour e. Simple
6. Scatter f. Second-hand
7. New g. Ugly
8. Wisdom h. Speaker
9. Sorrow i. Sow
10. Cloudy j. Folly
11. Rough k. Slow
12. Complicated l. Collect
13. Rapid m. Liquid
14. Reap n. Drunk
15. Plural o. Pliable
16. Slim p. Nonsense
17. Solid q. Stout
18. Listener r. Sweet
19. Shopkeeper s. Singular
20. Rigid t. Smooth
Exercise 18.Find in the dictionary as many hyponyms as possible to the following

hypernyms:
Exercises
Boat Shoes Drink
Car Bag Bird
Jewel Furniture Motion
Herb Tree Feeling
Exercise 19.What is the hyponym to each of the following word

groups? Find more members for each of the groups.
Scarlet, crimson, vermillion, lilac, rose, aqua, turquoise, purple, aliz-

arin, amaranth, amber, brass, camel, charcoal, chestnut, dandelion.
1) Akita, Dachshund, Collie, Papillon, Pekingese, Otterhound,
Dalmatian, Plott, Pointer, Poodle, Pug, Beagle, Samoyed, Borzoi, Boxer.
2) Alewife, barbel, carp, cod, dottyback, flagfin, ghoul, limia, mullet,
pearleye, perch, pickerel, poacher, ray.
3) Castle, dogtrot, gambrel, igloo, izba, mansion, mudhif, patio, shack,
Tudor, villa, bedsit, loft.
4) Armchair, stool, bench, deckchair, glider, ottoman, recliner,
sgabello, steno, throne, zaisu, caquetoire, fauteuil, stroller, X-chair.
Exercise 20. Write an abstract using as many words from Exercise

19 as possible.
Exercise 21.Find in the dictionary as many meronyms as possible to the following

holonyms:
Horse Computer Trousers
Kindergarten Pram Book

Exercises
Kitchen Parrot Bed
Chair Blouse Church
Exercise 22. Use the words from Exercise 21 in 25 sentences of

your own.
Exercise 23. What is the meaning of the suffix –er in the italicized
words? Group the words according to the suffix meaning. Analyse the mo-
tivation of the nouns derived with help of –er.
1) A few days before the surrender at Appomattox a thunderous

engagement between the commands of Sheridan and Pickett was unknown to the
latter commander, a mile in the rear of his own line (A Resumed Identity by Am-
brose Bierce).
2) The doctor nodded civilly, half thinking that the stranger's un-
common greeting was perhaps in deference to the historic surroundings (A Re-
sumed Identity by Ambrose Bierce).
3) The physician regarded his questioner curiously with half-shut
eyes (A Resumed Identity by Ambrose Bierce).
4) 'Why, really,' said the physician, with an amusing consciousness
of his own resemblance to the loquacious barber of the Arabian Nights (A Re-
sumed Identity by Ambrose Bierce).
5) When we got upstairs, and had left our hats and sticks with the
doorkeeper, we were admitted into the chief gambling-room (The Traveller's
Story Of A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins).
6) The thin, haggard, long-haired young man, whose sunken eyes
fiercely watched the turning up of the cards, never spoke; the flabby, fat-faced,
Exercises
pimply player, who pricked his piece of pasteboard perseveringly (The Trav-
eller's Story Of A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins).
7) I had played at it in every city in Europe, without, however, the
care or the wish to study the Theory of Chances — that philosopher's stone of
all gamblers! (The Traveller's Story Of A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie
Collins).
8) Now, this is what you must do – send for a cabriolet when you
feel quite well again – draw up all the windows when you get into it – and tell
the driver to take you home only through the large and well-lighted thorough-
fares (The Traveller's Story Of A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins).
9) I succeeded in doing it silently – in doing it with all the dexter-
ity of a house-breaker – and then looked down into the street (The Traveller's
10) I had always been accustomed, by the practice of gymnastics,
to keep up my school-boy powers as a daring and expert climber; and knew that
my head, hands, and feet would serve me faithfully in any hazards of ascent or
descent (The Traveller's Story Of A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins).
11) Do I know how many of those men entered the same gambling-
house that you entered? Won as you won? Took that bed as you took it? Slept in
it? Were smothered in it? And were privately thrown into the river, with a letter
of explanation written by the murderers and placed in their pocket-books? (The
12) I was examined and re-examined; the gambling-house was
strictly searched all through from top to bottom; the prisoners were separately
interrogated; and two of the less guilty among them made a confession (The
13) My adventure was dramatized by three illustrious play-makers,
but never saw theatrical daylight; for the censorship forbade the introduction on
Exercises
the stage of a correct copy of the gambling-house bedstead (The Traveller's

14) There's four of them--children of a farmer near Ploumar here. . .
(The Idiots by Joseph Conrad).
15) Once he spoke to his son, alluding to the newcomers with a
groan: "They will quarrel over the land" (The Idiots by Joseph Conrad).
16) He finished his meal, and remained idly thrown back in his
chair, his eyes lost amongst the black rafters of the ceiling (The Idiots by Joseph
Conrad).
17) For years past I have continually been conscious of some power
behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the
way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrongdoer (The Final Problem
(Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
Exercise 24. Fill in the gaps following the examples. In some

cases not all forms are possible.
-ate -(a)tion -ee -or/-er
evacuate Evacuation evacuee evacuator
educator
stimulate
escapee
violate
obligation
Exercises
permission
distributee
alienate
delegation
prosecutor
presentation
appointee
separate
Exercise 25. Observe the meanings of the nouns in –ery. Which

groups can they be classified into according to the suffix meaning? Trans-
late the sentences into Ukrainian.
1) You wicked woman – you disgrace me. But there! You always re-
sembled your father. What do you think will become of you . . . in the other
world? In this . . . Oh misery! (The Idiots by Joseph Conrad).
2) He subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of
snobbery (The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane).
3) I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the
deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dick-
ens).
4) The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came
near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which
this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery (A Christmas Carol by
Charles Dickens).
Exercises
5) Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect.
Leave Paddington by the 11:15 (The Boscombe Valley Mystery (Sherlock
Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
6) There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the
thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the
neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word
of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the
dock (The Copper Beeches (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
7) They are a most unpleasant couple, but fortunately I spend most of
my time in the nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in one
corner of the building (The Copper Beeches (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle).
8) The swiftest surgery is the least painful. Let me first say what will
ease your mind (The Sussex Vampire (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle).
9) Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts—forgery cases,
robberies, murders—I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced
its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been per-
sonally consulted (The Final Problem (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle).
10) You know the yew thicket in the shrubbery: well, a year or two
back we were cleaning out the old well that used to be in the clearing here, and
what do you suppose we found? (A School Story by M. R. James).
11) She so wanted to be first in something, and she did not succeed,
even in making sketches for drapery advertisements (The Rocking Horse Winner
by D. H. Lawrence).
Exercises
12) He admired the effrontery with which she bargained. He was the
sort of man who always paid what he was asked (The Rocking Horse Winner by
D. H. Lawrence).
13) We had to make it a sin, not only to commit adultery and to lie and
thieve, but to expose their bodies, and to dance and not to come to church (Rain
by W. Somerset Maugham).
14) And on their way home they met her strolling towards the quay.
She had all her finery on. Her great white hat with its vulgar, showy flowers was
an affront (Rain by W. Somerset Maugham).
15) Each of these passages has faults of its own, but quite apart from
avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is stale-
ness of imagery; the other is lack of precision (Politics and the English Lan-
guage by George Orwell).
16) "Who dares" – he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood
near him – "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and
unmask him – that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the
battlements!" (The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe).
17) Upon my recovery, too, I felt very – oh, inexpressibly sick and
weak, as if through long inanition (The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan
Poe).
18) These, it was hoped, might furnish a clew to the discovery of one at
least among the murderous band (The Avenger by Thomas de Quincey).
19) In fact, the military service of Christendom, for the last ten
years, had been anything but a parade service; and to those, therefore, who were
familiar with every form of horrid butchery, the mere outside horrors of death
had lost much of their terror (The Avenger by Thomas de Quincey).
20) Incautiously, however, something of this transpired, and the re-
sult was doubly unfortunate; for, while his intentions were thus made known as
Exercises
finally pointing to England, which of itself made him an object of hatred and
suspicion, it also diminished his means of bribery (The Avenger by Thomas de
Quincey).
Exercise 26. Using the dictionary find more examples of nouns in

-ery. Use 15 of them in the sentences of your own.
Exercise 27. Observe how J.K Roaling uses adjectives in –ish in

her Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows 14. How does the suffix –ish
modify the meaning of the stem? Translate the sentences into Ukrainian
paying special attention to the translation of the adjectives in –ish.
1) Lucius Malfoy looked up. His skin appeared yellowish and waxy in
the firelight, and his eyes were sunken and shadowed.
2) I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and
while I was no longer contagious, my pock-marked visage and greenish hue did
not encourage many to approach me.
3) They were not alike: Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike Al-
bus, preferred to settle arguments by dueling rather than through reasoned dis-
cussion.
4) Fleur walked over to stand beside him, giving him a soppy, slavish
look that Harry hoped with all his heart would never appear on his face again.
5) Ron looked half resentful, half sheepish; he rocked backward and
forward on his feet for a moment, then said, “Right then, well, that’s… yeah.”
6) “Well, as long as it doesn’t get them into trouble, though they
might’ve been arrested already. God, that’s revolting,” Ron added after one sip
of the foamy, grayish coffee.
7) It seemed most unlikely that Umbridge would keep her jewelry in
her office, but on the other hand it seemed foolish not to search it to make sure.
14
Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows / Joan K. Rowling. – Bloomsbery, 1997. – 607 p.
Exercises
8) The man’s scowling, slightly brutish face was somehow at odds

with his magnificent, sweeping robes, which were embroidered with much gold
thread.
9) As he passed gleaming wooden door after gleaming wooden door,
each bearing a small plaque with the owner’s name and occupation upon it, the
might of the Ministry, its complexity, its impenetrability, seemed to force itself
upon him so that the plan he had been carefully concocting with Ron and
Hermione over the past four weeks seemed laughably childish.
10) Umbridge laughed a soft girlish laugh that made Harry want to at-
tack her.
11) The moment his eyes fell upon Ron, all other concerns fled Harry’s
mind, for blood drenched the whole of Ron’s left side and his face stood out,
grayish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth.
12) They could not count on elfish Apparition being free from the same
flaw that had taken Yaxley to Grimmauld Place on the hem of Hermione’s
sleeve.
13) Harry could still see the blond-haired youth’s face; it was merry,
wild; there was a Fred and George-ish air of triumphant trickery about him.
14) It had been a nightmarish experience, seeing the Dementors gliding
out of the must in the distance and realizing, as the paralyzing cold choked his
lungs and a distant screaming filled his ears, that he was not going to be able to
protect himself.
15) They did not dare remain in any area too long, so rather than
staying in the south of England, where a hard ground frost was the worst of their
worries, they continued to meander up and down the country, braving a
mountainside, where sleet pounded the tent; a wide, flat marsh, where the tent
was flooded with chill water; and a tiny island in the middle of a Scottish loch,
where snow half buried the tent in the night.
Exercises
16) Even her ability to sense them suggested some Dumbledore-ish

power that he had never encountered before.
17) Harry looked around, holding Hermione’s wand high, and saw the
place: a flattish rock lying in the shadow of a sycamore tree.
18) “It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you
get around a Portkey, you know?”
19) “The Crumple Horned Snorkack” said Xenophilius very clearly, a
mulish look upon his face, “is a shy and highly magical creature, and it’s horn–”
20) He had forgotten all about her in his feverish contemplation of the
Hallows.
21) Bill raised his wand, and the pile of earth beside the grave rose up
into the air and fell neatly upon it, a small, reddish mound.
22) I didn’t mean that,” said Harry, whose brain felt sluggish with ex-
haustion and from the surfeit of food and wine. “It’s… he left me a job.”
Exercise 28. Observe the use of the adjectives with the suffix –
able in the following sentences. What are the general meanings of the suf-
fix?15
1. The dwindling of the purebloods is, says Professor Burbage, a most
desirable circumstance…
2. The locket was accorded this place of honor not because it was
valuable – in all usual senses it was worthless–but because of what it had cost to
attain it.
3. He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was
soon in regular correspondence with the most notable magical names of the day.
4. Being continually outshone was an occupational hazard of being his
friend and cannot have been any more pleasurable as a brother.
15
Sentences from: Rowling J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows / Joan K. Rowling. – Bloomsbery, 1997.
– 607 p.
Exercises
5. Dumbledore’s innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding

knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, will
benefit generations to come.
6. Never once had he imagined Dumbledore’s childhood or youth; it
was as though he had sprung into being as Harry had known him, venerable and
silver-haired and old.
7. No, they had always discussed Harry, Harry’s past, Harry’s future,
Harry’s plans… and it seemed to Harry now, despite the fact that his future was
so dangerous and so uncertain, that he had missed irreplaceable opportunities
when he had failed to ask Dumbledore more about himself, even though the only
personal question he had ever asked his headmaster was also the only one he
suspected that Dumbledore had not answered honestly.
8. He’s made it an imprisonable offense to connect this house to the
Floo Network, place a Portkey here, or Apparate in or out.
9. I’m still not sure that was advisable and it’s certainly only to be
used in emergencies.
10. With an unmistakable bellowing roar, dragon fire burst from the ex-
haust, white-hot and blue, and the motorbike shot forward like a bullet with a
sound of wrenching metal.
11. The sidecar rose like a cork, unsteerable but at least still airborne.
12. And into his mind burst the vision of an emaciated old man lying in
rags upon a stone floor, screaming, a horrible drawn-out scream, a scream of un-
endurable agony…
13. His parents’ graves were only part of the attraction: He had a
strong, though inexplicable, feeling that the place held answers for him.
14. But there was no time to discuss the matter; a second later, Mr.
Weasley had appeared out of thin air at the gate, accompanied by Rufus Scrim-
geour, instantly recognizable by his mane of grizzled hair.
Exercises
15. The Decree for Justifiable Confiscation gives the Ministry the
power to confiscate the contents of a will.
16. “According to reliable historical sources, the sword may present it-
self to any worthy Gryffindor,” said Scrimgeour.
17. “If that is so, it is even more dishonorable for Skeeter to have taken
advantage of her,” said Doge, “and no reliance can be placed on anything
Bathilda may have said!”
18. “Undetectable Extension Charm,” said Hermione. “Tricky, but I
think I’ve done it okay; anyway, I managed to fit everything we need in here.”
19. He would have found Kreacher, with his snoutlike nose and blood-
shot eyes, a distinctively unlovable object even if the elf had not betrayed Sirius
to Voldemort.
20. This, then, was how Voldemort had tested the defenses surrounding
the Horcrux, by borrowing a disposable creature, a house-elf…
21. Restless and irritable, Ron had developed an annoying habit of
playing with the Deluminator in his pocket.
22. “Polyjuice Potion… Invisibility Cloak… Decoy Detonators… You
should each take a couple just in case… Puking Pastilles, Nosebleed Nougat,
Extendable Ears…”
23. “Ah,” said Plum Thicknesse. “Has he been caught having contact
with an Undesirable?”
24. They had discovered one Horcrux, but they had no means of de-
stroying it: The others were as unattainable as they had ever been.
25. They had just eaten an unusually good meal: Hermione had been to
a supermarket under the Invisibility Cloak (scrupulously dropping the money
into an open till as she left), and Harry thought that she might be more persuad-
able than usual on a stomach full of spaghetti Bolognese and tinned pears.
Exercises
26. Harry’s hand brushed the old Snitch through the mokeskin and for a
moment he had to fight the temptation to pull it out and throw it away. Impene-
trable, unhelpful, useless, like everything else Dumbledore had left behind…
27. How despicable does Albus Dumbledore appear, busy plotting
his rise to power when he should have been mourning his mother and
caring for his sister!
28. Dumbledore had at least taught Harry something about certain
kinds of magic, of the incalculable power of certain acts.
29. Now they’ve put a Taboo on it, anyone who says it is trackable–
quick-and-easy way to find Order members!
30. An unbeatable wand, Hermione, come on!
31. He saw concern and something less easily definable in Hermione’s
expression.
32. If only they could rescue her, but Dementors in those numbers
would be virtually unassailable.
33. The Order of the Phoenix informs us that her body showed unmis-
takable signs of injuries inflicted by Dark Magic.
34. “Nothing!” Ron called back, in a passable imitation of Wormtail’s
wheezy voice. “All fine!”
35. And Voldemort’s fury broke: A burst of green light filled the prison
room and the frail old body was lifted from its hard bed and then fell back, life-
less, and Voldemort returned to the window, his wrath barely controllable.
36. “That,” she said quietly, “is despicable. Ask for his help, then dou-
ble-cross him? And you wonder why goblins don’t like wizards, Ron?”
37. Yet the sword was their one, indispensable weapon against the Hor-
cruxes.
Exercises
38. And another memory darted through his mind, of the real Bellatrix
Lestrange shrieking at him when he had first tried to use an Unforgivable Curse:
“You need to mean them, Potter!”
39. The stairs opened into a sitting room with a durable carpet and a
small fireplace, above which hung a single large oil painting of a blonde girl
who gazed out at the room with a kind of a vacant sweetness.
40. With a whiplike movement, Crabbe pointed his wand at the fifty
foot mountain of old furniture, of broken trunks, of old books and robes and
unidentifiable junk, and shouted, “Descendo!”
41. Other teachers report that the boy is modest, likeable, and reason-
ably talented. Personally, I find him an engaging child.
42. People were dying and he seemed unstoppable, and I had to do
what I could.
Exercise 29. State the word-building type of the italicized words.
Translate the sentences into Ukrainian16.
1. As they drew nearer, however, his face shone through the gloom,
hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils
were vertical.
2. Dudley raised a large, hamlike hand to point at Harry.
3. Harry dropped the hair into the mudlike liquid.
4. “How do you feel, Georgie?” whispered Mrs. Weasley. George’s
fingers groped for the side of his head. “Saintlike,” he murmured.
5. As he crossed the yard, the great skeletal thestral looked up, rustled
its enormous batlike wings, then resumed its grazing.
6. Trumpetlike sounds from the back of the marquee told everyone
that Hagrid had taken out one of his own tablecloth-sized handkerchiefs.
16
– 607 p.
Exercises
7. “I like this song,” said Luna, swaying in time to the waltzlike tune,
and a few seconds later she stood up and glided onto the dance floor, where she
revolved on the spot, quite alone, eyes closed and waving her arms.
8. It seemed incredibly unlikely that Luna’s father was a supporter of
the Dark Arts, and nobody else in the tent seemed to have recognized the trian-
gular, finlike shape.
9. There was a large bed with a carved wooden headboard, a tall win-
dow obscured by long velvet curtains and a chandelier thickly coated in dust
with candle scrubs still resting in its sockets, solid wax banging in frostlike
drips.
10. He would have found Kreacher, with his snoutlike nose and blood-
shot eyes, a distinctively unlovable object even if the elf had not betrayed Sirius
to Voldemort.
11. The golden grilles slid apart again and Hermione gasped. Four peo-
ple stood before them, two of them deep in conversation: a long-haired wizard
wearing magnificent robes of black and gold, and a squat, toadlike witch wear-
ing a velvet bow in her short hair and clutching a clipboard to her chest.
12. And then he saw the door to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with
its serpent door knocker, but before he could draw breath, there was a scream
and a flash of purple light: Hermione’s hand was suddenly vicelike upon his and
everything went dark again.
13. And Harry was hurtling back out of those wide, tunnellike pupils
and Gregorovitch’s face was stricken with terror.
14. Frozen air filled the room as Harry ducked to avoid another shower
of broken glass and his foot slipped on a pencil-like something–his wand–
15. The zigzagging path leading to the front door was overgrown with a
variety of odd plants, including a bush covered in orange radishlike fruit Luna
sometimes wore as earrings.
Exercises
16. A little owl with a slightly flattened hawklike head peered down at
them from one of the branches.
17. as he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake and
landed, lightly as vapor inside the cell-like room.
18. He saw the ratlike man’s small watery eyes widen with fear and
surprise.
19. He picked up one of the largest and laid it, pillowlike, over the place
where Dobby’s head now rested.
20. The spiderlike hand swooped and pulled the wand from Dumble-
dore’s grasp, and as he took it, a shower of sparks flew from its tip, sparkling
over the corpse of its last owner, ready to serve a new master at last.
21. They remained shut in the cupboardlike room for hours at a time.
22. The old goblin obeyed, pressing his palm to the wood, and the door
of the vault melted away to reveal a cavelike opening crammed from floor to
ceiling with golden coins and goblets, silver armor, the skins of strange crea-
tures–some with long spines, other with drooping wings–potions in jeweled
flasks, and a skull still wearing a crown.
23. Brass lamps hung from the walls and the earthy floor was worn and
smooth; as they walked, their shadows rippled, fanlike, across the wall.
24. With a whiplike movement, Crabbe pointed his wand at the fifty
foot mountain of old furniture, of broken trunks, of old books and robes and
unidentifiable junk, and shouted, “Descendo!”
25. A bloodlike substance, dark and tarry, seemed to be leaking from
the diadem.
26. Rounding the corner, Percy let out a bull-like roar: “ROOK-
WOOD!” and sprinted off in the direction of a tall man, who was pursuing a
couple of students.
Exercises
27. He looked up: a giant stood before him, twenty feet high, its head
hidden in shadow, nothing but its treelike, hairy shins illuminated by light from
the castle doors.
28. His black hair was overlong and his clothes were so mismatched
that it looked deliberate: too short jeans, a shabby, overlarge coat that might
have belonged to a grown man, an odd smocklike shirt.
Exercise 30. Look at the italicized words. What meanings does the
prefix over- have? Give antonyms to the italicized words where possible.
Are the words with the same stems and the prefixes over> and under- al-
ways antonymous?
1) One summer night a man stood on a low hill overlooking a wide ex-
panse of forest and field (Resumed Identity by Ambrose Bierce).
2) My cup of coffee had been drugged, and drugged too strongly. I had
been saved from being smothered by having taken an overdose of some narcotic
(Resumed Identity by Ambrose Bierce).
3) He had returned late from the market, where he had overheard (not
for the first time) whispers behind his back (The Idiots by Joseph Conrad).
4) Under the high hanging shelves supporting great sides of bacon
overhead, her body was busy by the great fireplace, attentive to the pot swinging
on iron gallows, scrubbing the long table where the field hands would sit down
directly to their evening meal (The Idiots by Joseph Conrad).
5) The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly
congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dick-
ens).
6) Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach- houses and
sheds were overrun with grass (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens).
Exercises
7) He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irre-

sistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom (A Christmas
Carol by Charles Dickens).
8) He was on his stool in a jiffy, driving away with his pen, as if he

were trying to overtake nine o’clock (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens).
9) Her violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her
cheeks, all thought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement
and concern (The Boscombe Valley Mystery (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle).
10) Why should you raise up hopes which you are bound to disappoint?
I am not over-tender of heart, but I call it cruel (The Boscombe Valley Mystery
(Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
11) If that were true the murderer must have dropped some part of his
dress, presumably his overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to
return and to carry it away at the instant when the son was kneeling with his
back turned not a dozen paces off (The Boscombe Valley Mystery (Sherlock
12) It struck me that it might have been fastened by a mere oversight, so
I took out my bunch of keys and tried to open it (The Copper Beeches (Sherlock
13) My overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and I turned and ran—
ran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the skirt of my
dress (The Sussex Vampire (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
14) But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it. I was
keenly on my guard against him (The Final Problem (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle).
Exercises
15) Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being
ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sick-
ness of his heart (Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne).
16) He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered
by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that
overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look
down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities (Rip Van Winkle by Washington
Irving).
17) As he came near Corless's his former agitation began to overmaster
him and he halted before the door in indecision (A Little Cloud by James Joyce).
18) His mother noticed how overwrought he was (The Rocking Horse
Winner by D. H. Lawrence).
19) He was the sort of man who always paid what he was asked. He
preferred to be over-charged than to haggle (Rain by W. Somerset Maughan).
20) Half-past twelve o'clock came; Turkey began to glow in the face,
overturn his inkstand, and become generally obstreperous; Nippers abated down
into quietude and courtesy; Ginger Nut munched his noon apple; and Bartleby
remained standing at his window in one of his profoundest dead-wall reveries
(Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville).
Exercises
Exercise 31. Observe different meanings of the prefix under- in

the italicized words. Give antonyms where possible.
1) Sometimes an attorney having business with me, and calling at my
office, and finding no one but the scrivener there, would undertake to obtain
some sort of precise information from him touching my whereabouts; but with-
out heeding his idle talk, Bartleby would remain standing immovable in the mid-
dle of the room (Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville).
2) But a soft imprisoned turf grew underfoot (Bartleby the Scrivener
by Herman Melville).
3) The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles,
manifestoes, White Papers and the speeches of under-secretaries do, of course,
vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in
them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech (Politics and the English Lan-
guage by George Orwell).
4) I besought them that I might undergo the punishment ten times over
in her stead (The Avenger by Thomas de Quincey).
5) Contemptuous annoyance dominated her thoughts as she strolled
slowly homeward, and then gave way to a sharp feeling of something that was
very near fright; across a thick tangle of undergrowth a boy's face was scowling
at her, brown and beautiful, with unutterably evil eyes (The Music on the Hill by
Saki).
6) "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an undertone (The Valley of
Spiders by H. G. Wells).
7) The blushes caused by the careless scrutiny of some passengers as
she had entered the car were strange to see upon this plain, under-class counte-
nance, which was drawn in placid, almost emotionless lines (The Bride Comes
to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane).
8) The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk,
the undertaker, and the chief mourner (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens).
Exercises
9) You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of

cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave
about you, whatever you are! (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens).
10) To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a
frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thun-
dering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns
it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth (A Christmas Carol by
Charles Dickens).
11) He cut deep, and yet I just undercut him (The Final Problem (Sher-
lock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
12) The first fellow was a bit too active, but the second was caught by
the under-gardener, and only got away after a struggle (The Adventure Of
Charles Augustus Milverton by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
Exercise 32. Give antonyms to the following adjectives using pre-

fixes in (im, il, ir)- or un-
decent predictable deniable respectable replaceable
legal restorable moral grateful mature
friendly reliable rational decipherable obtainable
just disturbed faithful logical literate
forgiven natural reparable reasonable fortunate
yielding deleted deniable mobile mortal
Exercise 33. Build 15 compounds combining the words in the right and the left
columns.
1) waist a) shoe
2) eye b) horse
Exercises
3) tip c) sight
4) horse d) back
5) name e) sake
6) neck f) sport
7) ply g) line
8) soy h) line
9) hunch i) bread
10) stage j) fall
11) wrist k) toe
12) rain l) bean
13) ginger m) wood
14) spoil n) watch
15) race o) coach
Exercise 34. Write an abstract using words from Exercise 33.
Exercise 35.Define the types of word-building used to form the it-

alicized words. Translate the sentences into Ukrainian17.
1. Fred wolf-whistled and there was an outbreak of giggling from the
veela cousins.
2. Ron rugby-tackled him and Mundungus hit the stone floor with a
muffled crunch.
3. Kneeling down beside the trunk again, he groped around in the bot-
tom and, after retrieving an old badge that flickered feebly between SUPPORT
CEDRIC DIGGORY and POTTER STINKS, a cracked and worn-out Sneako-
scope, and a gold locket inside which a note signed R.A.B. had been hidden, he
finally discovered the sharp edge that had done the damage.
17
– 607 p.
Exercises
4. He had merely glanced at the headline when he had taken the

rolled-up paper from the delivery owl early that morning and thrown it aside, af-
ter noting that it said nothing about Voldemort.
5. All right, all right, we’ll have time for a cozy catch-up later.
6. And into his mind burst the vision of an emaciated old man lying in
rags upon a stone floor, screaming, a horrible drawn-out scream, a scream of un-
endurable agony
7. “You’re amazing, you are,” said Ron, handing her his bundled-up
robes.
8. He had pure-white hair and a thick, bushy beard: a trussed-up Fa-
ther Christmas.
Exercise 36. Give a motivational analysis of the italicized nouns 18:

1) Some, indeed, were disposed to praise his father’s action and as-
sumed that Albus too was a Muggle-hater.
2) The charm that detects magical activity around under-seventeens,
the way the Ministry finds out about underage magic!
3) “But hopefully it’ll look like I’ve gone away with Mum and Dad; a
lot of Muggle-borns are talking about going into hiding at the moment,” said
Hermione.
4) Mr. Weasley had explained that after the death of Dumbledore,
their Secret-Keeper, each of the people to whom Dumbledore had confided
Grimmauld Place’s location had become a Secret-Keeper in turn.
5) Over her shoulder, Ron gave Harry the thumbs-up and mouthed,
‘Good one’.
6) George was left to deal with the middle-aged witches and Ron took
charge of Mr. Weasley’s old Ministry-colleague Perkins, while a rather deaf old
couple fell to Harry’s lot.
18
– 607 p.
Exercises
7) “We should go and congratulate them!” said Hermione, standing on

tiptoe to see the place where Bill and Fleur had vanished amid a crowd of
well-wishers.
8) A double-decker bus rumbled by and a group of merry pub-goers
ogled them as they passed; Harry and Ron were still wearing dress robes.
9) Had it worked, Harry wondered, or had Snape already blasted the
horror-figure aside as casually as he had killed the real Dumbledore?
10) “Oh, it could still be here, but under counter-enchantments,” said
Hermione. “Charms to prevent it from being summoned magically, you know.”
11) “Master,” croaked Kreacher in his bullfrog’s voice, and he bowed
low; muttering to his knees, “back in my Mistress’s old house with the
blood-traitor Weasley and the Mudblood–”
12) At this moment, excited eleven-year-olds would be poring over
stacks of newly purchased spell-books, unaware that they would never see Hog-
warts, perhaps never see their families again either.
13) Fletcher knows how to avoid capture, has many hidey-holes and ac-
complices. Nevertheless, Kreacher cornered the thief in the end.
14) Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be
able to start straightaway.
15) The witch glanced toward the shining mahogany door facing the
space full of pamphlet-makers; Harry looked too, and the rage reared in him like
a snake.
16) Couple of days later, once he’d got the say-so from
You-Know-Who, I imagine, he sent it down to London to be kept in Gringotts
instead.
Exercise 37. Analyse the derivation models of the italicized adject-

ives. Translate the sentences into Ukrainian19.
19
– 607 p.
Exercises
1) The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles,

on the right by a high, neatly manicured hedge.
2) I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance,
those wreckers of all but the best-laid plans.
3) His Muggle clothing, Invisibility Cloak, potion-making kit, certain
books, the photograph album Hagrid had once given him, a stack of letters, and
his wand had been repacked into an old rucksack.
4) I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and
while I was no longer contagious, my pock-marked visage and greenish hue did
not encourage many to approach me.
5) Scarcely a year previously, his father, Percival, had been convicted
of a savage and well-publicized attack upon three young Muggles.
6) Mundungus did not look particularly reassured, but Moody was al-
ready pulling half a dozen eggcup-sized glasses from inside his cloak, which he
handed out, before pouring a little Polyjuice Potion into each one.
7) “Good,” said Moody, as at last seven dressed, bespectacled, and
luggage-laden Harrys faced him. “The pairs will be as follows: Mundungus will
be traveling with me, by broom–”
8) He knew a dreadful, gut-wrenching pang for Hedwig as it exploded;
the Death Eater nearest it was blasted off his broom and fell from sight; his com-
panion fell back and vanished.
9) Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before
you, you go for holey?
10) “Ah well,” said George, grinning at his tear-soaked mother. “You’ll
be able to tell us apart now, anyway, Mum.”
11) Hagrid, who had sat down on the floor in the corner where he had
most space, was dabbing at his eyes with his tablecloth-sized handkerchief.
Exercises
12) After two days of nonstop cutlery cleaning, of color-matching fa-

vors, ribbons, and flowers, of de-gnoming the garden and helping Mrs. Weasley
cook vast batches of canapés, however, Harry started to suspect her of a differ-
ent motive.
13) The silence was shattered as the bedroom door flew open with a
wall-shaking crash.
14) She was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one
hand at her back and one in her long, sweet-smelling hair…
15) Ron marched downstairs, though the still-crowded kitchen and into
the yard, and Harry kept pace with him all the way, Hermione trotting along be-
hind them looking scared.
16) Out of the way, out of the way!” sang Mrs. Weasley, coming
through the gate with what appeared to be a giant, beach-ball-sized Snitch float-
ing in front of her.
17) “’S’nothin’,” said Hagrid with a wave of a dustbin-lid-sized hand.
“An’ there’s Charlie! Always liked him–hey! Charlie!”
18) The two newcomers marched across the yard toward the garden and
the lantern-lit table, where everybody sat in silence, watching them draw closer.
19) Harry looked around for a sign of the ruby-encrusted hilt, but
Scrimgeour did not pull the sword from the leather pouch, which in any case
looked much too small to contain it.
20) You can all wear what you like, and I’ll put a full Body-Bind Curse
on Mum until it’s all over.
Exercise 38. Analyse the derivation models of the italicized adject-

20
ives :
1. There was a rustle somewhere to their right: Yaxley drew his wand
again pointing it over his companion’s head, but the source of the noise proved
20
– 607 p.
Exercises
to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock, strutting majestically along the

top of the hedge.
2. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the wall followed Snape and
Yaxley as they strode past.
3. It will, I think, be easy now that we have such a high-ranking offi-
cial under our control, to subjugate the others, and then they can all work to-
gether to bring Scrimgeour down.
4. “And you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, stroking the snake’s snout
with his wand-free hand.
5. It was a two-inch-long fragment of the enchanted mirror that his
dead godfather, Sirius, had given him.
6. When Albus and I left Hogwarts we intended to take the then-tradi-
tional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before
pursuing our separate careers.
7. I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much
older person’s suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less
light-hearted.
8. Never once had he imagined Dumbledore’s childhood or youth; it
was as though he had sprung into being as Harry had known him, venerable and
silver-haired and old.
9. Her nine-hundred-page book was completed in a mere four weeks
after Dumbledore’s mysterious death in June.
10. And for a wizard who spent his later years pleading for tolerance,
he wasn’t exactly broad-minded when he was younger!
11. I’m afraid those who go dewy-eyed over Dumbledore’s spectacular
victory must brace themselves for a bombshell–or perhaps a Dungbomb.
Exercises
12. They were dressed for packing; Uncle Vernon in a fawn zip-up
jacket, Aunt Petunia in a neat salmon-colored coat, and Dudley, Harry’s large,
blond, muscular cousin, in his leather jacket.
13. After opening his mouth once or twice more, Dudley subsided into
scarlet-faced silence.
14. Harry led them all back into the kitchen where, laughing and chat-
tering, they settled on chairs, sat themselves upon Aunt Petunia’s gleaming work
surfaces, or leaned up against her spotless appliances; Ron, long and lanky;
Hermione, her bushy hair tied back in a long plait; Fred and George, grinning
identically; Bill, badly scarred and longhaired; Mr. Weasley, kind-faced, bald-
ing, his spectacles a little awry; Mad-Eye, battle-worn, one-legged, his bright
blue magical eye whizzing in its socket
15. For a moment the man was absurdly spread-eagled in midair as
though he had hit an invisible barrier
16. Harry knew that Hagrid did not dare use the dragon-fire button
again, with Harry seated so insecurely.
17. A fair-haired, big-bellied man was watching Harry anxiously.
18. Mr. Tonks was pointing to a small, silver-backed hairbrush lying on
the dressing table.
19. Ron sat up straight, wide-eyed.
20. Gabrielle was Fleur in miniature; eleven years old, with
waist-length hair of pure, silvery blonde, she gave Mrs. Weasley a dazzling
smile and hugged her, then threw Harry a glowing look, batting her eyelashes.
Exercises
Exercise 39. Using the dictionary, interpret the following abbrevi-

ations:
BA, BEL, BESS, AFAIK, AGL, AOL,
AST, ATV, CAF, CPA, DB, DBS,
DINK, DIY, DOB, DST, ECB, ECHR,
ECJ, ECommHR, EDT, EEC, EEG, EP,
ETA, EU, GI, GMT, SALT, SIS.
Exercise 40. Find at least 20 new acronyms used in online com-

munication. Be ready to explain their meaning.
Exercise 41. Group the following words according to their deriva-

tion types. Add at least 10 more examples to each group.
multi-skilling, DVD, etc., miniskirt, hyperactive, New Yorker, voice

mail, outsider, predestination, PhD, downtown, cybercafe, i.e., helpdesk,
e-commerce, e.g., high-class, evacuee, road rage, philanthropist.
Prefixation Suffixation Compounding Abbreviation/
Shortening
Exercise 42. Write a short story using as many words from

Exercise 41 as possible.
Exercise 43. Define derivation models of the following words. Ex-

plain their motivation.
1) babysit, donate, gamble, haze, moonlight, obsess, process, resurrect,
sass, televise
2) to access, to bottle, to can, to closet, to email, to eye, to fiddle, to
fool, to google, to host, to knife, to microwave, to name, to pocket, to salt, to
shape, to ship, to spear, to torch, to verb
3) alert, attack, call, clone, command, cover, cry, experience, fear,
feel, hope, increase, judge, laugh, rise, run, sleep, start, turn, visit
4) ad, gator, exam, gas, gym, flu, lab, math, memo, photo, pub, coon,
rep, phone
Exercises
5) advertainment, biopic, brunch, chortle, cyborg, guesstimate,

hazmat, motel, prissy, simulcast, smog, Spanglish, spork, telethon, webinar
Exercise 44. Fill in the gaps in the collocations:
1) to _______ into laughter 2. to _______ witness to (something)

3. to _______ something too far 4. to _______ an eye over (something)
5. to _______ (one's) eye 6. to change one's _______
7. to _______ damage to 8. to _______ care of somebody / some-
thing
9. to _______ to somebody's rescue 10.to _______ a crime
11. to _______ (one's) attention to (something)
12. to _______ comparison 13. to _______ (someone) mad
14. to _______ a line to (someone) 15. to turn a deaf _______ to
16. to _______ somebody a favour 17. to look down _______ somebody
18. to _______ a living 19. to _______ to an end
20. to _______ an order 21. to _______ tricks on (someone)
22. to _______ the blame on (someone)
23. to _______ a visit to 24. to _______ a bad habit
25. to _______ an end to 26. to _______ between the lines
27. to ________ a blind eye to 28. to tackle a _______
29. to _______ the chance 30. to _______ track on
Exercise 45. Write an abstract using at least 10 collocations from

Exercise 44.
Exercise 46. Identify the types of the following phraseologisms

according to the degree of idiomaticity. Explain their meanings in your
own words. Illustrate them by the sentences of your own.
1) To take the wind out of sb's sails
Exercises
2) To be a dime a dozen
3) Dog days
4) To come back down to earth
5) To wear your heart on your sleeve
6) A sting in the tail
7) The calm before the storm
8) Any port in a storm
9) Leave no stone unturned
10) To win hands down
11) To keep one's nose to the grindstone
12) To live from hand to mouth
13) On the dot
14) To pay the piper
15) To pull an all-nighter
16) Rain or shine
17) To rub someone the wrong way
18) To shoot the breeze
19) To sleep on it
20) Someone's made his/her own bed; now let him/her lie in it
Exercise 47. Match the comparative idioms. Find their Ukrainian equivalents if
possible.
1. As alike a) as a cucumber
2. As bald b) as greased lightning
3. As black c) as a doornail
4. As brown d) as a clam
5. As busy e) as a fiddle
6. As cold f) as pie
Exercises
7. As cool g) as gold
8. As dead h) as a bee
9. As dead i) as Punch
10. As easy j) as a sandboy
11. As fast k) as any stone
12. As fine l) as Larry
13. As fit m) as frog's hair
14. As fit n) as a hatter
15. As good o) as a die
16. As happy p) as Methuselah
17. As happy q) as ninepence
18. As happy r) as a coot
19. As keen s) as a march hare
20. As mad t) as a butcher's dog
21. As mad u) as the hills
22. As nice v) as Newgate's knocker
23. As old w) as a nine bob note
24. As old x) as two peas in a pod
25. As pleased y) as a dodo
26. As queer z) as mustard
27. As straight aa) as snow
28. As white bb) as a berry
READING:
1) All Synonyms Alphabetical List [електронний ресурс]. – ©
2001-2007, Hillclimb Media. -
http://www.synonym.com/synonyms/
2) Antonym List at Michigan Proficiency Exams [електронний
ресурс]. – (c) 2006-2010. – http://www.michigan-proficiency-
exams.com/antonym-list.html
Exercises
3) Brians P. Common Errors in English Usage / Paul Brians

[електронний ресурс]. – © 2008. –
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/
4) British National Corpus [електронний ресурс]. -
http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/
5) Corpus of Contemporary American English [електронний
ресурс]. - http://www.americancorpus.org/
6) Classic Short Stories at World English [електронний ресурс].
– © world-english.org 1999-2004. – http://www.world-
english.org/stories.htm
7) Commonly Confused Words at AskOxford.com [електронний
ресурс]. – © Copyright Oxford University Press, 2010. –
http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/classicerrors/confuse
d/?view=uk
8) Compound Words at Enchanted Learning [електронний
ресурс]. – ©2008-2009 EnchantedLearning.com. –
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/grammar/compoundwords
/
9) Cooper A. Homonyms / Alan Cooper [електронний ресурс]. –
© 1996-2001, Alan Cooper. –
http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html
10) Harper D. Online Etymology Dictionary / Douglas Harper
[Електронний ресурс]. - http://www.etymonline.com/ - ©
November 2001.
11) Krasnov K.V. English Russian Dictionary of "False Friends" [К.
В. Краснов. Англо-русский словарь "ложных друзей
переводчика"] / Krasnov K.V. – M.: Э.РА, 2004. – 80 с.
12) Oliver D. ESL Idiom Page / Dennis Oliver [електронний
ресурс]. – Copyright © 1995-2007 Dave's ESL Café. –
http://www.eslcafe.com/idioms/id-mngs.html
13) Thesaurus.com [електронний ресурс]. – Dictionary.com, LLC.
© 2010. – http://thesaurus.reference.com/
Subject Index
SUBJECT INDEX
Abbreviation 93, 135

Ablaut reduplication 134
Absolute productivity 100
Acronym 136
Ageism 12
Affixation 92, 100
Amelioration 42, 149
American English 178
Analogy 14
Antilogy 69
Antiphrasis 45
Antonym 11, 62
Antonymy 62
Aphaeresis 131
Apocopation 131
Applied lexicology 16
Archaic word 12
Archaism 170, 174
Assimilation 14
Axiological shift 14
Auto-antonyms 68
Auto-antonymy 45, 68
Auto-converse 46
Back clipping 131
Back-formation 93, 130
Backronym 139
Bahuvrihe 122
Blend 132
Blending 93, 132
Borrowed words 13
Borrowing 96
British English 178
Capitonyms 59
Catch phrase 155
Categorization 15
Classifications of word-formation 89
devices
Clipping 93, 131
Cognitive metaphor 44
Cockney 180
Coinage 170
Collocation 152, 159
Collocation dictionaries 190
Collocational restriction 153
Combinability 15
Comparative lexicology 16
Complementary antonyms 66
Subject Index
Composite forms 155

Compound 120
Compound Adjectives 125
Compounding 93
Compound Nouns 124
Compound Prepositions 128
Compounds spelling 122
Compounds stress patterns 123
Compound Verbs 127
Compression 14, 93, 146
Concept 15
Conceptualization 15
Conceptual pictures of the world 15
Connotation 34
Connotation shift 94, 149
Contextual anonyms 67
Conversion 93, 141
De-adjectival nouns 143
De-adjectival verbs 143
Degree of semantic isolation 160
De-nominal adjectives 143
De-nominal verbs 141, 143
Denotation 33
Derivational affix 100
Derivational prefixes 111
Derivational suffixes 101
Descriptive lexicology 16
Deterioration (degeneration) 43
De-verbal nouns 141, 142
Diachronic dictionaries 189
Dialect 11, 177
Dictionaries of slang 189
Dictionaries of synonyms and 189
antonyms
Dictionaries of word-frequency 189
Direct nomination 87
Directional antonyms 67
Electronic computer dictionaries 190
Elliptical nomination 146
Emotionally charged words 175
Emotionally coloured vocabulary 12
Emotionally neutral vocabulary 175
Enantionymy 69
Endocentric compound 121
Eponym 145
Estuary English 180
Etymological dictionaries 189
Etymology 16
Euphemism 176
Subject Index
Exact reduplication 134

Exocentric compound 121
Explanatory dictionaries 188
Extension 39
False friends 59
Field 11
Folk etymology 46
Fore-clipping 131
Free combination 152, 159
Full conversion 148
Full homonyms 58
Full reduplication 134
Full synonyms 72
General dictionaries 188
Generalization 39
General lexicology 16
Gradable antonyms 63
Grammatical conversion 117
Grammatical meaning 32
Heterologues 59
Historical lexicology 16
Holonymy 82
Homograph 58
Homonym 10, 50, 56
Homonyms proper 60
Homonymy 56
Homophone 59
Hyperbole 45
Hypernym 79
Hyponym 79
Iconic derivation 93, 139
Ideographic synonymy 73
Idiolect 12
Idiom 160
Impure opposites 67
Incompatibility 81
Incorporation 93
Inflectional affix 100
Initialism 135
Inner derivation 141
Inter-level conversion 144
Interpreter’s false friends 59
International words 13
Interpretant 32
Jargon 181
Language activators 190
Language of abuse 175
Language pictures of the world 15
Left-branching language 121
Lexeme 27
Subject Index
Lexical derivation 91
Lexical field 169
Lexical hierarchy 83
Lexical meaning 32
Lexical phrases 155
Lexicography 16, 186
Lexicology 9
Lexis 26
Linear derivation 92, 93
Litotes 45
Loaded expressions 31
Loaded lexicon 175
Loaded words 12, 31
Major derivation types 94
Meaning 29
Meronymy 82
Metaphor 43, 94, 149
Metaphoric nomination 149
Metonymy 44
Middle clipping 131
Minor derivation types 94, 130
Morphological word-formation 91
Motivated lexical units 87
Multicomponent Compounds 128
Narrowing 40
Native vocabulary 13, 169
Near-opposites 67
Neologism 12, 170, 171
New Englishes 179
Nomination 86
Nomination of the second order 86
Nonce word 94, 96, 170
Non-lexical synonymy 77
Non-linear derivation 92, 93
Noun adjunct 94, 148
Online dictionaries 191
Onomatopoeic words 87
Opposition 14
Paronym 10, 60
Paronymy 52, 60
Partial reduplication 134
Partial synonyms 72
Part of speech 25
Pejoration 43, 149
People first language 182
Phonetic reduplication 134
Phraseological dictionaries 189
Phraseological unit 158
Phraseological variants 163
Subject Index
Phraseologism 96, 158

Phraseology 16, 158
Poetic vocabulary 11
Political correctness 182
Polyseme 50
Polysemy 49, 50
Portmanteau 132
Prefixation 111
Primary nomination 87
Productive affix 100
Professional vocabulary 11
Pronouncing dictionaries 189
Proverb 165
Pseudo-acronym 137
Quotation 156
Redistribution 141
Redundant-acronym syndrome 138
Reduplication 93, 134
Regional variation 11, 177
Relational antonyms 67
Relative meaning 100
Relative terms 67
Restricted dictionaries 188
Reverse dictionary 190
Reversive antonyms 67
Rhetoric 16
Rhyming reduplication 134
RP, received pronunciation 179
Semantic analysis 10
Semantic change 39
Semantic functions of synonyms 73
Semantic shift 148
Semantic synonyms 73
Semantic word-formation 91
Semasiology 16, 29
Semi-affixes 106
Semi-prefixes 118
Semi-suffixes 107, 108, 109
Sentence stems 155
Series 83
Sign 29, 32
Signification 33
Signified 32
Signifier 32
Semantic field 169
Simple nomination 86
Slang 181
Social variants of vocabulary 181
Social variation of language 179
Sociolect 12
Subject Index
Socrates 32
Specialization 40
Specialized dictionaries 189
Special lexicology 16
Stability of phraseological units 162
Standard English 178
Structural synonyms 165
Stylistic synonyms 73
Substitution 46
Suffixation 100
Swear words 175
Syncope 131
Synechdoche 45
Synonym 10, 72
Synonymy 72
Syntactic derivation 91
Taboo words 175
Telescopic word 132
Thematic field 11
Toponym 145
Translation dictionaries 190
Translation theory 16
Unmotivated nomination 87
Unproductive affix 100
Vocabulary 10
Vocabulary strata 10
Vocabulary stratification 169
Weak oppositions 68
Word 9, 20
Word boundaries 22, 23
Word-class 25
Word-combination 96, 152
Word combinability 15
Word definition 20, 21, 24
Word-form 26
Word-formation 16, 86, 88
World Englishes 177, 179
World Standard English 178
Name Index
NAME INDEX
Андрусяк, Ірина Василівна 88

Апресян, Юрій Деренікович 52, 91
Бялик, Василь Дмитрович 88
Верба, Лідія Георгіївна 56, 57
Виноградов, Віктор Володимирович 89, 161
Вихованець, Іван Романович 21
Гак, Володимир Григорович 32
Жарковська, Інна Валеріївна 72
Жирмунський, Віктор Максимович 20
Зацний, Юрій Антонович 88, 106, 110, 120
Земская, Олена Андріївна 89
Каращук, Петро Миколайович 88, 89, 90, 91,92, 147
Клименко, Надія Федорівна 91
Кубрякова, Олена Самойлівна 86, 92, 149
Кунін, Олександр Володимирович 158, 161, 162
Левицький, Андрій Едуардович 88, 146, 148
Семчинський, Станіслав 141, 149
Володимирович
Смирницккий, Олександр Іванович 90, 159
Тараненко, Олександр Онисимович 21
Телія, Вероніка Миколаївна 86, 87, 88, 158
Улуханов, Ігор Степанович 89
Уфімцева, Анна Анфілофіївна 86, 141
Щерба, Лев Володимирович 20
Шиманович, Ганна Миколаївна 88
Шмельов, Дмитро Миколайович 20
Aquinas, Thomas 31
Aristotle 30
Augustine, St. 30
Ballard, J.G. 173
Bally, Charles 159
Bloomfield, Leonard 20
Browne, Sir Thomas 173
Burgess, Gelett 171
Carroll, Lewis 132, 173
Cawdrey, Robert 186
Chaucer, Geoffrey 177
Cooper, Alan 60
Coupland, Douglas 173
Cruse, D.A. 52, 53, 62, 65
Crystal, David 33, 80, 82, 121, 131, 135,
153, 155, 169, 175
Eble, Connie 45
Egan, R.F. 67
Fromkin, Victoria 79
Galéas, C.G. 139
Gibson, William 173
Gläser, Rosemarie 158
Name Index
Grote, David 177

Heinlein, Robert A. 173
Heller, Joseph 173
Jeffers, Robert J. 40
Jespersen, Otto 162
Johnson, Samuel 186
Knigh, Thomas 186
Lawrence, David H. 105
Lyons, John 62, 65
Miller, G.A. 21
Muehleisen, Victoria 66, 67
Murray, James 187
Orwell, George 107, 173
Peirce, Charles 32, 139
Pustejovsky, James 54
Ravin, Y. 50, 52
Ringer, Jeffrey 31
Robins, Robert H. 50
Rodman, Robert 79
Saussure, Ferdinand de 32
Scott, Walter 174
Thackeray, William 174
Trask, Larry 137
Vonnegut, Kurt 173
Wain, John 74
Webster, Noah 187

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Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University

Ільченко О.М., доктор філологічних наук, професор, завідувач кафедри

Самохіна В.А., кандидат філологічних наук, доцент, завідувач кафедри

Рекомендовано Вченою радою Інституту філології

Коваленко Г.М. Lexicology of the English Language / Ганна Миколаївна

© Г.М. Коваленко, 2011

Definition of Homonyms / Origins of Homonyms / Partial

components / Compound nouns / Compound nouns of verbal

Subject matter of lexicography / The history of English

Посібник «Lexicology of the English Language» призначено для студентів

П'ятий розділ «Phraseology» присвячено визначенню фразеологізму як одиниці

studies bigger groups of words – fields – based upon either paradigmatic or

 sociolects: vocabulary used by different social classes, for

as-a-system (neologisms, nonce-words, coinages and their assimilation by the

 context shifts of meaning and word usage are studied, the

Lexicological discipline is divided into the following branches:

10.Бортничук Е.Н., Василенко И.В., Пастушенко Л.П.

16.Андрєєва І.О. Лінгвокогнітивні параметри концептуалізації

лінгвістичний ун-т. — К., 2006. — 348 c.

25.Poetic Diction [Електронний ресурс]. –

1.THE WORD AS A UNIT OF LANGUAGE

representation of this element – naming it, indicating it or expressing it

mind as something central in language mechanism ” (Вихованець, 1988, с. 14-

 By semantic features words are classified into different types:

6. Загнітко А.П., Домрачева І.Р.Основи мовленнєвої діяльності.

Semasiology is a branch of lexicology and semantics that studies word

2.1 WORD AS A SIGN. THE STRUCTURE OF MEANING

In the European tradition, meaning was first studied by the Greek

The medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225 – 7 March 1274)

That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves

According to this classic tradition, meaning is a relationship between two

Ferdinand de Saussure described language in terms of signs. He in turn

Structurally, lexical meaning consists of denotation, signification and

Connotation is an emotional, evaluative or stylistic element of

Connotation refers to the personal aspect of lexical meaning – often, the

The subjective nature of connotation is opposed to the objective content

connotations of city, for example, are ‘hustle’, ‘crowds’, ‘dust’, ‘excitement',

Connotative meanings are to some extent a social phenomenon. They are

There is a related distinction in linguistics between the objective

When a lexeme is highly charged with connotations, we commonly refer

Connotations can play an important role in explaining the way in which

differences of connotation, as in the case of car, automobile, runabout, buggy,

2.2 SEMANTIC CHANGE

Cognitive metaphor is based on the similarity of certain characteristic

Here are a few other folk etymologies:

 Sparrow-grass – a popular name for asparagus, though this

 Cockroach came from Spanish cucuracha, the first part of which

 Helpmate: the form comes from a Bible translation of Genesis 2.18,

 Old English sam-blind (semi-blind or half-blind) became sand-blind

 Buttonhole was originally buttonhold (a loop of string to hold a

 Shamefaced was originally shamefast, 'caught in shame'.

1. Give definition of semantic change.

1. Crystal D. English vocabulary. The Structure of the Lexicon:

5. Jeffers, R. J. Principles and methods for historical linguistics /

Polysemy (from the Greek πολυσημεία = multiple meaning) is the

It is important that a distinction be made between polysemy and

 Metonymic extension, responsible for creating senses such as foot

Лексическая семантика: синонимические средства языка.

2.4 HOMONYMY and PARONYMY

The difficulty in telling polysemes from homonyms in certain cases

Heterologues (the interpreter’s false friends) are words in different

Compare some more English – Ukrainian false friends: accurate –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysemy – 3 August 2009 at

Pairs of antonyms fall under several categories: