A I TRODUCTIO TO E GLISH LEXICOLOGY Course book for the 1st year English students enrolled in the long-distanceprogramme Elena Buja 2010 Introduction This course in English lexicology is the second stept in Contemporary English Language and is meant to present some of the most relevant aspects related to the vocabulary of the language. We start by introducing some basic terms concerning the structure of the lexicon and of the lexical items. Then, we approach the treasure of the English vocabulary both diachronically, pinpointing the languages from which English borrowed extensively during the three main periods of its evolution, and synchronically, presenting the lexicon not as a closed set of items, but as a network of productive processes (such as word-formation, metaphor and metonymy). Last but not least, we shall investigate the lexical strata in Contemporary English, focusing on Colloquial English. Aims of the course The course aims, first of all, at familiarizing students with the elements of the English lexicon, pointing out that the vocabulary of the English language is made up of both diachronic and synchronic layers. Going then deeper, it will help students find out what means of enriching one language’s lexicon there are. Further on, students will be offered an insight in the constituent elements of the English words, i.e. their form, as well as their meaning, drawing their attention upon the fact that the latter is subject to changes in various directions, and due to various factors. Additionally, students will be shown what kinds of relations can be established among words on the basis of their meanings. Finally, a brief incursion in the most appropriate lexical items for specific registers will be made. Competences By the end of the course, the student should · have an awareness of the internal structure of words and of the systematic relationships among words in English · have a basic understanding of the history of the English language, with particular reference to the major periods of vocabulary expansion that it has undergone and how those periods are reflected in the modern lexicon · understand some basic principles of language change that have affected the English language, including principles of sound change and meaning change 2 · know the basic stock of Classical roots and affixes that recurrently appear in English words; be able to interpret newly encountered words incorporating elements of that stock · be familiar with a wide range of words and their origins, meanings, and domains of use; be able to apply the knowledge gained so as to be able to say something about the origin and/or meaning of unfamiliar words · understand how the study of words can be used as an access point into knowledge and history of an entire culture, and be able to further pursue such knowledge via the study of words · have a good working knowledge of the incredibly rich lexical resources available in the English language, providing a basis for increased mastery of the spoken and written language Resources For this course you may need: access to the internet as you will have to send your assignments by e-mail. You will also have to access online dictionaries in order to solve some of the tasks contained in the units; a good English monolingual dictionary. a whole bunch of MOTIVATIO Structure of the course - The material is structured in 10 units, each of them being covered in about 21/2 hours. - The students will have to write 3 assignments, which will be handed in as follows: -assignment 1 after unit 5; -assignment 2 after unit 7; -assignment 3 after unit 10. - The assignments should be handed in in a printed form. To be on the safe side, students should also send them via e-mail. The teacher’s feedback on the students’ work will be provided by mail. Prerequisites 3 students should have some basic knowledge of linguistics. Average time for individual study Each unit could be covered by the students in about 2 or 4 hours. 4 . as there is no clearcut border between these branches of linguistics. depending on the length of the material and on the evaluation test. stylistics.In order to fully grasp the material contained in this course. or pragmatics. morphology. Evaluation The final mark will consist of: – the mark in the end-of term examination: 55% .the mark obtained for the three assignments: 45%. (each assignment represents 15% of the final mark). Disciplines the material in this course contributes to Knowledge of lexicology will prove useful in approaching other subjects such as semantics. ........................ 20 2................................................... Lexicology: definition .................................. Means of enriching the English vocabulary ................................ 31 3..................................................................................................................................................................................................7.............................3............................................ Introduction.............. 32 3................................. 1.....................1..................... 19 1....................... 10 1................ 36 3....................................................................... Evaluation test...............2................................................................... 32 3.............................................. Competences ...................... Introduction................ Composition ................................ 38 B.........2.. 37 A..............................1.....................................................................................................6....2....................................Contents Preliminary questionnaire............... Evaluation ...................... 18 1.....................................3............................................................ 37 A................. Suffixation............8.... Words vs........ Relation of lexicology to other branches of linguistics...... stems.... 2.........4.... 10 1............................1......................................................................................... 27 2.. Introduction ..1.................................................................. 20 2............................... The Old English vocabulary .......................................... bases................................................. The diachronic approach .......................................... Borrowings........... The structure of the English lexicon .... 39 C............................ 31 3..... Definition and classification of lexical units ...........1.. Old English .2 Competences .1......................................1..............................4................................................... Scandinavian loan words .........................................................4.. 28 Unit 3 The diachronic approach to the English vocabulary: the Old English period.......................................................................... Latin loan words ... ............................................................................................... 9 Unit 1 Lexicology: definition and object...............2. Roots...............6.................. 28 2............ 17 1............................................................. 41 5 .......... 10 1........................................................... Word-building ......... Summary .................................................... and affixes ..3................4............................................................................................ 20 2................ 19 Unit 2 Lexical units: structure and classification .........................................................4..1.............. 37 3............. Prefixation ............................... 35 3.... 11 1...............2.........................................5........... 38 A...................................................................................... Affixation ...................................1......................4.................................. 37 A................. 24 2.................................... Competences ........... 10 1.................... 31 3......4................................................ Celtic loan words..........................1..................7................................................... Early studies in lexicology .................................... phrases ................... 38 3................................................. 37 B............................. Why English ............... Summary ..................................................2............................ 20 2..5.............................................4....... ..........................................5............ 58 5................................ 65 5............................................................................................................................. 52 4.................................................. 46 4........................Greek borrowings ...........................6 .................. 56 Unit 5 The diachronic approach to the English vocabulary: the Modern English period ............................1................................................................... 69 6............................................................ Spanish and Portuguese loan-words .....................................8............................... Arabic borrowings .................9..7......... 44 3...................... 63 5....................... Introduction to the unit ................... 69 6.......................................................................................................... 68 Unit 6 The synchronic approach to the English vocabulary ....................................................................................................... 69 6. Education and social standing............................................... Introduction .................7.............................................10...............................................4...............5...................................... Evaluation..................................... 73 6..... The Modern English Period: Introduction ......... Middle English: Introduction ........12............................................................................ 62 5.......................................................... 76 6.................................................. Latin borrowings ............ 61 5............... Attitude............. 66 5........................................... French borrowings .............................................. Subject matter .....................7................................................................ Medium .............................................................................................5................................................... 55 4.................................... 63 5.....................................5.........6.....................................................2............9.........4....................... Competences ...... 65 5............................ 67 Homework I............................................................... Italian borrowings ................ Borrowings from other languages ...... ‘Interference’ ........................ 46 4................................................13...........11..... 44 Unit 4 The diachronic approach to the English vocabulary: the Middle English period .................................3................................................................3......................................................................................... Summary ................ 57 5................... Introduction ..................................... Introduction ....................4..........................................................................6...... 57 5...................................................... 48 4............................. Latin and Greek borrowings.................... 56 4..................................................................... 73 6................ Evaluation .......................................................... 55 4....... 74 6...................... 77 6 .. French borrowings.................2....2......................3.. 57 5.................................................... Region ...................................................................... Competences .................................... Competences ......................... Summary ......... Flemish and Dutch borrowings ..................................................6................................................................ 46 4............................................................................... 46 4........ Summary ........ 64 5..................................................................10.... Indian borrowings.........................1................ 71 6................................................................................ 69 6................................8.......... Dutch borrowings .................................. 57 5. German borrowings .........................................8..9..................................................................................1.................. 53 4.... Evaluation ........3................ ........... 92 7..........2.......3. 123 7 ............... 82 7....................3... Adverb-forming suffixes ............................. Degradation of meaning ....4....................................................................................................................................2.............. Conversion (zero-derivation)...3..................................... 88 7...........................................................................................5..........3................................... 118 8.11...6............................ Summary ............................. 98 7........................... 81 7..........6............................................. 102 7.. Composition ........................................ Deliberate coinages ........................................................... 105 7..... Blending ... 80 7................................................................. 89 7....................6....................................................................................... Introduction ... Summary .9................................................................................................... The meaning of linguistic signs..................... 88 7..................................... 104 7........................1.......... 120 8......................2................. Adjective-forming suffixes..... Class-changing prefixes........................... 96 7........................... Extension of meaning.................. 107 Homework II .................................... 110 Unit 8 Meaning ... Introduction ..............................................3..........6...................... 77 6..............................1.........................................4................................................................... 100 7..7...................................... 112 8............................................................................................................2.................................................13.2.........................3.................6............................................................................... 111 8....12............ Suffixes .......................................................8..1....................... 93 7.......................... oun-forming suffixes.. Abbreviation.........................3..............1..............................1....................................... 112 8....... Evaluation ........3.................................................. Competences ............... 80 7.................................................................................................... arrowing of meaning ..............2....................................................... 80 7.........5..3............................ Class-preserving prefixes..2...................................................................................... 107 7.........................7................... 114 8.............1................................11.......................................................................................3.................................... 118 8................... Competences ................. Affixation .....................................3.................................................... 114 8...................................................................... Clipping................1.................................................2......... The linguistic sign ..2.............2......6...............................................................................10..................3............................................................... 119 8.............................10............................................................................................... Elevation of meaning ................ 111 8....................... Verb-forming suffixes................. Reduplication ................................ 106 7........................................... 111 8.... 82 7...................... 122 8.......................................................................................6.4....... Models of the linguistic sign ..... 90 7...............6........... 81 7............3.......................... Causes of changes of meaning .....................1....... Summary .................. Eponymous words ............................................ Directions in which changes of meaning occur ........ 1........................................ Evaluation 78 Unit 7 Word-formation rules ................................ Prefixes .............. .......... Dialecticisms.............................. Synonymy ..........................................................................4.......................... Competences .. 143 10..................................Sociolinguistic aspects of slang ........ Slang .................... 157 10. Introduction .... Incompatibility ............................2.................................................. 152 10.....................................3..............6........................ 154 10...................4.................. 143 10..................... Cant...8.......................................4....1.... 156 10.4........................................ Introduction .............................. Summary ................................................................................................................. Evaluation ..................... 131 9...... 144 10...................................................................................................................................2............. 157 10..............3....6.... Vulgar terms...........5.................... 144 10.................................................2......................................................................................8. 146 10............ Homework .....................1..4......................... Homonymy and Polysemy ...... Evaluation ..........4..............9..............7................................... Archaisms............. Summary .......................... Jargon ............................................................................................................................ 151 10...............2................. 156 10........................ eologisms ...............4......... 125 9.......4.................................. 132 9..................................... 125 9................................... Argot ....... 150 10.............................................................................8.........5.......... 1...................................................1........................................................................................... Hyponymy (meaning inclusion) ....... Evaluation ....................... 161 8 ..........................................2........................ 125 9........2................. 149 10.................................................................. 155 10...................... 154 10..............................................................2........4.. 136 9....................2................ 127 9......................................................................................... 159 Bibliography..........................................3...........................................................................................................2.......... Antonymy....... 138 9........................................ 143 10................................................................................................. 123 Unit 9 Semantic relations ......4................................................................................. Synchronic lexical strata........................................7..................................................................................3..................................... Technical words ..........3.................1................................. Diachronic lexical strata ...........................................4.......................... Competences .................3.....................4............................................................................................................................... 128 9.. 138 Unit 10 Lexical strata in Contemporary English ....................................................... Lexicology is related to: a) semantics. The vocabulary of the English language contains: a) words from a large number of languages. 6. 2. 9 . d) the study of the meaning and form of words. The word ‘down-towner’ is: a) a compound b) an abbreviation. c) morphology. Lexicology is a) a sub-branch of linguistics b) an independent science c) a sub-branch of morphology d) a ‘sister’ of semantics. 8.Questionnaire This short questionnaire is meant to check what you know about lexicology. b) have changed their original meaning. c) some have preserved their original meaning. d) polysemy. 5. c) more Latin and Greek terms than Germanic terms. 3. b) mainly Celtic words. Choose the correct answer for the following statements: 1. d) pragmatics. words: a) have preserved their original meaning. b) antonymy. c) the evolution of the meaning of words. A lexical item is a) a word b) a set of words c) a phrase d) none of these. 4. whereas other have changed it. The relationship that holds between enemy and foe is called: a) synonymy. c) a derived compound d) an eponymous word. In the development of the English languages. b) the study of the form of words. Lexicology deals with: a) the study of the meaning of words. c) hyponymy. 7. d) mainly French terms. b) phonology. ......................................... Lexicology: a possible definition Surprisingly enough...1..........8...........Unit 1... 17 1.................6.1............. 10 1.........7............. Summary .........................4................... Evaluation test... Early studies in lexicology ...............................2.... 11 1. 19 1................................ Time envisaged for covering Unit 1: 2 hours.. 10 1................................................................... to identify types of lexical structures.................................... the students should be able to distinguish between the structure of the lexicon and the structure of lexical items.5...... LYONS: 1977) and English grammars....................... The structure of the English lexicon ..... Introduction.......g. Competences After having read this chapter... At the same time............. the term lexicology is not to be found in most medium-sized dictionaries and in various handbooks (e............ some of the major methods of linguistic analysis will be presented.... explained as ‘dictionary-making’ or ‘the writing and making of dictionaries’.... 18 1... 1....................................................... 10 1................................ LEXICOLOGY: DEFI ITIO A D OBJECT Contents 1..... 1..... Lexicology might be defined as 10 .....3..... Lexicology: definition .3. is usually mentioned..... Only lexicography............... Introduction In this unit we shall introduce the basic terms related to lexicology and we shall place lexicology in the domain of linguistics and show its relations to other branches of linguistics............................... Competences ..........................2............................... Relation of lexicology to other branches of linguistics.................................................. 19 1. Apparently this situation is now changing................................................................ of a language.’ Obviously. or Arabic.4. The structure of the English lexicon In what sense can we say that the lexicon of English is structured. (fig. the first part.) vocabulary of a person. and there is no single “correct” use of lexicon or dictionary. without considering semantic aspects and relations. however. lexicon and dictionary have been used as technical terms in the literature. of a branch of knowledge. What is most important. it cannot be described from a purely formal point of view. Lexicologists try to find out generalizations and regularities and especially consider relations between elements. In what follows. or has structure? What does the term lexicon mean in the technical sense in which it is used here? Why do we not simply speak of the vocabulary of English? What does one understand by lexical structure? Lexicon is defined in the LDCE 1978 as ‘a dictionary. At the same time. esp. Hebrew. To illustrate this sense.the study of the lexicon or lexis (specified as the vocabulary or total stock of words of a language). The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1987) has the following entry: lexicology . of an ancient language’ and in the CONCISE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY (COD) -1976 as ‘dictionary. the term lexicon will be used in two senses that are not always sharply distinguished: a) for a metalinguistic level. We need to point out that both terms. of Greek.. is not of much use. esp. It is certainly true that lexicology must include both the study of individual words and their structure and the overall structure of the vocabulary as a whole.. not with a mere agglomeration of words. 1. Syriac. 11 . or a sub-component in a linguistic model (basically compatible with a variety of theories of language). the first definition is rather narrow and does not cover the way the term lexicon has been used so far. containing the synonym dictionary. in which lexicology has a certain position. n [U] tech the study of the meaning and uses of words. etc. is that in lexicology the stock of words or lexical items is not simply regarded as a list of isolated elements. The second part of the definition in the COD comes close to it. we shall rely on the classical structuralist model in Ullmann’s Principles of Structural Semantics (1957:39). Lexicology is therefore concerned with structures. and syntax are subsystems of the entire language system. or in their historical evolution. synchronic point of view. According to Ernst Leisi (1985). has a formal. i.1. 12 . i. word) or the lexicon (Gk. such as car. Clearly. inventory of words). They may be described at a particular point in time.e. Its great richness allows for finer differentiation in comparison with other languages. which is concerned with larger linguistic units. The same holds for syntax. All three levels. lexicology. the structure of the vocabulary is different in both languages.e. lexicology. and on the specific forms of the English vocabulary and its stratification. is represented as a level between phonology and syntax. This second sense of the term lexicon focuses on the systematic and synchronic description of the vocabulary of English. synchronically. Ullmann’s linguistic model. Phonology. This is also true for the negative consequences of the mixing of languages. cart. the German word Tier corresponds to either animal or beast in English. carriage and chariot. but not semantic aspect. Here the focus is on the etymological heterogeneity of the English language. In this linguistic model. phonology. For example. Wagen can be rendered by a series of English translations. contemporary English is a unique mixture of Germanic and Romance elements and this mixing has resulted in the international character of the vocabulary. as the discipline concerned with lexis (Gk.Phonology Lexicology Diachronic Syntax Synchronic Morphology Semantics Figure 1. diachronically. Lexicology has both a morphological and a semantic dimension. which is concerned with the sound system of the language. b) in the sense of vocabulary as seen from a systematic. on the problem of mixing of languages with its causes and consequences. and both may be regarded from a diachronic or a synchronic point of view. and devil. This origin is no longer felt by the normal speaker today in words such as dish. mint. die. The influx was strongest before 1400 but continued up to the 17th century. pound. state. This concept of common English. Until the 15th century a great number of French words was adopted that belonged especially to the areas of court. Apart from the various historical strata. skin. sky. styles. FOREIGN A R C H AI C G TE N CH SL AN Figure 1. and also through the influence of Christianity. a very early stratum of Latin-Greek words entered the language. partly already on the Continent. is equivalent. skull. More details related to the historical strata will be presented in chapter 3.2. Synchronic survey of the structure of the English vocabulary. The stratum contains such words as they. 1973:X). the English vocabulary also presents synchronic stratification. cast and take. law. symbolized by COMMON. which is common to all media. The same holds for some Scandinavian words from about the 10th century that today belong to the central core of the vocabulary. The following represents a traditional synchronic survey of the structure of the English vocabulary based on a diagram given in the introduction to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED. This means that their frequency is very high. and church. their. The representation starts out from the assumption that the vocabulary of English contains a large central area. Through cultural contact with the Romans. A brief look at the various historical strata may perhaps be in order here. Presentday English is unique in this respect.It is certainly true that all languages are mixtures to a greater or lesser extent. A more radical change and profound influence on the English vocabulary occurred in the wake of the Norman Conquest of 1066. cheese. and social classes. ill. them. with respect to the SC IC IE NT AL IF IC written COMM ON spoken m edium DI AL EC TA L VU LG AR 13 . no clear boundaries between slang in this sense and technical language.lexicon. which are either morphologically complex (such as compounds. which contains words like come. colloquial. in army slang. chair. RAF slang. according to the opinion of the editors of the abovementioned dictionary. if partly incomplete. morphological regularity visible. On the other side.g. or simple. such as Weltanschauung and blasé. the vocabulary of a language is an accumulation of words. father. The editors of the SOED label this central area. If we consider language as a system of signs. the more we depart from the common vocabulary of common English. we may. very. historically speaking. following Saussure. similitude. Connected with these in a radial manner are further areas of the vocabulary. whence. as a structure of independent elements. as well as words from slang and technical language. isolated elements. thus. patterns. good. this is not merely a list of items. slang and vulgar cannot be precisely and unambiguously defined. or. In the diagram they are close neighbours and the areas of vocabulary denoted by them merge and interpenetrate. We should add that the term slang is often used for special languages of specific groups. ‘common English’. There are various types of relations and connections between the elements (paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations) and we may establish (at least partial) regularities and recognize clear. be in opposition. Thus. nevertheless find and postulate underlying semantic structure. public school slang. Such paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations constitute the external structure. There are. foreign and archaic words. In the last case. The transition from other literary words such as firmament. then we may distinguish at least two types of structure in the lexicon: external (to the word) and internal structure. whither to the outer areas is gradual and fluid. Although it is true that. the colloquial vocabulary contains dialectal and vulgar elements.e. The lexicon is not simply an inventory of unconnected. or prefixal and suffixal derivatives). although there is no superficial. but it definitely has a structure. The synchronic lexical strata will be discussed in details in chapter 8. which are also related to each other in content. Full words may substitute for each other. The literary vocabulary contains scientific. It is true that all categories used in this diagram have no sharp boundaries. We may look at the internal structure of lexical items. The radial lines connect the peripheral and the central areas of the vocabulary. navy slang. 14 . i. The further we get to the periphery. Above and below we have the neighbouring areas of ‘literary’ and ‘colloquial’. to the ‘common core’ which is present in all varieties of English. bad. e. or they may combine with each other. It is certainly possible to make a number of important generalizations. Syntagmatic structures (which Coseriu labels ‘solidarities’) comprise the relationships between words. The distinction basically derives from the linear nature of the linguistic substance. Successive linguistic elements that are combined are called syntagma or syntagm.3 Coseriu’s model for describing and analysing lexical structure. 1990:11). the field of furniture objects). Primary paradigmatic structures cover word-fields. One can also say that they can be substituted for each other and form a paradigm. Paradigmatic structures comprise words that can be substituted for each other in a specific slot in a sentence.g. These are structures consisting of lexical items that share a common zone of meaning and are in direct opposition to each other (e. The model has been adopted from Coseriu (1970) (quoted in Lipka. who basically proposes the following: Lexical Structures a) paradigmatic (oppositional) b) syntagmatic (combinatorial) primary secondary solidarities [collocation] word-field “word class” word-formation (compounding & derivation) Figure 1. This linearity goes back to the fact that speech sounds follow each other in time. Let us now have a closer look at the fundamental distinction between paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships in the lexicon. They necessarily belong to the same syntactic class. which is not restricted to the vocabulary of English. The different relationships and the resulting 15 . Elements that are in opposition or contrast in the same position in a syntagm are said to be in a paradigmatic relationship. Secondary paradigmatic structures comprise the traditional field of word formation. which are systematically and conventionally combined in a sentence.Let us now linger for a while on an example of the general treatment of lexical structure. /e/. nice as well as the nouns man and woman are in a paradigmatic relationship. (formal) b. are syntagmatically related in all three cases. the adjective and the noun. They cast stones at the police. as well as between higher units. (slang) 16 . such as clauses and sentences. i. one can replace the other) in different styles. But these relations also obtain between smaller linguistic units such as morphemes and phonemes.e. /Å / and pet /e/ pot /Å/ pat /æ/ /æ/ stand in paradigmatic relation. They chucked stones at the cops.e. On the lexical level the distinction can be illustrated as in example 3 below: Example 3 the old man the tall man the nice woman The adjectives old. Example 4 a. however. the English phonemes /i/. as illustrated below: Example 2 pit /i/ On the phonological level. The article.two dimensions may be illustrated with the following example adopted from David Crystal (1985:163): Example 1 He can she may I will go tomorrow syntagmatic relationships come soon ask next paradigmatic relationships you could sleep now This example only shows syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations between words. The next example shows that two (or more) sentences can be paradigmatically related (i. between full linguistic signs. since they may be substituted for each other. tall. Summary of the structure of the lexicon paradigmatic 1. He started basically from the statement of an American poet. bur it may be affirmed of it. with exactly the same truth that it is fossil ethics or fossil history. when Richard Chevenix Trench (1807 –1866) delivered a series of lectures to students. who said that language is ‘fossil poetry’.5. structure of the lexicon (external) syntagmatic relations lexical structure (and relations) complex (morphological) 2. Early studies in lexicology The first important studies of English lexicology may be traced back to the middle of the 19 century.The relation between the italicized verbs and nouns marked by vertical arrows is paradigmatic. These lectures appeared in two volumes entitled On the Study of Words (1850) and English Past and Present (1855). R. namely that language may be and is fossil poetry. Ralph Emerson. is a syntagmatic one. He was mainly interested in what is now termed ‘the semantic evolution of English words’. the relation between the verbs and the nouns in both sentences. Chevenix added something to this statement. however. words quite often embody facts of history. structure of lexical items (internal) simple (semantic) items 1. th 17 . transparent substance spirit = the general meaning of something damages = compensation glasses = spectacles. and every language register has its own lexical means: Example The knight mounted his stallion. The selection of lexical units adapted to style and purpose is a factor of great significance in the act of communication. state of mind ►lexical meaning of the direct object may change the meaning of the verb: to strike the table to lay an egg to grow potatoes vs. and the lexical meaning of words is very often signaled by the grammatical context in which it occurs: ►the plural can serve to form special lexical meanings: damage = injury glass = hard. with controlled temperature. c) Lexicology & stylistics: this relation reveals itself in the selection among linguistic units. b) Lexicology & grammar: the points of contact between vocabulary and grammar are very numerous and varied. grammar. chiefly of glass.6. 18 . spirits = alcoholic drinks. Relations of lexicology to other branches of linguistics Though linguistics has its own definite range of problems. shop-window vs. schoolgirl window-shop. phonetics and stylistics. a compound with stress on the first element will differ in meaning from green `house (a house painted green). Grammar is not indifferent to the lexical meaning of words. used for cultivating plants). vs. there is a close relation between lexicology. a) Lexicology & phonetics: word-formation gives numerous examples of separable compounds generated by shifting the stress. brittle. vs. `greenhouse (a building.1. (in historical writings) The child climbed his gee-gee. to strike a bargain to lay the table to grow a beard ►the syntactic position of a word can change both its function and its lexical meaning: girl-school vs. Thus. a free combination of words in which the second element bears primary stress. (in children narrative) *The knight mounted his gee-gee (stylistically improper). How is lexicology related to phonology and syntax? Give examples.8. such as phonetics. Summary This unit has defined lexicology and has shown its relationship to other branches of linguistics. a) The Tower of London is not very high. 4. b) One day.In brief. i. in your opinion. What are paradigmatic structures and syntagmatic structures? Give examples for each type of structure. e) Yesterday the wind was very high. We have also tackeld the syntagmatic and paradigmatic structures words contribute to. 1. f) He drove fast along the highway. Try to give some distributional formulae. every word is a complex unit containing semantic. Evaluation 1. every word presents a special availability as to the register/style in which it is being used. g) She seems to speak in a high tone. 3.. in the following unit we shall investigate the internal structure of words. as all of them deal with words from various perspectives.e we shall break them down into their structural and semantic constituents. d) Prices are very high nowadays. 19 . At the same time. c) The driver changed into a high gear. Lexicology is a sub-branch of linguistics that is related to most of the other subbranches. Whereas in this unit we have presented words as being ‘whole entities’. Both lexicology and semantics deal with words and their meaning. What. a high official came to my place.. 1. Analyze the way in which the lexical environment affects the meaning of the lexical item 'high' in the following examples. Let's remember. phonetic and grammatical elements. and stylistics.7. morphology. is the difference between these two branches of linguistics? 2. to determine the order in which morphemes combine in order to form complex words.......5..... 28 2................ Words vs...................................... Finally.............. LEXICAL U ITS: STRUCTURE A D CLASSIFICATIO Contents 2.................. 27 2....... but which are not covered by the 20 ........ and give a classification of both types of morphemes...................... to make the distinction between roots and stems................................... Average time for covering this unit: 2 hours 2.............2........ bases........1....... 20 2...............2 Competences .... and to distinguish between complex lexemes and phrases..................4............ 28 2.....1...3... Roots...............6.... the students will be able to identify the types of morphemes in complex words.... But what is a word? The definition of the word has been........................... 2.................. for a long time... and affixes .........................................Unit 2...................7........... Definition and classification of lexical units ................... 20 2............... Introduction This unit aims at presenting some problems related to word identification and definition........................... a major problem for linguistic theory because..... Competences Having covered the material in this unit...................... stems. there are some items in some languages which speakers of those languages call ‘words’.............. Introduction......................................... no matter how the term word is defined.... 24 2........................ phrases ............ Definition and classification of lexical units In the previous chapter we defined lexicology as the study of the meaning and uses of words............... Evaluation ... We shall also show the differences between lexical and grammatical morphemes.................................... Summary .....3........ we will make an attempt at classifying words......................... 20 2.......................... the only word in English that makes its plural by adding –en is ox. and even compulsorily different from. takes place within the words. 21 . have a feeling for what is. 1991: 379). These problems relate mainly to word identification and definition. to be written washing-machine?). quoted in Bauer. All these factors argue for there being a unit. a word. is the a word in the same sense as is chair?). and only occur with that word: thus. in both spoken and written language (Crystal. Regular definitions of words as ‘units of meaning’.definition. while 's is a part of a word and comes after the possessor (the plane’s wings). because of the vagueness of such notions as ‘idea’. The same point can be made with respect to the comparative of the adjectives in English: when the comparative is marked by a separate word more. there are good reasons for operating with such a notion. comes before the possessor (the wings of the plane).g. in English the genitive can be marked by 's or by a separate word of. this comes at the end of the adjective being compared (curiouser). As a result. -word: an element of human speech to which meaning is attached. a separate word. or ‘ideas’ are of no help. They include. There are several difficulties in arriving at a consistent use of the term in relation to other categories of linguistic description. So. which might be termed a 'word'.g. As Mathews (1972. 1991:8) points out. several theoretical distinctions have been made. is a unit such as washing machine two words. the ordering of strings of words: for example. for example. Despite the difficulties in providing a definition of a ‘word’. which is apt to be used grammatically and which can be understood by a human collectivity constituted in a historical community. or is not. when it occurs. irregular plural forms in English are determined by the word in question. Here are some definitions of the term ‘word’: -word: a unit of expression which has universal intuitive recognition by NATIVE SPEAKERS. for example. as well as decisions over status (e. There are other reasons for assuming that the word has some kind of linguistic reality. -word: a linguistic form that can meaningfully be spoken in isolation. morphological conditioning. of. decisions over word boundaries (e. even illiterate speakers. but this –en does not affect markers of plurality anywhere else in a sentence in which it occurs. this comes in front of the adjective being compared (more curious). or is it one. The first of these is that speakers of a language. Another argument is that the ordering of elements within a word is frequently independent of. but when it is marked by –er. and in the comparison of languages of different structural types. morphemes can be divided into two great classes. or JUNCTURE features).lexical morphemes (also called ‘semantic morphemes’): these are morphemes which. ‘Word’ in this sense is often referred to as the orthographic word (for writing). Lexemes are the units of VOCABULARY. walks. and ‘word’. referring to the common factor underlying the set of forms which are plainly VARIANTS of the same unit. A neutral term often used to subsume both is word form. A word. The 'underlying' word unit is often referred to as a lexeme. one free morpheme).g. leaves the need for a comparably abstract unit to be set up to show how words work in the GRAMMAR of a language. walking. and as such would be listed in a dictionary. {s} {preterite} (lexeme) (word forms of the lexeme SHOOT) (morphemes – free & bound) The example above emphasizes further distinctions in the description of morphemes. referring to MORPHEMIC/ MORPHOSYNTACTIC/ GRAMMATICAL word. such as a PAUSE. (1) Words are the physical definable units which one encounters in a stretch of writing (bounded by spaces) or speech (where identification is more difficult. is usually reserved for this role (alternatively. namely into: . (3) This.) consist of words. shoots. Three main senses of ‘word’ are usually distinguished (though terminology varies). 22 . or the phonological word (for speech). In a hierarchical model of analysis. such as walk. of the same theoretical kind as MORPHEME and SENTENCE. e. Let us illustrate the three senses of the term ‘word’ on the basis of an example: Example SHOOT shooting. then. which is apt to be used grammatically and which can be understood by a human collectivity constituted in a historical community. (2) There is a more abstract sense. sentences (clauses. shot {shoot}. though the latter has an alternative sense). etc. one may spell out this implication. walked. {ing}. through affixation help in the formation of new words. but where there may be PHONOLOGICAL clues to identify boundaries. then. from count (verb) to counter (noun) or recount (verb). and words consist of morphemes (minimally. they can be either class-changing or class-preserving morphemes. without qualification. is a grammatical unit.Let’s remember A word is defined as an element of human speech to which meaning is attached. Thus. it may be hard to assign a single specific meaning to a particular constant form (e. flower.grammatical morphemes (also called ‘functional’) like -ing in working or –ed in wanted. ●open class (set). or in conjunction with others. Bound morphemes. the two large classes can be characterized on the basis of certain features or attributes in the following way: lexical morphemes denote (particular) extralinguistic objects & states of affairs: events. sun. tense.g. Free morphemes are such items as sun. on). beach. It is sometimes difficult to draw the distinction between lexical and grammatical morphemes. . But basically.g. -ish. relations. are of 4 types: . First and foremost. the distinction is sound and useful and can be easily made in most cases. day. This leads to the distinction between free and bound morphemes. number. grammatical morphemes denote: .g. in their turn.. WORD-FORMATION INFLECTION ●closed class (inventory) ●follow lexical morphemes (in Germanic languages) ●combination (with other lexical morphemes)relatively unrestricted ●result of combination: word- It is customary to refer to the combination of lexical and grammatical morphemes with the term inflection. In spite of the fact that there are difficulties with definition and overlap in some areas. morphemes may occur either alone or independently (e. -ly. situations. man. ●precede grammatical morphemes (in Germanic languages) ●combination (with other lexical morphemes) often restricted ●result of combination: new lexemes forms.. etc. On the other hand the combination of lexical morphemes with each other is usually labelled word-formation. they perform a grammatical function in that they help in the formation of new wordforms. Furthermore. The two large groups of morphemes can be further sub-classified on the basis of other criteria.suffixes: -ment.syntactic relations: concord of gender. plural.g.(general) grammatical functions: e. 23 . because there are borderline cases and the limits of an individual morpheme may be vague or fuzzy (e. etc. -er in worker and longer). –ic /-al / -er). 24 d) utilitarianism e) catchword f) impermeability . stems. Let’s remember A word can consist of: -a minimum free morpheme: dog. induce. -function words (closed-class items): they have incomplete lexical values.. This is the case of prepositions. unless one takes into account the Latin component of the English morphology. adjectives and adverbs into the language. . These examples suggest stems like –sist. -tain which do not exist formally and are not easy to characterize semantically. retain). adjectives and adverbs. conjunctions. sun. subsume. and articles.e.blocked morphemes. etc. This class of words includes verbs. i. reduce). deceive.bound bases: -sist (in consist. lexical items can be classified into roots. Generally speaking. admit) and -sume (in resume. they are non-creative. . receive. -duce (in adduce. such as Fri in Friday or cran in cranberry. book+worm. bases and affixes. bookish (book+ish).prefixes: anti-. adverbs. we divide words from this point of view into: -content words (open-class items): they carry full lexical values. resist. consume. -duce. transmit. The first three terms are used in the literature to designate that part of a word that remains when all affixes have been removed. go. insist. The class is open to the penetration of new verbs. stems. mis-. commit. Identify the constituent morphemes of the following words: a) impoverish b) anticipative c) anticlimatical 2. -ceive (in conceive. per+ceive. bases and affixes On the basis of their constituent elements. persist). They just point out relations.4. They are ‘closed’ in the sense that they hardly allow any new lexical production. perceive. -a free morpheme + a bound morpheme: sunny (sun+y). -tain (in pertain. produce. presume. -a union of free morphemes: sun+shine. contain. -ceive. submit.). Roots.. demit. nouns. -a series of bound forms: re+tain. they are ‘open’ in the sense that they are indefinitely extendable. Words have meanings or lexical values. un-. -mit (in remit. which makes it difficult to keep pace with the ongoing process of lexical acquisition and formation. ..A root is a form which is not further analysable. and finally the suffix –s have been added. In the following figures this terminology is applied to the various stages in the build-up of the word-form untouchables. to which first the suffix –able.. the stem is untouchable.able s In a compound word like sunflower there are two roots.. It is that part of a word-form that remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed.1. That is. either in terms of derivational or inflectional morphology. the root is touch. the stem is sunflower. then the prefix un-. This means that any root or stem can be termed a base. sun and flower. Inflectional (but not derivational) affixes are added to it: it is that part of the word-form which remains when all inflectional affixes have been removed.. able 25 . It may be – but need not be – complex. In the form untouchables.un touch . A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. A root is the basic part always present in a lexeme. but in this process touchable could not be referred to as a root because it is analysable in terms of derivational morphology. even though the stem contains two roots. although in the form touched the stem is touch. but the set of bases is not exhausted by the union of the set of roots and the set of stems: a derivationally analysable form to which derivational affixes are added can only be referred to as a base. for example.. A stem is of concern only when dealing with inflectional morphology. to show how it is used: unanalysable root (or base) (derivational) suffix touch Figure 2. either in that it contains derivational affixes (as does govern + ment) or in that it contains more than one root (as does red + skin). nor as a stem since it is not the adding of inflectional affixes which is in question. in the form sunflowers. In the form untouchables. touchable can act as a base for prefixation to give untouchable... they alter the meaning and sometimes they also alter the morphological status of the word. functioning as derivative or inflectional elements. becalm = verb). The criteria for defining and distinguishing morphemes can be summed up by the following diagram: 26 . dislike.g. peaceful. Affixes are bound morphs that always appear with a base. e. -suffixes: bound forms attached after the base. freedom. latinize. Figure 2.touch. as well: e. stem or base inflectional suffix . touchable stem (or base) inflectional suffix untouchable Figure 2. s root.g.3.2. ed Make a similar analysis of the word (the) indomitables. They modify the meaning and often enough the morphological status of the newly formed word.derivational prefix analysable base un Figure 2.5. becalm (calm = adj. Affixes can be divided into: -prefixes: bound forms attached before a base. free 1.3. Phrasal verbs (i. to break loose.2. 27 .g.g.{-TAIN} {UN-} {-MENT}{-DUCE} Word-formation (complex lexemes) Declension Conjugation 2. to and fro.e. The following examples illustrate the difference between complex constructions and phrases. it stands for a wordcombination discharging the functions specific of a certain lexical category. In lexicology. lexical (semantic) morphemes (open class) 2. b) phrases The interpretation of the term phrase is often misleading.2. 1.g. 1. Plural) (e. it is termed complex when it can be decomposed into other morphemes (free or/and bound) (e.4.2.2.1.5.1. blocked morphemes {FRI }day {CRAN}berry INFLECTION (morphology in narrow sense) prefixes suffixes bound bases {RE-} {-ISH} {-CEIVE} {DIS-} {-LY} .2. 1.bound (inflectional) -s ED ING (e. Past) (Progressive) 1.2. verbs + particle) also belong to this group. sun+flower.1. smoke). -complex adverbs: now and then.Let’s remember morphemes 1. here and there. smoke+er). free (function words) 2. grammatical (functional) morphemes (closed inventory) 2. Words vs. Complex lexemes -complex verbs: to leave alone. bound (affixes) {TABLE} {WRITE} {GREEN} {THE} {AND} {TO} 1.g. cat.2. book. phrases From the point of view of their structure words (lexical units) can be classified into: a) simple and complex words A word is termed as simple when it cannot be decomposed into other morphemes (e. . We have seen that the term ‘word’ is pretty vague or unclear.... due to... stem... -adverbial phrases: side by side. Complete the following with the suitable words: An Adj P (adjectival phrase) consists of . words of full lexical value)..... -verbal phrases: to come to one’s senses.... according to the model: MODEL: enlighten en ..... namely chapter 7 dedicated to word-formation rules.. but it will also help students understand how the English words were built in the older times and the way they have changed their forms in time..-complex prepositions: because of. as if... arm in arm: -conjunctional phrases: no matter how... Summary Summary This unit has taken us deeper into the study of words..consists of an adverb and a .. Thus.....en a) dishearten f) vertebrally b) burlesquely g) downtowner c) dishonestly h) telescopic 28 .... This distinction is particularly important for a further chapter in this material.. -complex conjunctions: as though. i... side...... Divide the following words into the component morphemes... A PP (prepositional phrase) consists of a noun phrase and a ..e.....light . to do one’s best...... ... base).. come).. and that in order to get a clearer picture we have to consider the elements that make up the so-called ‘words’..6. Evaluation 1...... matter).... we may have a number of word forms that contain the same lexeme (ixxxx). a phrase necessarily contains a noun or a noun equivalent (middle... An . Phrases -prepositional phrases: in the middle of... 2.. but which differ in the number and type of morphemes attached to the simplest form.....7..... a verb (do.. . senses. a modifying adjective/adverb in its structure (one or more content words.. As seen above.. and a possible . The unit has also shown that the English language has the capacity of building complex words and that each element in the hierarchy has a certain denomination (root. Use hyphens and the traditional spelling. 2. a) How many distinct (homonymous) im-/ in. -ment = lexical (derivational) suffix. Indicate the order in which morphemes appear within words.= prefix. This means that you have to provide 18 affixes and 36 words. (i))./ in-. Choose your affixes such that one attaches to free morpheme roots and the other to bound morpheme roots.e. Divide the words into their constituent morphemes.= prefix. stems. uneatable.d) undeceivable e) wholesaler i) sanitize j) volubility 2.g./ in. specifying the nature of each morpheme. dis.never appears as a word on its own). comparing input with output.g. N→V V→N A→N N→A V→A A→V N→N V→V A→A (Hint: try looking through a book or newspaper and analysing all the words you suspect of being derivationally complex). In other cases the stem is a bound morpheme (e. MODEL: disagreements a) agree = root.are there? b) Why is input misspelled (as imput) so often? 29 . For each affix give at least 2 words containing that affix with the given function. a free morpheme (e. -s = grammatical (inflectional) suffix. transformational. lexical suffixes. For each of the nine relationships given below provide two affixes (prefixes or suffixes) which express that category relationship. -ism = suffix a) foolishly i) glove maker b) multinational j) trans-European c) deepen k) vulgarism d) rosy l) non-didactic e) beautify m) preconceivable f) industrialization n) post-modernism g) ex-president o) overdone h) impressionism p) underestimated 3. dis. Take a dictionary of English and collect all the words beginning with im. disagreement + -s. grammatical suffixes and prefixes. whereas it should seem considerably harder to find evidence that in. -al = suffix. (i) Word + affix [[read]V er]N (ii) Root + affix [[electris]Aity]N (the root electric. you should conclude that in. 5.is a morpheme. b) agree + -ment. productiveness. person = noun stem. Analyse the following words in terms of roots. For instance. indecipherability 4. according to the model. Check whether im.is a morpheme for each of your words. MODEL: impersonalism: im.+ agreement.is a morpheme in inane. i.(ii)). Some derived words consist of an affix attached to a root which is itself a word. disagreement = stem. peduncle. AdvP and PP have in common? 30 . nominate. 7. anabaptist. analogy. nomenclature. anabasis. anarchy. anarak. What do AdjP. b) nominal. p(a)edagogue. c) pedal. gnomic. noun.6. To what extent do the words in a given list contain the same morpheme? a) analysis. pedant. anaconda. peddle. anachronism. pediform. Consider carefully the words in (a -c). p(a)ederast. nomic. ..................................... The diachronic approach .........................................................................................4..... Introduction ..1...... 32 3.......... Our focus in this unit will be the first period in the development of English...................1.1...... 2.... 35 3.. The Old English vocabulary ................. Latin loan words ..........................................................................................Unit 3....................... 32 3.......................................... 31 3............................ Scandinavian loan words ........... Word-building ....3.............. i.................. 44 3......................... Old English ..............2................................................. Suffixation.................................. Introduction Unit 3 presents some major events in the history of Britain and the ways in which these influenced the development of the English language....2........2......... Why English .4.......4..................................................... The diachronic approach to the English vocabulary: the Old English period Contents 3....1................................ 37 3..............................................................................................................................1.....5..............................................1............................................................................................................. 3.................... 37 A.6............. the Old English period............. to mention the period in which the respective words penetrated the English language..1........4..................................... 44 3......... 31 3....... Means of enriching the English vocabulary ..2..... 37 A.................................. We shall investigate the three main periods in the development of English..........................................................4....... 37 B.................. Affixation . Competences ............... 36 3...2........................................................2............................................... 39 C............. Borrowings.......e....................................................................................... 38 A...................... Summary ............................... the students should be able to identify the words of foreign origin in the English language............. 37 A............... 38 B..................... Prefixation .. 38 3.......................... 41 3............................... and the foreign words the English language borrowed from various languages it came in contact with during each period........ 1..............1.... especially in the field of vocabulary.................4........ Composition .....................................1................................... Celtic loan words........................ Evaluation ....................... as well as to 31 .......... Competences After having covered the material in this chapter... nor the aesthetic arguments would make a satisfactory plea. and the social and historical pressures which affected the language. North and South 32 . the diachronic and the synchronic ones. which dictate the linguistic priorities. the irrefutable linguistic embodiment of the world’s spiritual life. Why English? What exactly entitles English to claim for a ‘lingua franca’ status? Since linguists have already identified richer (hence more expressive) and better grammatically structured languages.read and interpret some texts within the socio-historical framework when they were written. its main characteristics. century-old process of the making of a language could be properly carried out only by submitting the English language as a whole to the crossfire of two approaches. 3. English has its source in the large Indo-European family of languages. i. the ways it has enriched its vocabulary. A comprehensive account of the complex. The how's and the why’s of this social and linguistic reality fall beyond our scope. Considering the above-mentioned criteria. The most realistic explanation lies in the contemporary evolution of the political.3. a second or a foreign language. it is noteworthy that in the meandering course of history English shouldered its way through challenging influences of German and especially French. economic and demographic phenomena throughout the world. its relation to other languages. from the days when it first arrived in Britain to its current status as a world language.e. and ultimately establish the ‘hard currency’ in the field of human inter-relations. Average time for covering this unit: 2 hours 3. it always appears as prominent or at least pre-eminent among other international languages. nevertheless. it is obvious that neither the linguistic.4. German or Spanish. and to this vast region we must add Australia and New Zealand on the east. The Diachronic Approach We now look at the way the English language has changed over the centuries. be it a native. such as French. what explicitly emerges about English is that. This will help us get a picture of the evolution of the language. and it is therefore related to most of the other languages of Europe and Western Asia from India to Iceland. probably in its central or south-eastern part. words that resemble one another in form and meaning (e. etc. Armenian. a common word-stock. but in the 20th century. this area was believed to have been in Asia. For a long time.America on the west. snow. nearly or distantly related. nail. all derive and descend from that parent language – the hypothetical language now referred to as Indo-European or Aryan – which must have been spoken about five thousand years ago by a people or peoples living in a relatively limited geographical area. mother. The Indo-European family is composed of the following main branches of languages: Indian. Iranian. etc. tense.e. Slavic. Try to find the equivalent for the word ‘brother’ in a number of languages. The English language has been growing and changing for the past 1500 years. fundamental qualitative changes.e.g. Romanian noapte. foot. animals: cow. English together with Dutch. ear. eye. like arm. father. Italic. goose. for indicating case. son and daughter also go back to the parent language. Most of them have a number of subdivisions. The Indo-European Languages have two main common characteristics: a. thunder. Latin noctis. dew. and parts of Africa on the south. archeological and anthropological research has disfirmed this idea. Flemish. it has been passing from insignificant quantitative changes to obvious. Baltic. number. tending to prove that the Indo-European home was in Europe. fall into three groups: East Germanic. plants. the latter being further divided into High German and Low German. linguistic. mood. tooth.. These languages. Each period merges by very slight gradations into 33 . What conclusion can you draw concerning the forms you have encountered? The changes in the evolution of any language cannot be other than gradual and continuous. generally referred to as groups of languages.) This common word-stock includes the names of parts of the body. North Germanic and West Germanic. Hittite and Tokharian. English night. like wind. French nuit. etc. heart. Hellenic. i. Greek nuktos. Albanian. sister. Italian notte. brother. Words denoting the closest family relationships. natural phenomena. Germanic. German acht. mouse. Modern Low German and Afrikaans belong to the Low German sub-branch of Germanic languages. Celtic. in their turn. Frisian. b. i. goat. an inflectional structure. a grammatical system based on changes in the forms of words by means of endings and vowel modifications. Spanish noche. ox. the numerals from one to ten. In its uninterrupted evolution. The Germanic languages. the English language has shown a gradual process of simplification and of the breaking of inflections.from about the 1500 to the present time. Middle English as the period of levelled endings or levelled inflections. one in which such relations are expressed by form words and word order). 34 . the English language has lost most of the inflections encountered in its beginnings.another. three main periods are to be distinguished.e. West Germanic. Middle English and Modern English. -Modern English Period proper (from the 18th century onwards). It may be subdivided into: -Early Modern English (16th –17th century). and Modern English as the period of lost endings or lost inflections. and certain approximated dates agreed upon. There have been both gain and loss. one in which the relations between words are expressed by inflections). The development has been in one direction all the time: from synthesis to analysis. -Middle English (MidE) –from about 1100 to about 1500. it stems from the Western Low branch of the Germanic branch of languages of IndoEuropean. it turned from a synthetical into an analytical language. each of them having certain broad characteristics. From Indo-European to Modern English by way of Common Germanic. The study of the English language is divided into 2 periods: Old English. and -Modern English (ModE) . 700 (the approximate date of the first available texts) to about 1100. They are the following: -Old English (OE) – from about 450 (the first Germanic invasions) or. the transition from the first to the second and from the second to the third was a very slow one. Let’s remember English belongs to the Indo-European languages. Within the steady development of English. Old English and Middle English. but certain conventional dividing lines had to be adopted. each of these periods having its characteristics. according to certain linguists. In its evolution. Old English is generally referred to as the period of full endings or full inflections. whereas Modern English is an analytical language (i. The evolution of the inflectional system in English entitles us to say that Old English was a synthetical language (i. -Late Modern English (17th – 18th century).e. Naturally. During those early centuries. and language. the revival of learning in the sixteenth.e. 35 . The invaders were first called “Saxons”. and then the Angles or English. who afterwards occupied the rest of England south of the Thames. the points of similarity between the modern and older periods of the language. This name emphasizes the continuing development of the language from the Anglo-Saxon times through “Middle English” to the present day. “Old English” has been preferred for the name of the language. nation of the Angles. but Latin writers later began to refer to them as “Angles” (Angli). So. Southern Hampshire. and Denmark. nearly three centuries after the first Jutes landed in the Isle of Thanet in 449. If we want to stress the contrast between Anglo-Saxon and present-day culture. Germany. These tribes came from the regions now known as the Netherlands. but since the nineteenth century. when it referred to all aspects of the period – people. the coming of St. the nation was called Angelcynn (i. do we call the language “Old English” or “Anglo-Saxon”? If we want to stress the continuity. Saxons and Jutes alike. we will use the first term. This label began to be used after the Renaissance. we will use the second. the Saxons. the Scandinavian invasions in the eighth. It is still the usual way of talking about the cultural history. Our knowledge of it is derived from The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Until around AD 1000. ninth and tenth centuries. The language was always referred to as Englisc (the sc spelling was used for the sound sh). Bede drew a fairly clear picture of the settlement of Britain by these three related ‘nations’ or tribes: the Jutes. and the linguistic differences. and the Isle of Wight.4.1. the Norman Conquest in the eleventh. and the migration of English speaking people to North America. Of all these movements the first was clearly the most decisive. Old English (450 .1100) Certain movements or events stand out in the history of English: the settlement in the island of Jutes. and this has led to the modern name. who came first and settled in Kent. Angle-race). regardless of which tribe they belonged to. who founded homes in regions north of the Thames. Augustine in 597 and the subsequent conversion of England to Latin Christianity. After that date Englaland (land of the Angles) was used to denote collectively the Germanic peoples in Britain: Angles. culture. the name “Anglo-Saxon” did not exist. Saxons and Angles in the fifth and sixth centuries.3. which was written in Latin by the Venerable Bede about 730. and South Africa mainly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Australia. when the history of languages came to be studied in detail. night. spoken in many dialects by people who had themselves invaded the islands several centuries before.. Here the Celtic dialects were to develop in separate ways.. specifically English words (not to be found in any other language): clipian (to call. b. who invaded the island in 44 B. and perhaps also Scotland. father. The linguistic effects of the Anglo-Saxon wars were just as clear-cut.4. to die (steorfan). irrespective of their degree of 36 . When the Roman legions left. Many Celtic communities were destroyed. words also existing in other Indo-European languages: mother. One thing is clear: the Celtic language of Roman Britain had hardly any influence on the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. the invasion of the Scandinavian trives (the Normans and the Danes) between the 8th and the 10th cent.C. or gradually pushed back westwards and northwards. c. Let’s remember The Old English period is marked by a number of historical events: the invasion of the Anglo-Saxon tribes (the Jutes. The sum of these linguistic assets stands for the OE ‘native words’ whereas all the foreign influences have been regarded as ‘loan-words’. assimilated. as we shall see later on in this chapter. Only a handful of Celtic words came into English at the time. the only permanent linguistic sign of their presence proved to be the place names of some of their major settlements – such as the towns ending in –chester (derived from the Latin word for ‘camp’.1. sea. and the Norman (French) invasion at the end of the period. the Angles and the Saxons) in the 5th and 6th cent. Each of these influenced the English vocabulary .Before the Anglo-Saxon invasions. but it is not known just how much Latin – if any – was spoken in daily life in the province. sand. into the areas we now know as Cornwall. words found only in the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages: earth. the language of Britain was Celtic. castra).1.. to speak). Wales. but if they did. it should be pointed out that it included: a. They are very few in number. to sleep (slaepan). Cumbria. etc. in the early fifth century. resulting in such modern languages as Welsh and Gaelic. land. The Old English Vocabulary Referring to the Old English vocabulary as a whole. 3.. We do not know if many Celts stayed in the east and south. the conversion of the British people to Latin Christianity at the end of the 6th century. they would soon have lost their identity within the dominant Anglo-Saxon society. Many Celtic tribes had in turn been subjugated by the Romans. 1. e. e.1.2. 3.g. e.2.1. carfull (‘careful’). Means of Enriching the Vocabulary in Old English The principal means of enriching the vocabulary in Old English were word building and borrowing. spinnestre (‘woman who spins’).g. cohhettan (‘to cough’).1. e. e. e. eorπlic (‘earthly’).4. Prefixes: 37 . A. frēondlic (‘friendly’). e.2. WORD BUILDI G The two main types of word building were affixation and composition.g. -full was used to build adjectives from nouns.4. bliccettan (‘to sparkle’).g. Zylden (‘golden’) from Zold (‘gold’). mistiZ from ‘mist’. -læcan. bletsian (‘to bless’). e. fiscere (‘fisher’).g. ♦verb-forming suffixes: Example 3 -sian. Suffixes: ♦noun-forming suffixes: Example 1 -ere was generally used to form masculine nouns denoting professions. synnfull (‘sinful). A.g. writere (‘writer’). gerihtlæcan (‘to justify): -ettan. to cleanse.g. sorZfull (‘sorrowful’).g. clænsian (‘to clean. -estre was used for feminine nouns denoting professions. with vowel-interchange. 3. ♦adjective-forming suffixes: Example 2 -iZ was used to form adjectives from nouns and from adjectives.g. luftic (‘lovely’). wyllen (‘woolen’) from wulle (‘wool). e. to purify’).assimilation into the OE vocabulary. Affixation A. -lic was used to form adjectives from nouns and adjectives. Old English should be regarded as consisting of a basic Anglo-Saxon word-stock plus several foreign sources which contributed to the general mass of the vocabulary with fully or partially assimilated words. -en served to form adjectives from nouns. and of course in Wales and Scotland). adjectives and verbs. bewerian (‘to protect from. e. ārisan (‘to arise’). battle field’).indicates destruction.4. B. Worcester is Celtic. Penhill. from’: We find it in verbs such as āberan (‘to bear’). Pen (meaning ‘top’ in Welsh) is preserved in place-names such as Pendle.2. BORROWI GS There were three main sources of loan words in Old English: Celtic. forsettan (‘to obstruct’). where it gave birth to a large number of nouns. Pendleton. equity’). Celtic loan-words From the fact that the original language of Britain was Celtic. the land of the Angles). meaning ‘by. skill’). bedelfan (‘to dig’). heahcræft (‘high art. but actually very few were. e. near. MonandæZ (‘Monday’). rihtlaZu (‘just law. Latin and Scandinavian A. to destroy’). The Celtic word cumb (‘deep valley’) is to be traced in names like Duncombe. 38 . Torr (‘high rock. to defend against’).2. Composition Word-composition (the process by which new words are formed by combining two or more free morphemes) was extremely productive in Old English. Salisbury.g. Torcross. EnZlaland (‘England'.1. ♦compound nouns: folcstede (‘people’s place. it might be expected that numerous Celtic elements would have become absorbed into Old English. Morecombe. about’. i. fordōn (to kill.Example 4 ♦ ā. bliϑ-heort (‘having a happy heart’).means ‘out of. Exeter. ♦compound verbs were usually derived from compound nouns and adjectives: efenÞrōwian.g. Penburg. Penrith. The first syllable of Winchester. 3. They survive chiefly in place names in what is now southern and eastern England (though these are much more common in Cornwall and Devon. āwacan (‘to awake’). ♦ be-. ♦ for. Holcombe. Thus the kingdom of Kent owes its name to the Celtic word Canti whose meaning is unknown. is linked to nouns and verbs. and Pentridge. peak’) appears in names such as Torr. excellent.e. Terms connected with trade: cēap (‘bargain’). pondō ‘measure of weight’). weall ‘wall’ (Lat. Cam -‘crooked’. food: cytel ‘kettle’ (Lat. B.1. c. Dover. brocc (‘badger’). [via] strāta). cēese ‘cheese’ (Lat. bench’). stræt ‘ paved road. crib’). The few words of Celtic origin to be found in Old English are bin(n) (‘basket. the Latin word castra (‘camp’) acquired in the Old English the meaning of ‘town’ or ‘enclosed community’. Several hundred Latin words found in the various Germanic languages at an early date prove the intercourse of the Germanic tribes with the Romans. street’ (Lat. scamol (‘stool. ynce ‘inch’ (Lat. clothing. Dove –‘black’. cisten (‘chestnut-tree’). B. Usk. and it was always renewed. bratt (‘cloak’). Terms connected with domestic life. ‘cuprum’). etc. butere ‘butter’ (Lat. Although the latter had taken over several hundreds of Latin words. pil (‘pointed stick. calc). Exe. catillus ‘little pot’) cycene ‘kitchen’ (Lat. b. pund ‘pound’ (Lat. javelin’). Dee –‘holy’. pyle (‘pillow’). Wye. crag and cross. The first period of Latin borrowings The words brought over by the Germanic tribes from the Continent covered a number of semantic fields. d. disc ‘dish’ (Lat. coquīna). ‘tegula’). Terms connected with military life: camp (‘battle’). cāseus).Besides place names.butyrum). tiele ‘tile’ (Lat. Terms connected with the building arts: cealc ‘chalk’ (Lat. probably because the Germanic conquerors had enough terms to denote the various notions existing at the time. uncia) etc. Esk. we find various Celtic words for “river” or “water” in the names of Avon. Apart from place-names and river-names. mynet (‘coin’ from Lat. copor ‘copper’ (Lat. only a few of these were passed on. The first period of Latin borrowings also comprises a few words adopted by Celtic during the Roman occupation and transmitted to Old English by the Britons. vallum). win (‘wine’). It had begun long before the English came to Britain. discus) etc. the influence of Celtic upon Old English was an extremely slight one. pytt ‘pit’ (from Lat ‘puteus’). ‘moneta’). pise (‘pea’). Latin loan words Contact with Roman civilization lasted throughout many centuries. Thus we have: a. Trent. Certain river-names are descriptive: Cald(er) – ‘violent’. Thus. It is also to be found in various Old English place-names ending in – 39 . Ouse. In Modern English. Towcester) and in the West and South -chester (as in Chester. prophet. Manchester. creed. lobster. a foreign word was not always readily accepted to express a new idea.2. Here are some Latin borrowings in the Old English period: ♦ Ecclesiastical terms: abbot. dēmon (Lat. pope (from ‘papa’). Of the remaining 400 that may be really considered part of the English vocabulary. Thus. for the Latin Pascha.g. in the Midlands. Colchester. Winchester). lily. bishop (from ‘episcopus’).heaven. laurel. idol. cucumber. B. disciple. In Old English. the people even used English words belonging to the pagan religion in order not to adopt the Latin word. temple (from Lat templum). deacon. verse. mainly to do with the church and its services. gospel (‘good news’). The vast majority has survived in modern times. Eastron (‘Easter’). nun (from ‘nunna’). Old words were often applied and sometimes adapted to new concepts. The second period of Latin borrowings The year 597 marks the coming of St. plant. lentil. –cester (as in Leicester. ‘daemon’). The Christian missionaries not only introduced literacy. hell. litany. Sometimes. priest (from ‘presbyter’). God. the goddess of dawn. martyr. paper. Augustine and his forty monks to the island and the subsequent conversion of England to Latin Christianity. patriarch was rendered by hēāhfaeder (‘high father’). altar. tiger. cleric. The missionary influence resulted in around 45o new words coming into the language. The two periods of Latin borrowings mentioned introduced about 500 Latin words into Old English. many Old English words were given new meanings . school. cedar. shrine. psalm. under the Norman influence. crystal. candle (Lat. in the North and East of England. versus) giant. fers ‘verse’ (Lat. some came 40 . Gloucester. angel. but including many domestic and biological words. ‘apostolus’). mass (from ‘Missa’). ♦Miscellaneous words: balsam (Lat. Holy Ghost . Dorchester. Worcester.and there were several other usages most of which have not survived (such as Scyppend ‘shaper’ meaning ‘Creator’). apostle (Lat. some of which were taken over into Old English. balsamum). canon. chalice. alms. e. hymn. it became –caster (as in Lancaster. Tadcaster). Easter. About 100 were purely learned or remained more or less foreign words. scorpion. They also brought a huge Latin vocabulary. Chesterfield.ceaster. Eastron had been a great spring festival celebrating Eastru. oyster. fever. At the same time. cell. Doncaster. candela). place. monk (from ‘monachus’). rule. radish. These seven communities were so named by their neighbours because they were Norwegian settlements in a countryside predominantly Danish. the Danes were joined by the Norwegians from Ireland. The Vikings were cruel and relentless sea rovers who honoured three virtues above all: courage. and Thoresby. The Vikings consisted of both Norwegians and Danes and they were near akin in both race and language to the Angles. Grimbsby. Later. dairy farms. and in Lancashire and Cheshire. The result of this prolonged period of contact was a large number of settlements with Scandinavian names. Thorpe contain the Scandinavian words – thorp meaning ‘village’. C.500 place-names of Scandinavian origin in England. in Wiltshire. which began in AD 787 and continued at intervals until the beginning of the eleventh century. Scunthorpe. Linthorpe. There are over 600 places ending in –by: Derby. About 300 names like Althorp. Scandinavian loan-words Another big linguistic invasion came as a result of the Danish (Viking) raids on Britain. and pastures. in the western dales of Yorkshire. the Isle of Man and the Hebrides. Whitby. Nor-man-by. The place-name ormanby. But most of them were widely accepted and assimilated. who within a century controlled most of Eastern Europe. The most distinctive is – by.into wider use later. Cleethorpes. Now ormanby is the name of four villages in Lincolnshire and of three villages in the North Riding. who founded homes in Cumberland and Westmorland. orthorpe. especially in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Gawthorpe. There are a little less than 300 place-names containing the word – 41 . and generosity. derives from orϑmanna býr (‘village of the Northmen. and later in the Old Norse sagas. King Alfred prevented them from further gain by their defeat in 878 at Edington. Rugby. or ‘town’. There are over 1.e. and which thus became known as the Danelaw. These were the qualities that had been esteemed by the pagans of the Germanic Heroic Age (AD 325-575) commemorated in the Old English Beowulf. loyalty. Norsemen or Norwegians’). when they were reintroduced. Saxons and Frisians who had preceded them in crossing to Britain. The early settlers were the Danes. Denby and Denaby in the West Riding. Selby. the Danish word for ‘farm’. Scandinavian endings are easy to recognize in the names of towns and villages. i. from Dena býr (‘village of the Danes”) like Denby in Derbyshire and Denver in Norfolk were the names of Danish communities in districts predominantly Norwegian and English. homesteads. A treaty was then drawn up in which the Danes agreed to settle only in the north-east third of the country – east of a line running roughly from Chester to London – an area that was subject to Danish law. Jutes. Conversely. piece of land’): Applethwaite. Other place-names end or start with: -toft (‘a piece of ground’): Brimtoft. heppen (‘neat. Snafell Whinfell. -fell (‘hill’): Scafell. Holbeck. ‘one who lays down fé or money’ and so ‘partner. Birkbeck. and law. buksit (‘dressed. The Scandinavians of the Danelaw left their marks on manorial organization. and ortoft. are also found in the areas inhabited by the Vikings. The word law is itself Scandinavian and signifies ‘that which is laid down’. Troutbeckl. breck. Identify the borders of the territory inhabited by the Scandinavian people on the basis of the place names containing the ‘suffixes’ indicated above. 'valley'): Avondale. over 1. Eastoft. Garrigill. Wansbeck. brick (‘slope’): Haverbrack. and Scarisbreck. especially those of the northeast. like addle (‘to earn’).thwaite (‘clearing. ‘housedweller. orbreck. fellow (from felaga/félagi. which have displaced their English counterparts are husband (from husbonda. Danesdale. In the long term. Langtoft. Kelkirk etc. grith ‘guaranteed security. husting (‘assembly’) from hús þing originally ‘meeting-in-a house’. tidy’) still live in dialect from Leicester to Northumberland. store (‘great’). -brack. Lowestoft. wight (‘valiant’). shareholder’). -kirk (‘church’): Kirkby. Other Scandinavian terms associated with law. -beck (‘brook’): Beckford. Langthwaite. -keld (‘spring’): Hallikeld. Cowperthwaite. sanctuary.800 words of definite or probable Scandinavian origin entered the language during this period and are still to be found in present-day Standard English. Some of these ancient words. -garth (‘yard’): Applegarth. -dal (‘dale’. Trinkeld. Take a map of the United Kingdom and study the place names in the central part of England. So by-law is ‘village or local law’ and outlaw is ‘a man outside the law’. such as Davidson. toom (‘empty’). Many good old Scandinavian words live in personal names. local government. Legal terms were borrowed by the English people quite early. -gill (‘ravine’): Gaisgill. Bassenthwaite Braithwaite. Several thousand more continued to be used in regional dialects. one who dwells in. Arkengarthdale. a house’ irrespective of marriage). Surnames ending in –son. 42 . and so manages. Scarsdale. asylum’. prepared’). ettle (‘to strive’). etc. north and south (but not west and east). sit. Scandinavian prepositions penetrated into the English vocabulary. guess. land. gate. life. down. awe. race. scowl. and the prepositions over and under. These phrasal verbs were commonly used in Middle English but they were later scorned by the classicists. house. get. It almost goes without saying that there are scores of common words in daily use which would be identical in form whether they came from English or Scandinavian: words like father. adjectives like full and wise. Among names of animals we find bull. score. meet. especially simple monosyllabic verbs like bring. haven. awkward. harbour.Snare and net are Norse words.g. The pronominal adjectives both and same have also come into English from Scandinavian. glitter. mother. dirt. from. dregs. think. keel. ship. out. crawl. e. off. whereas in the Scandinavian languages it preserved its [sk] sound. come. slaughter. rugged. which suggest that the Vikings may have been able to teach the Britons a thing or two in the poaching line. sky. in. leg. bull. scab. whisk. Besides nouns. Ransack is another which might be described as in character. ill. clip. ground. tree. tight. scant. words of Scandinavian origin have sk. kid and rein(deer). smile. kid. summer. scrub. scrape. gap. brink. The criteria for recognizing Scandinavian words are sometimes quite simple. Many verbs are the same. Scandinavian also left its mark upon the English language in its extensive use of verbs with adverb-prepositions of the type take up. etc. meek. Ugly comes from the Norse verb ugga ‘to fear’. gate. to commonplace objects. shall. guest. In Old English it was early palatalized to [S]. 43 . These are fro. give. winter. scrap. grass. window. room. to. band. actions and feelings: anger. white. folk. crook. on. especially in America. hear. weak. wife. want. hit. green. odd. bask. They have multiplied exceedingly in recent years. take.g. and the names of colours. grey. knife. low. sly. sky. freckle. loan. fish. call. Names of certain parts of the body also come from Scandinavian: calf. cliff. ride. root. set. The Old English scyrte has become shirt. adjectives and verbs. man. thrust. e. steak. rotten. dale. see. disjunctive possessives mine and thine (but not ours and yours). crop. one of the simplest being the development of the group [sk]. The greatest number of Scandinavian loan words refer to every-day life. loft. flat. raise. seat. link. till and until (from und ‘as far as’ + til ‘fixed point. their. skill. lift. egg. spin. gasp. skin and skull. while the corresponding Old Norse skyrta has become skirt. While words of English origin have sh in Modern English. scare. town. goal’). birth. bank. trust. i. According to Potter (1990:33) "it was. by external means (borrowings from other languages.No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflectional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and levelling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. Let’s remember In the Old English period. just like today. Look up the words in an etymological dictionary (try the internet) and see how many of them have been borrowed from the Scandinavian tribes. as we shall see in the next unit. Summary This unit has introduced the students to the historical approach of the English vocabulary. there existed two basic ways of enriching the vocabulary: by internal means (basically by using affixation and composition). led by Duke William of Normandy in 1066. What people inhabited the British Isles before the coming of the Anglo- 44 . Evaluation 1. and which came to identify the second main period in English language history.. whether physical or spiritual. But none of the linguistic changes were as great as those which followed the famous invasion of all.” Think of as many words as you can that begin with the letter combination sk-. First and foremost. 3. specifying that it is part of the Germanic sub-branch of this ancient language. was followed by a long period of social change which left its mark on the language. it has pointed out the main foreign influences upon the vocabulary as well as the internal means of creating new words.e. The English lexicon was later on influenced by a number of other languages.6. after all. Each invasion. a salutary influence. The Anglo-Saxon age was a time of enormous upheaval.5. it has shown the Indo-European origin of the English language. in clarity. There was a gain in directness. and in strength. especially on the vocabulary. Scandinavian languages). MIDDLE E GLISH which we shall investigate in the following unit. Then. The gain was greater than the loss. 3. Latin. household articles. Divide the words into sets according to their meanings (e. Consider what these sets of borrowed words might suggest about the relationship between the Germanic tribes and the Romans. Where did the Anglo-Saxons live on the Continent? 3. Latin balteus benna episcopus butyrium cattus calx caseus cuprum cuppa discus furca uncia catillus cucina milea molinum moneta mortarium catillus OE belt bin biscop butere catt cealc cese copor cuppe disc forca ynce cetel cycene mil mylen mynet mortere cetel ModE belt bin bishop butter cat chalk cheese copper cup dish fork inch kettle kitchen mile mill mint mortar (vessel) kettle 5.).g. domestic. etc. What was the chief influence of the Norman Conquest on the English language? 45 . How many waves of Latin borrowings are encountered in the Old English period 4.Saxons? 2. What was the influence of the Scandinavian settlement on the English language? 6. ..................... Introduction ... 55 4....8.........2..... it nevertheless borrowed other words that are nowadays employed in certain registers..................................... 4............................ 52 4.......... The second period in the evolution of the language will be investigated..................... Competences After having covered the material in this chapter..................................... Latin borrowings ................................ Competences ........1500): Introduction The year 1066 marks the beginning of a new social and linguistic era in Britain............................... 46 4....................... We will mention the foreign words the English language borrowed from various languages it came in contact with during this period and we will point out that although the English language did have words for certain concepts/referents......3.............5..........6 ........... Arabic borrowings ........ Summary ............. Average time for covering this unit: 2 hours 4..4.................7......... 53 4................................................. The diachronic approach to the English vocabulary: the Middle English period Contents 4............2......................................... but it does not actually identify the boundary between Old and Middle English..... 56 4..................... Evaluation ...................3............................................................. Middle English: Introduction ........ 48 4................9...................................... Flemish and Dutch borrowings .................... French borrowings.......................... namely Middle English................ Latin and Greek in the appropriate situation................. the students should be able to identify the origin of the foreign words that entered the English vocabulary in the period between the 11th and the 15th centuries......................... MIDDLE E GLISH (1100 ..........10.... 46 4................................ It was a long time before 46 .............................................................1....................... They are expected to use the members of the synonymic series that appeared as a result of borrowing from French...................Greek borrowings .........................................1............................Unit 4... 56 4................... 55 4.. Introduction Unit 4 presents some other events in the history of Britain that left an important trace on the English lexicon................ 46 4.............................. and antagonism grew between the two countries (leading ultimately to the Hundred Years War. the kings of England continued to be Dukes of Normandy. The status of French diminished as a spirit of English nationalism grew. By about 1425 it appears that English was universally used in England. During the twelfth century. new fields of trade. Following the accession of William of Normandy. of course. and had to be taught French in school. They were the great-grandchildren of the fiord who had retained all the Viking energy in colonization and in war. In 1204 the situation changed. King John of England came into conflict with King Philip of France. which began in 1337). 13th and 14th centuries. William appointed French-speaking barons.the effects of the invasion worked their way into the language. which lasted during the 12th. There were new economic links. new crafts. and all this naturally implied the continued use of French. The Normans were mostly Norsemen who had completely shed their Scandinavian speech. The English nobility lost their estates in France. treaties. French continued to be used in Parliament. The main influence on English was. but who had become converts to Latin culture. The co-existence of the two languages in the country gave rise to their struggle. and this was rapidly followed up by the appointment of French-speaking abbots and bishops. and many noblemen had estates on both sides of the Channel. private letters were generally written in Latin. 47 . official documents. English became more widely used among the upper class. The written records show that there was very little use of English among the hierarchy. and in the meantime Old English continued to be used. with the manuscripts at either end of this period showing the language in a state of change. The period we call Middle English runs from the beginning of the twelfth century until the middle of the fifteenth. the courts and in public proceedings. By the end ot the twelfth century. It was made even more complicated by the fact that Latin was the language of the Church. and was obliged to give up control of Normandy. After the conquest. By the end of the century. in writing as well as in speech. contemporary accounts suggest that some children of the nobility spoke English as a mother tongue. In 1362 English was used for the first time at the opening of Parliament. French – the language introduced to Britain by the Normans. when Richard II was deposed. During the first centuries after the Norman Conquest. Henry IV’s speeches at the proceedings were made in English. French was rapidly established in the corridors of power. revenue. solemn. but they also included words from such fields as medicine. felon. chant. duke. which at the same time enriched its vocabulary by adopting many French words. bail. liberty. coroner.” Army and military life: The important part played by war in Feudalism. squire. crime. crucifix. treaty. Most have stood the test of time. heir. royal. ordain. cardinal. salvation. religion. exchequer. mayor. novice. domicile. punishment. heresy. friar (from ‘frere’). gaol. but in the victory of English. everyday terms. judge. justice. creator. warrant are French. prayer. traitor. sermon. plaintiff. cathedral. as we have seen. estate. miracle. manor. adultery. sir. village. Many of the new words are quite ordinary. summons. in a short time we had not only learned but had taken into our language such words as plaintiff. prison. baptism. noble. French loan-words Naturally. attorney. parliament. is Scandinavian.4. while lawyers sought to impress us with tongue twisters like malfeasance and lesè-majesté.000 French words came into English. trinity. many legal terms are of French origin. assize. vicar. charity. cloister. but accuse. baron. defendant and distraint. Law: As French was the language of law courts for a very long time. verdict. blame. A general impression of the great range covered by this new vocabulary can be obtained from the brief selection below. legacy. peasant. arson. convent.The words were largely to do with the mechanisms of law andministration. The importance of the French influence is not to be judged only by the number of words borrowed. right and righteousness from ‘right-wise-ness’ are English. about three-quarter of them still being in use today. since we were often in trouble with our conquerors. majesty. the struggle of the two languages did not result in a mixed language. plea. residence. art and fashion. evidence. Law. decree. Almost 1/3 of the words most frequently used in Modern English are of French origin. communion. tyrant. but also by their frequency of use. government. tax. Moore (1961: 94) wrote the following: “Legal terms became important to us. jury. inquest. around 10. minister. chancellor.4. arrest. Administration: bailiff. council. clergy. mercy. the control of the army and the navy in the French-speaking aristocracy – all this contributed to the adoption of numerous French military terms: 48 . Religion: The fact that the major part of the higher clergy were of Norman origin accounts for words such as abbey. sovereign. treasurer. pardon. convict. sue. prince. According to one estimate. court. confess. depose. saint. castle. and hung up by the heels like a traitor?” “Pork”. I can tell you more. becomes Monsieur Veau in the like manner. shepherd.. builder. retreat. navy. veil. calf are English. 49 . to broil. a fiery French gallant.” said Wamba. ambush. mutton. and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment. and quartered. 1973:108). soldier. Trades: The older. to fry. But the new nobility brought many luxury trades from France. garter. to roast. weaver and webber. quoted in Iarovici. mustard. garrison. veal are French: «“ And swine is good Saxon. captain. attire. fruit. when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. when she is carried to the castle hall to feast among the nobles. peach. saddler. sheep. boot. where stress is laid on the fact that the names of the live animals ox. “there is Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet while he is under change of serfs and bondsmen such as thou. fisherman. Mynherr Calf. lance. fundamental trades. pork. in the first chapter. answered the swineherd.) “Nay. collar. button. archer.” (. cape. besiege. Fashion: The nobility introduced a large number of words connected with fashion: garment. I think is good Norman French and so when the brute lives and is in charge of a Saxon slave. spy. guard. peace. painter.. he is Saxon when he requires tendance. coat. battle. sergeant. while the humble stool maintained its English name. haberdasher. jeweller. too. the swineherd. lace. mason.Example 1 army. whereas those of cooked meats beef. draper.” said the Jester: “but how call you the sow when she is flayed. but becomes Beef. probably continued to be performed mainly by English people and therefore preserved their English names: baker. lieutenant. she goes by her Saxon name. and Gurth. but becomes a Norman and is called pork. enemy. regiment. The words furniture. gown. Other culinary terms of French origin are: biscuit. etc. tailor. joiner. The names of meals dinner and supper are French (though breakfast is English). to boil. “I am very glad every fool knows that too.” said Wamba in the same tone. and drawn. to toast. to mince. miller. swine. siege. the fool. and this fact accounts for such French words as carpenter. defend. shoemaker. to grill. especially those belonging to the countryside. “and pork. cloak.”» (Scott. robe. table chair are of French origin. Food and drink: Readers of W. moat. combat. Scott’s Ivanhoe will remember the conversation between the Saxon thralls Wamba. foreign. certain. and when this happened their meanings would begin to differ. 50 . able. in most cases the French word replacing an Old English equivalent. medicine. e. square. forest. bucket. story. dance. Very often the English word had a concrete character and the French word an abstract one: life . debt. house and mansion. hour. autumn (from the French automne). For example. wlitig to beautiful. Certain French words which have died out or become obsolete in France have been preserved in Britain. wish and desire. wardrobe. Sometimes the borrowed French word makes its English equivalent pass into another sphere of meaning. work – labour. Sometimes the English word referred to everyday life and the French one had an official meaning. city. In such cases. romance. flower. e. there were two main outcomes. Old English hærfest was ousted by Mid. image. sculpture. e. scarlet.power. literature. they were more physical. lyft to air. wanhope to despair. age.g. air. Example 2 freedom vs liberty. and science. beauty. painting. poet. Hundreds of Old English words were lost in this way. Old English and French words often both survived. the Old English doom and the French judgment no longer mean the same thing. cushion. piece. prose. leisure. chimney. and herian to praise. dice (from ‘dees’). General: action. ocean. move. coast. use. music. there were many cases where it duplicated a word that existed already in English from Anglo-Saxon times. but with slightly different meanings. easy. being used in documents. towel. mountain. poison. ointment. lamp. colour. reason. river. nor do hearty and cordial. ceiling. As the new vocabulary arrived. juggler (from ‘jongleur’) Learning and art: The cultural and scientific preoccupation of the time are reflected in words connected with arts. happiness vs felicity. art. Old English leod gave way to people. gay. curtain.E. adventure. nice. chess. “We feel more at ease after getting a hearty welcome than after being granted a cordial reception” (Potter. but it maintained itself in English with the sense of harvest. to give – to present. friendship vs amity.g. people. But at the same time. kennel. brown.Leisure: recreation. deep –profound. figure. ask – demand. or both would co-exist in the language. kingship vs royalty. lonely – solitary. Thus. Generally. joy.g. please.existence. might . blue. Either one word would supplant the other. beginnen and commencen. special. real. Thus. 1990:38). stomach. The first outcome was very common. love vs charity. carol. the English words had a stronger emotional colouring. and more human. disburden. many French word-building elements entered the English language. which had a negative meaning. arrogance. find out which of the following words containing French derivational elements are genuine borrowings or hybrids (English root + French derivational elements): importance. -ence. certainty (Old French certaineté) was replaced by the Mod. When one and the same element appeared in various French loan-words. entrance. department. entered the English language in many French words like disdain. Alongside of French words. The prefix en-. gave birth to hybrids like endear. refreshment. des. baroness. which English people soon came to realize as a means of deriving abstract nouns from adjectives and verbs.This word was replaced in French by the learned new borrowing habile. etc. development. -Most of the borrowings were terms that denominated things (referents) that had been not known by the English people. obedience contained the suffix –ance. destroy. By consulting the dictionary. encircle. accordance. amazement. Thus the prefix dis-. combines with English stems. e.. French prefixes. which appeared in words such as enclose. French suffixes. The feminine-forming suffix –ess.g. embed. embody. dislike. -The French loan-words were related to the basic fields of life (trade. competence. e. but some others were synonyms of the Anglo-Saxon terms. its meaning became clear to Englsih people. military 51 . bereavement. commitment. certitude. who were thus able to isolate it as a separate morpheme and use it to form new words from French and English stems (but most hybrids were formed later. The suffix –ment which appeared in words such as government. This accounts for the later formation of hybrids such as hindrance. treatment gave birth to the hybrids fulfilment. etc. which entered the English language in words like princess. Let’s remember -The French terms appeared in the English language as a result of the Norman Conquest (1066). abridgment. etc. countess. A few French prefixes became productive in English. bewilderment.F. A great number of French loan-words such a ignorance. goddess. clearance. enjoy. in shepherdess. and it came to form new words with English roots.g. parliament. in Modern English). indolence. involvement. enshroud. disown. incarnate. private. This is quite natural. French and Latin elements (many of the latter were borrowed in Early Modern English). infancy. genius. for Latin was the language of theology and learning. Besides.5. ab-. missal. The 1384 translation of the Bible by John Wyclif. legal. incredible. prosecute. custody. adjacent. testimony. The richness of the English language in synonyms is largely due to the mingling of English. scripture. ad-. lucrative. belonging to this period: abject. mechanical. -al. leisure. This may be easily seen in sets of three words which all express the same fundamental meaning. re-. Example 3 Old/Middle English rise ask kingly French mount question royal Latin ascend interrogate regal 52 . Latin borrowings A great number of words were borrowed from Latin in the 14th and 15th centuries. inferior. dis-. con-. solar. pro-. minor. index. -ible. interrupt. especially through the numerous translations from Latin made at that time. ornate. law. Most of these were professional or technical terms. immune. necessary. lunatic. -ive. picture. in-. pulpit. the influx of French words facilitated the adoption of Latin words. and fashion). temperate. -ous. im-. belonging to such fields as religion. intellect. medicine. infinite. polite. Many of these words introduced into the language suffixes and prefixes which began to be used for forming English derivatives (some of these affixes reinforcing the corresponding French ones): able. history. contained over 1. distract. magnify. -Most of these terms are still in use in present-day English. rosary. contempt. but which differ slightly in meaning or stylistic effect. Here are some examples of Latin borrowings (rendered in Modern English). spacious. incumbent.000 Latin words not previously known in English. moderate. sub-. -ent. The new borrowings were learned words and they penetrated into the language through literature. for example. include. nervous. substitute. quiet. ulcer. 4.life. conspiracy. too. But more important than this. arithmetic. -through Latin. The names of the 7 liberal arts of the medieval trivium and quadrivium had all been Greek-derived words: grammar. astronomy. Thus we talk about royal blue. letters. a royal flush. and it is because of this that English is said to have a larger core vocabulary than that of other modern languages. -Most of the Latin loan-words were related to religion and education. Latin and Greek words found their way into English because they were needed. Greek borrowings Why is it that so many of the English technical terms derive from Greek? Primarily. science. and music. and the Royal avy. and the Latin word more learned. Let’s remember -A new wave of Latin words entered the English vocabulary at the end of the Middle English period. but a regal manner and a regal expression. or written 53 . with the French word being literary. there are distinctions in the way the words are used. Greek words were borrowed: -through Latin by way of French. which itself is a translation of Greek grammatikē téchnē.6. it is because Athens once led the world in art. 4. being made up of elements of different languages. There is no Kingly avy or Regal avy! English has thousands of words which are almost synonymous. and philosophy and because the Greek language is peculiarly well adapted to supply the need in English for precise and unambiguous terms with no inherited penumbra of meaning. The word grammar itself is very interesting. -The borrowing process was enabled by literature. It is a hybrid.Find the French and Latin correspondents for the following Middle English words: Middle English holy time fire French Latin The Old English word is often the more popular one. an unusual capacity for forming compounds by means of an extensive and regular system of suffixes. geometry. ‘the art of pertaining to literature. logic. Greek has. thanks to the co-existence of these parallel items. It comes by way of Old French from Latin ars grammatica. and rhetoric. -directly from Greek. osis denotes ‘disease’. one will find that Greek-derived names preponderate. irony. drama. as in halitosis ‘foul breath’. climax. etc. In modern medical usage certain Greek suffixes. or technological institute. a crisis is ‘a selection or judgment’. Later this suffix was used to denote exclusively those diseases which are characterized by inflammatory condition: appendicitis ‘inflammation of the vermiform appendix’. prologue epilogue. a protagonist is ‘the first actor of three’. dilemma. amphitheatre. a catastrophe is a 'down turn’. Example 4 Here are some examples of Greek loan words: alphabet. tragedy. Etymologically. however. Scores of Greek words have made themselves so much at home that it is only by an effort that we recall their earlier significations. The omenclature of Disease.is added the Latin suffix -ārius in this particular case. The feminine adjectival suffix –îtis was frequently used with the feminine noun nósos ‘disease’ expressed or understood: arthrîtis (nósos) ‘disease of the joints’. scene. psychosis ‘mental anxiety’ and tuberculosis ‘disease caused by the tubercle bacillus’. theatre. If one examines the prospectus of subjects taught in any European or American university. bronchitis of the mucous membrane of the bronchial tubes’. diminutive of tuber ‘swelling’. To the Greek root gram(m). dialogue. have acquired a new ‘slant’ in order to meet new needs. The feminine nominal suffix –ōsis meant normal ‘state. an athlete is a 'contestant for an athlon or prize’. academy. like –îtis and –ōsis. an important publication which is subject to constant revision by a special committee appointed by the Royal College of Physicians of London.an and –al. one who walks on tiptoe’. etc. an engraving. this last being a hybrid since the first component comes from Latin tuberculum. chorus. although the usual Latin-derived suffixes are -ous. condition or process’ as in symbiosis ‘a living together (of two dissimilar organisms for purposes of nutrition)’. technical college. epic. atom. is full of Greek terms. basis. an acrobat is a ‘point-walker. A cycle is merely ‘a circle’ and an encyclopedia is a ‘child-training or education in a circle’. neurosis ‘functional disorder of the nerves’. nephrîtis (nósos) ‘disease of the kidneys’. In medical terminology.marks’. comedy. episode. theory. . an atom is something ‘uncut or indivisible’ and has come to mean ‘an individual person’ in Modern Greek. 54 . a character. catastrophe. Let’s remember -The terms borrowed from Greek were basically medical terms and words related to education. 4.7. Flemish, Dutch and Low-German borrowings Owing to the trade intercourse between England and the Low Countries, a large number of words were borrowed from Flemish, Dutch and Low German. Such words are (rendered in Modern English): to botch (‘to patch, to mend’), brake (‘machine for breaking hemp’), to curl (‘to press textiles into small folds or waves’), to lash (‘to join a piece and make a seam’), cambric, duck (strong linnen or cotton fabric) pack, scour, spool, tuck (‘fold’), freight, guilder (‘Dutch silver coin’), hawker, huckster, nap (‘surface of cloth’), peg, prop, deck, dock, freight, lighter (‘boat carrying goods from ship to land’), rover (‘pirate’), skipper (schipper ‘shipper’, i.e. ‘master of a ship), etc. 4.8. Arabic words The Crusades introduced – generally through French – a number of words of Arabic origin such as: -assassin from the Arabic hashāshīn ‘eaters of hashish’, one of the secret order of Muslims that at the time of the Crusades (the 13th century) terrorized Christians and other enemies by secret murder committed under the influence of hashish; -bedouin from the Arabic badāwi ⇒French bédouin ‘desert dweller, person wandering in the desert’; -mattress from the Arabic matrah, ‘anything hastily thrown down, something to lie upon, bed’; -caravan from the Persian kārwān; -orange through French, Italian, Arabic from Persian nārang. The Arabs have also given the English people the little-loved word algebra ‘setting, reduction of fractions’, and many more beginning with ‘al’, which is simply the Arabic article ‘the’: alkali, almanac, alambic, alcove, alfalfa, alchemy, alcohol (al – kuhl, meaning ‘the kohl, i.e. the powder of antimony for staining the eyelids’). Some other words of Arabic origin still used in English are: amber, camphor, cotton, lute, saffron, caliber, candy, carat, fakir, magazine (ultimately an Arabic plural form meaning ‘storehouses’), minaret. 55 Middle English does not stop suddenly in 1500, but major changes do take place in the language after this date. Starting with the 15th century, the shifting process from a synthetic to an analytic language is almost completed: much simpler, yet less expressive. More than ever, the vocabulary was the object of constant foreign influences, due to the ever-developing international relations established between the British Isles and the rest of the world. 4.9. Summary This chapter has presented the major influences upon the English vocabulary in the Middle English period, among which the most relevant were French, Latin, Greek, Dutch and Arabic. In the majority of cases, the borrowed terms deonted realities not known to the English people. Apart from whole words, English also borrowed derivational elements. This is the case of a number of prefixes and suffixes that came into the language from Latin and French. Some more such elements entered English in the Modern English period, which we shall approach in the following chapter. 4.10. Evaluation 1. Below are 2 versions of one text. They date from 980 and 1380.. a) Match the letters of the texts with the dates: 980 (Old English) 1380 (Middle English) b) List some differences in vocabulary. (A) Forsoth his eldere sone was in the feeld, and whanne he cam and neighede to the hous, he herde a symfonye and a croude. And he cleipide oon of the seruantis, and axide what thingis thes weren. And he seide to him, Thi brodir is comen, and thi fadir hath slayn a fat calf, for he resseyued him saf. (B) SoÞlice his yldra sunu waes on aecere; and he com, and Þa he Þam huse genealaehte, he gehyrde Þaene sweg and ÞQt wered. Þa clypode he anne Þeow, and acsode hine hwaet ÞQt awere. Þa cwaeÞ he, Þin broÞor com, and Þim faeder ofsloth an faett cealf, forÞam Þe he hine halne onfeng. 56 Unit 5. The diachronic approach to the English vocabulary: the Modern English period Contents 5.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 57 5.2. Competences .......................................................................................................... 57 5.3. The Modern English Period: Introduction ........................................................... 57 5.4. Latin and Greek borrowings.................................................................................. 58 5.5. French borrowings ................................................................................................ 61 5.6. Italian borrowings ................................................................................................. 62 5.7. Spanish and Portuguese loan-words .................................................................... 63 5.8. Dutch borrowings .................................................................................................. 63 5.9. German borrowings ............................................................................................... 64 5.10. Indian borrowings................................................................................................ 65 5.11. Borrowings from other languages ...................................................................... 65 5.12. Summary .............................................................................................................. 66 5.13. Evaluation ........................................................................................................... 67 5.14. Homework I.......................................................................................................... 68 5.1. Introduction Unit 5 ends the diachronic approach to the English lexicon. 5.2. Competences After having covered the material in this chapter, the students should be able to identify the words of foreign origin in the English language, to mention the period in which the respective words penetrated the English language, as well as to read and interpret some texts within the socio-historical framework when they were written. Average time for covering this unit: 4 hours 5.3. MODER E GLISH (1500 - up to the present): Introduction The beginnings of Modern English are at the same time the beginnings of the Renaissance in England – the opening years of the 16th century. As a matter of fact, many of the characteristics of Modern English had already appeared in the 15th century, especially in its second half. This is quite natural, since the evolution of any living language is uninterrupted: changes in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary come about gradually, by 57 more texts of the period have survived. Some words came into English directly. by the momentous geographical discoveries resulting from the desire to find new sources of gold.000 English books appeared. medicine. and words came into English from over fifty languages. 5. The story of English thus becomes more definite in the 16th century. including several American Indian languages and the languages of Africa and Asia. nearly 20. continuous and unperceived passage from the old quality to the new one. and even within the lifetime of one and the same generation. It was also greatly influenced by the better means of communications. There were no words in the language to talk accurately about new concepts. The new invention provided more opportunities for people to write. The pace of English language history quickens after William Caxton introduced the technology of printing in England in 1476. and inventions which were emerging in Europe.4. Italian. and so writers began to borrow them. That is how Modern English developed. There are no sudden breaks with old traditions: there is a gradual. Within the following 150 years. The main factor promoting the flood of new publications in the 16th century was the renewed interest in the classical languages and literatures. from one generation to another. French. 58 . with more evidence available about the way the language was developing. The elements of the former are slowly dying away. in close connection with the development of capitalism and with the rise of the bourgeoisie. others came by intermediary languages. Most of the words that came into the English language at that time were taken from Latin and a goodly number from Greek. As a result. and in the rapidly developing fields of science. The focus of the interest was the vocabulary. which came to be called the ‘Renaissance’. as well as by the great cultural movement of the Renaissance.imperceptible degrees. and in the growing number of observations dealing with grammar. and the arts – a period lasting from the time of Caxton until around 1650. But the period of worldwide explorations was well under way. while the elements of the latter are accumulating little by little. techniques. Many words came indirectly from Latin or Italian by way of French. both in the texts themselves. and gave their works much wider circulation. vocabulary and writing system. Latin and Greek borrowings Among the thousands of Latin and Greek words that were introduced into English during the Renaissance there were a large number which did not survive for a very long time. Spanish and Portuguese. position might have come into English via French. extravagant ‘wandering beyond (the path). data. transient. they are no longer associated in the mind of the speaker: assoil . but they also went against the inherent laws of development of the English language. infidel.absolve. memorandum. compensate. inch (L. e. thousands of new words were rapidly adopted and assimilated in the 16th and 17th centuries. On penetrating into the English language some words such as climax. and item ‘also’ was still an accountant’s term introducing all the sections of a bill. port (L. Others lost their Latin ending. obfuscate (‘hidden’). aggravate ‘to add weight to. gratis. ludibundness (‘love of sport’). arbitrator. ‘exoticus’). to credit (L. to attemptate by to attempt. peynture was changed into picture. Here are a few examples of such words: uncounsellable. ‘portus’). illecebrous (‘delicate. gradual. They were not only absolutely unnecessary. Thus. to denunciate by to denounce. Some Latin words retained their original meaning in Elisabethan English and one should be ever on the lookout for this possibility in their reading. Zeal for classical learning led men to reshape French-derived words on Latin models. to permit (L. Love of Latin caused the English to borrow once more words which had already come into the language in a modified form by way of French. strict. gravity. index. ‘permittere’). Premises were ‘things mentioned previously’. Some words were superseded by similar forms which were more adequate to the characteristics of the English language. reason – ration. many expressions like abacus.g. denominate. exotic (L. frail – fragile. proviso. having very good equivalents. urban were taken straight from Latin without change. disacquaint (the opposite of acquaint). In meaning. 'Pickings and stealing' from Latin If certain borrowings sooner or later fell into disuse. explicit. weigh down’. chapter – capital. ultimate. except the first. ignoramus (‘we do not know’) series. axis. abdomen. memento. ray –radius. 59 . to consult (L. abnormal’.These were generally too learned. avys into advice. too long and artificial. area. abecedarium. ‘consultare’). discongruity by incongruity. folio. e. These resulting word-pairs or doublets seldom remained synonymous. extraordinary ‘out of the regular course or order’. delirium maintained their Latin form. infernal. Whereas some words like consolation. Enormous meant ‘out of the norm. alluring’). deruncinate (‘weed’).g. poor – pauper. ‘creditum’). and aventure into adventure. medium. item. chance –cadence. ‘uncia’). as in form. benison – benediction. appendix. notorious. polemic. Thus the Latin words episcopus and discus appear in Old English as biscop and disc (later dish). which is the smallest Greek letter. 'Pickings and stealings' from Greek Words like anonymous. exempli gratia) – ‘for example. iota. A large number of Latin words that had already existed in English in their NormanFrench form were reintroduced in their Latin form.m. house – domestic. in absentia. verdit – verdict. ad libitum (at pleasure. per anum. pro forma. law. Latin technical terms and phrases were also adopted. mythology. non compos mentis (not master of one’s mind. painture – picture. nose – nasal. post meridian) – ‘after noon’. de facto (actually existing. side – lateral. e. land – agrarian. (L. especially when without lawful authority). but with a different meaning from that of the Norman-French words. medicine. videlicet) – ‘namely.g. p. (L. tantalize.e. but their English equivalents: a. id est) – ‘that is to say’. intrinsically).m. eye – ocular. etc. Sometimes nouns and adjectives that are related to one another in meaning are not of the same origin. ex cathedra. e. (L. Asparagus is simply the Greek word for a sprout or shrub. egg – oval. mad). pro tanto (so far to that extent). in memoriam. ante meridian) – ‘before noon’. trade. (L. moon – lunar. editio princeps (first printed edition of a book). and some of them later passed into a wider circulation.g. pro tempore (for the time). (L. to any extent).Sometimes a word was borrowed for the second time. If we say we don’t care a jot we are using as a metaphor the Greek ‘I’. Hypokritēs meant an actor on the 60 . sun – solar. corpus delicti (the basic element of a crime). per diem. Others have remained part of the special terminology of politics. (L.‘and so on’ (this is one of the few Latin abbreviations used unchanged in English). tonic. There are also cases of words that had been borrowed from French and were now replaced by the corresponding Latin form: descrive (n) – describe. infra dignitatem (beneath one’s dignity). Here are a few examples of such doublets: A certain number of Latin abbreviations are often used in English. Here are some examples: a fortiori (for a still stronger reason). Most terms of Greek origin belonged to the spheres of science. son – filial. They generally do not suggest the Latin words for which they stand. etc. They have generally acquired an international character. i. ipso facto (by the fact itself). to wit’. They were borrowed once more later to from the words episcopal and disc. viz. egal – equal. etc. were taken straight from Greek. thermometer. et cetera) . per se (by or in itself. etc. mouth – oral. honoris causa. and political life. in toto (in the whole). ad hoc (for this special purpose only). pathetic. magazine. prospectus. census. tableau. pollen. appropriate. sanatorium (1840). crisis. miniature. and hagiophobia (‘excessive dread of holy persons and things). equilibrium. curriculum. atmosphere. genius. omen. enthusiasm. critique. chagrin. species (1551). etc. senior. they reflect the preoccupations of the aristocracy and of educated people or else they are technical terms. emphasis. -ology: paleontology. beau. pressuance. halomancy. junior. gynecology. pendulum. suite. moratorium. -culture: belles lettres. Most of them are restricted to particular categories of words. miser. expensive. area. premium. connoiseur. expectation. novelist. Many French words were acquired especially after the Restoration (1660). not forgetting cremnophobia (‘fear of falling from cliffs’). billet. arena. catoptromancy. memoir. Of all the words the Greek Gods have given. climax.e. 61 . decorum. the strangest is panic. focus. The English language has Greek words for most of the physical diseases and psychological troubles. doux. Agonia meant a contest. formula. vacuum (1550). autograph. allusion.lexicology English has taken from Greek a lot of words from mythology and has made some strange uses of them. status (1693). honorarium. propaganda. ultimatum (1731). i. virus . brochure. acumen. specimen. ‘fear caused by Pan’ and an important part of the meaning is that the fear is groundless. ballet. terminus (1555). circus. pneumonia. serenade. scheme.stage. Example 2 -aristocratic life: ball. interim. apparatus. momentum. apology. insane. and these are different from those adopted during the Middle English period. intrigue. and so a hypocrite is a person who pretends to have beliefs and feelings which are not his own. Example 1 Greek terms can be easily identified on the basis of the suffixes contained. skeleton. 5. Here are some more examples of both Latin and Greek loanwords (the latter having come in through Latin): arbitrer. It comes from panikon deima. French borrowings During the Renaissance foreign borrowings were not limited to words taken from Latin and Greek.5. editor. primarily in athletics. Here are some examples: –mancy: ceromancy. auditorium. Tasso. concerto. chauffeur. fresco. -politics: administration (‘management of public affairs. High society introduced salon. bombard. insurance. violin. basso. opera. aria. andante. champagne. vogue. falsetto. tricolor. duel. espionage. burlesque. moustache (16th century). madrigal. manufacture. 62 . Other examples are: alloy. soprano. corps. duet. dined in restaurants. garage. entrance. bigot. docility. currency. In the 18th century Italian music was introduced in England and it brought along a number of musical terms such as: alto. minister (in the sense of ‘political agent accredited by one state to another’). cameo. Dent-de-lion). -commercial activity: capital. randezs-vous (originally a military term). dandelion (Fr. design. detail. adagio. andante.-military life: brigadier. battery. rondo. cupola. sonata. régime. bizarre. (…) During the 19th century English learned a lot of new French manners. diminuendo. maestro. sonnet. canteen. restaurant. volley. French chefs taught us sauté. piazza. concerto. rosette. issued communiqués. prima donna. sortie. beret. fondant. volunteer. (…) society mingled only with the élite. pioneer. motto. and etiquette. fondant. Fashion brought over such words as crêpe.6. and culde-sac. grotesque. rouge. gratin. etc. Dante. The following quotation from J. gondola. discount. fugue. A number of Italian words were adopted. oratorio. Penseé). chic. solo. vase. bureau. lottery. fusillade. operetta. volcano. muscle. bouquet. cannonade. pansy (Fr. mousse. investment. baritone. budget (‘annual estimate of revenue and expenditure of a state’). carnival. In various ways we acquired émigré. government’). grimace. Italian loan words Italian borrowings had been almost non-existent before the Renaissance. inferno. deplored enfants terribles and kept its amour propre. parade. coquette.” 5. stanza. manœvre. depôt. Moore (1961:142) sums up the domains in which French words were borrowed during the Late Modern English period: “During the 18th century the words connected with la guerre go like a column on the march. mostly terms relating to literature and arts: balcony. coterie. crescendo. maintained its prestige. cretonne. The Renaissance led to an ample study of Italian literature. made its daughters débutantes and found them suitable fiancés. contralto. premier (‘prime minister’). soldiers laid down barrages. fatigue. suède. forte. naïve. allegro. ticket. espionage. chiffon. grotto. libretto. cantata. dividend. coquette. bayonet. Ariosto and Petrarch were translated into English. décor. rallentando. comrade. intermezzo. portico. mosquito. yam. hurricane. lasagna. coyote from Mexican. cruise. tenor. Example 3 Here are some more words of Spanish & Portuguese origin: chili (‘red pepper’).8. cockroach (which is the English adaptation of the Spanish cucccaracha). balloon. casino. guitar. chocolatl. bowsprit. yucca (white-flowered American plant) guava ('tropical tree) from Cuban. etc. reef. The Spaniards took it home from Mexico. tomato. it is really an Aztec word. alpaca. Here are some examples: alligator. to swab (‘to clean the deck of a vessel’). embargo. canoe. deck. yacht. hammock. tapir from Brazilian Portuguese. 5. motto. slop (‘one-masted ship’). trio. lagoon. But the English people took over a whole vocabulary directly from Dutch through their commerce with Holland and their mutual seafaring to and fro. umbrella. armada. in fact many English words connected with ships and sailors were Dutch originally: boom ‘spar’. cannibal. coca (a shrub from whose leaves cocaine is obtained). sombrero. condor. malaria. pizza. iguana (‘large South American tree-lizard’). Find some other Italian loan-words by consulting an etymological dictionary. pampas. studio. corral. port (wine). cocoa. tapioca. llama. cupola. mulatto. Spanish and Portuguese borrowings These are due to economic and political relations with Spain and Portugal and also to Columbus’s discovery of America. buoy. pasta. violoncello. and volcano. bravado. puma. apricot. macaroni. rusk. barricade. banana. Which fields do they belong to? 5. carnival. sherry (named after Jeréz in Andalusia). commodore. scope. dock. raviolli. bilbo. regatta. potato (from Haiti). and jaguar. quinine from Peruvian. influenza. lava. stanza. More recent borrowings from Italian are balcony. (from Mexican). piazza. Dutch borrowings Many Dutch words came into English by way of American English. marmalade. vendetta. petunia. tank. gondola. maize. meaning ‘food made by mixing the seed of cacaua-atl with those of a tree called 'pochotl’. cameo. anchovy. incognito. poncho. tobacco. An interesting word borrowed from a dead civilization is chocolate. broccoli. hoist. savannah.stacatto. monsoon. inferno. cargo. tempo. pergolla. papaw (‘tropical tree and its fruit’). The ‘tl’ at the end of a word is generally a mark of its Aztec origin. 63 . bravo. fresco. bowline.7. boss. noodle. ersatz. master. boor (boer) (‘farmer’. In the second half of the 17th century and in the 18th century the process of enriching the English vocabulary with words borrowed from different other languages went on. schnitzel. slow-witted person’). a country lout. nickel (originally Kupfernickel. smuggle. cookie. whereof there is the English word boorish ‘ill-mannered’) boss. Example 4 Other words taken from German include such culinary terms as braunschweiger. 5. hop (plant). The English also accepted into their slang the Dutch word bouse. Santa Claus (Sante Klaas ‘Saint Nicholas’). pumpernickel. Some other German loan words are edelweiss. gneiss. pretzel. poltergeist. sketch. Zeitgeist. too. There are Dutch-American food terms like coleslaw (koolsla ‘cabbage salad’). iceberg. especially in the field of mineralogy. From Holland. etc. leitmotiv. military entertainment’. cobalt. a science which developed in Germany. sleigh. Bildungsroman. spook and stoop ‘small porch’. Knackwurst. kit (originally a vessel for carrying a soldier’s equipment). trick. frolic. meerschaum. gin (short for ginger – borrowed by the Dutch from Old French. yodel. and sauerbraten Many German terms entered the English vocabulary as a result of the two World Wars. jeer.9. easel. perhaps ‘copper damon’) quartz. Can you think of some such terms? 64 . waltz. German borrowings: Certain German words were also adopted. e.g. The diversity of other loanwords reflects the variety of cultural contacts English and Dutch speakers had in the New World: boodle. switch. the English got their snuff (‘powdered tobacco taken by sniffing’) and the word for it. sauercraut. their brandy (Dutch brandewijn) and their dope (Dutch doop). liederkranz. zigzag. zinc. now spelt booze. plumb. delicatessen. hinterland. bowberry. wagon. pickle. plunder. rucksack. and zwieback. bismuth. furlough. caboose. especially in the New York area. cranberry. toy. but it also has the sense of a backwoodsman.Other words of Dutch origin are: aloof. ultimately Latin juniperus ‘juniper’) A number of loanwords have entered through the contact of Americans with Dutch settlers. snoop. onslaught. cruller and waffle. etc. wiseacre (‘sententious. spook. wienerwurst. as shown below. tattoo ‘drum signal. landscape. sahib. on. cultural interchange. an idol of Krishna).g. shawl. amok (‘furious’). “wherever the English people had direct contact with other cultures. nirvana. sago (‘sort of starch’). paddy (‘rice in the husk’). for or by a journey’ itself journeyed far south and wriggled its way into Swahili. or colonization. fez. whore (Persian houri. coffee (Turkish kahvé. sepoy (‘Indian soldier’). pyjamas (from Hindi). literally meaning ‘a gazelle-like woman of Paradise’). yoghurt. bazaar. thug (‘robber. whence the hunters during the 1890s picked it up as safari and gave it the meaning of an expedition after big game. which is said to have meant some kind of wine). yoga (from Hindi). pariah. baksheesh (meant simply ‘a present’ without implication of “greasing the palm”). loot. conquest. harem (literally ‘forbidden’). 5. sari. orangutan (literally ‘wild man of the forest’). cot. jute. bamboo. whether by trade. and hence presumably a name given to girls). This type of plundering.g. juggernaut (comes from Jagannath. Borrowings from other languages ►MALAY words were adopted as well. rajah. bungalow. An Arabic adjective meaning ‘of. syrup. e. rupee. caviar. gazelle. ► TURKISH borrowings: bēy. mongoose (from Marathi). calibre.10. mangrove (‘tree’). dinghy (‘small boat’ in Bengalese). tulip (comes from a word meaning ‘turban’). cashmere. curry (from Tamil). ►ARABIC (Persian) words: check mate (from Al-shah mat ‘the King is dead’). mango (tree and fruit). gong. e. agha.11. nabob. bangle. had one very great advantage over the harsher forms of acquisition that often go with imperial expansion: it hurt nobody and left the givers no poorer than they were before. pundit (Hindi ‘learned Hindu’. cotton. ► From HEBREW. coolie. caftan. polo. dungaree (from dungri. it may be said. khaki (‘dust-coloured’). jasmine (in Arabic 'yasmin' became the name of a scent. kosher. kiosk. cockatoo. topi (‘hat’). jungle.5. divan. caravanserai (a company of pilgrims or merchants travelling together). as well as its vocabulary. 1973:209) says. authority’). bandanna (‘richly coloured handkerchief’). ‘a coarse cloth’). strangler’. it comes from the name of a fraternity of professional murderers who terrorised parts of India during the 1820s). meaning massage). As Margaret Schlauch (quoted in Iarovici. gingham. rattan (‘kind of palm-tree’). and schnozzle 65 . calico. punch (‘drink’). seraph. they plundered foreign vocabularies to enrich their own. enlarging the sphere of activity of the English language. shampoo (from the Hindi word champo. Indian borrowings: British colonialism continued to expand.” English colonial expansion accounts for a number of words adopted in India starting with the 18th century. bint (from saida bint –‘good-day girl’ (prostitute). English borrowed words such as: cherub. Summary On the basis of the examples enumerated above we can say that the commonest kind of loan-words – as foreign words are called when taken over unaltered. coracle (‘a kind of boat used on the Dee’). hara-kiri (a ‘belly-slitting’. budgerigar [‘a kind of parrot’. hominy. ‘fairy woman’). paprika. toboggan. Scottish Gaelic provides the topological words loch (lake). squaw. cairn (mound of stones as a monument or landmark). the geisha girl (originally a ‘dancing person’. ► ORWEGIA : ski. and samovar. wombat (‘kind of opossum’). dingo. clan. though she sometimes interprets that function pretty liberally). sufficiency’). galore “abundance. the Chinese found difficulty in pronouncing ‘business’. shamrock (trefoil. ►JAPA ESE: kimono. totem. colleen (name for a girl). clover). The word whisky is an Anglicised version of uisgebeatha. pidgin (for the quaint jargon so called. the ceremonial form of suicide. shortened bidgin. bloke) are of Scottish origin. jujitsu (literally ‘pliant art’). More recent Russian borrowings are bolshevik. 5. soviet. steppe. mammoth. Standard English adopted a few words from various English dialects: from Irish it has taken over the blarney (‘flattering. kimono. kolkhoz.12. cajoling talk’). china. kangaroo. ketchup. wigwam. meaning ‘Big Chief’). hussar. kowtow (Chinese custom of kneeling with the forehead touching the ground). fiord. pogrom. troll. Welsh gives us bard. ‘water of life’: reek (smoke) shank (stalk) and stock (chap. moccasin. In England this word is often clipped to budgie). samurai ►HU GARIA has enriched the English hotchpotch with the words goulash. glen (narrow valley). hence Pidgin English – ‘business English’ – and hence the English phrase “That’s not my pigeon” – not my concern).are those 66 . typhoon. mugwump (from the Massachusetts mugquomp. vodka. bog (wet spongy ground). ►RUSSIA : czar. His shot at it was bidginess. muzhik.► CHI ESE borrowings: tea. Hooligan is taken from the name of a wild Irish family that became notorious in London during the 1890s. ► ORTH AMERICA : tomahawk. wallaby (‘small kangaroo’). generally by its owner). ► AUSTRALIA : boomerang. karaoke. banshee (which comes from Gaelic bean sidhe. sake. rikshaw. sputnik. troika. too. vampire. saga. flannel. possibly coach (from the town of Kocs where such carriages were first made). brogue. Tory (originally ‘an Irish robber’). Explain the existence in English of such sets as: rise . By accepting a foreign word into the English language we admit.ascend holy . in the case of each country. Obviously. It is assumed that the Anglo-Saxon terms are popular. Try to find the French and the Latin synonyms for the following Anglo-Saxon terms: anger friendly goodness hidden huge lively sure true unclear weariness to defeat to link 67 . Below you will find a number of English words. French and Latin origin. there is no English word for the Eskimo’s igloo.which are connected with some well-known idiosyncrasy.13.conflagration 2.flame .consecrated fire . heaven mother town house mind winter letter ox worm 5. custom. The following list contains words of Anglo-Saxon origin.sacred . big doom front instead smell calm dream happiness jail speech craving easy hearty leave spell clumsy faithful help life whim deed freedom holy purpose whole deep friendship hut shade work 3. Here are some English nouns. is considered to be their special perquisites. and the Latin learned. Evaluation 1. the French ones are literary.mount . the foreigner’s exclusive right to choose an international name for that particular thing. In English one may come across sets of three synonyms of Anglo-Saxon. as it were. manufacture or characteristic of the people they are borrowed from. Give their Latin synonyms: alike empty bad rudeness alive end happy shelter big endless height stillness brotherhood fat helper stubborn dead first hence teacher daily funny young twin earthy good man wizard 4. Find French synonyms for them. It is fascinating to observe what sort of things. 5. Find the Latin adjectives corresponding to them. 6. Of which vertu engendred is the flour. kindergarten. confetti. siesta.14 HOMEWORK I. The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour. marmalade. When Zephyr also has. yacht. In about 500 words. sauna ski. algebra. chauffeur. duvet. psychology. Here begins the Book of the Tales of Canterbury When April with his showers sweet with fruit The drought of March has pierced unto the root And bathed each vein with liquor that has power To generate therein and sire the flower. Try and guess which language is the source of each word. drama. in every holt and heath. hamburger. 5. compare the two versions pointing out the changes in vocabulary that took place from the Middle English period to Modern English. origami. cobra. ballet. kangaroo. To distant shrines well known in sundry lands. That slepen al the nyght with open eyeSo priketh hem Nature in hir coragesThanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes To ferne halwes. soprano. waltz. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Whan that Aprille. and the young sun Into the Ram one half his course has run. with hise shoures soote. hara-kiri. Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes. and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne. Prologue Chapter 1: Lines 1-15 of 860 Middle English Chapter 1: Lines 1-15 of 860 Modern English Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury. tea. cosmonaut. mammoth. mosquito. You are given both the Middle English version and the Modern English one. piano. And many little birds make melody That sleep through all the night with open eye (So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage. palaver. kowthe in sondry londes. Quickened again. Below is a list of English words all of which were originally borrowed from foreign languages. Try to find the origin of some of the words. The tender shoots and buds. kayak. khaki. tulip. mattress. 68 . cafeteria. Below are the first 14 lines of the Prologue of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. And smale foweles maken melodye. And palmers to go seeking out strange strands. denim. with his sweet breath. ukulele. tsunami. ............. 77 6.....................1........2........................... to identify aspects of interference in the speech of beginning learners of English. 69 ............................7............... Medium ............................... Average time for covering this unit: 2 hours 6.. and style.................................................... The synchronic approach to the English vocabulary Contents 6............................. modes and styles...............3.. Attitude......................................... such as region.... Introduction to the unit .. education... and to recognize dialectal varieties of English......................... ‘Interference’ ...................... 73 6.......................................................................... 69 6................................. Subject matter .... 77 6...... Introduction After a short survey of the history of the English language (especially of the vocabulary)................... Competences After having covered the material in this chapter................................................... which are strongly related to social aspects.............. Competences ................................................................ Region ..................1...............................................................6............ Education and social standing...Unit 6.................... 71 6..............................3....................... It also introduces some terms that are useful for the understanding of the issues under consideration.....10......................................9......................................................... social standing......11...... 69 6.... 78 6....... 69 6........ 74 6..........4........... Summary ................ 6........... Evaluation . Introduction ................................................... we may ask ourselves whether the English language is still apt to assimilate new words or whether its evolution has come to a close................................8....................................... the students should be able to adapt their language to various registers...........................2. Taking into account that a language is a dynamic phenomenon no verdict would be entirely justified............................................................ Introduction Unit 6 deals with the main dimensions along which Contemporary English varies..................... 76 6..5....... 73 6.... Obviously the language of Shakespeare compared to present-day English shows many more correspondences and equivalents than Old English. The term dialect is currently often used in a broad sense. there are very important differences that are often overlooked. Middle English and Modern English have merged into a new composite entity which we currently refer to as Contemporary English – a generic term no longer hinting at the chronological evolution of the English language. Nevertheless. luggage. geographical variety. A precise analysis in many cases shows considerable discrepancy of meaning between words used by Shakespeare and formally identical contemporary words. lorry. for the language of a socially determined group of speakers. sidewalk as BrE: railway. Sometimes a terminological distinction is made between dialect. used for the regional varieties. both for a regional. English has changed so much that it is relevant to ask whether the English language before the Norman Conquest in 1066 can be said to be the same language as Modern English. or shades of meaning. Besides the temporal dimension. opposed to It is rarely mentioned that a number of British words are perfectly acceptable in many areas in America. As part of the literary heritage. We have seen that the vocabulary of English has a temporal dimension visible in its stratification through various influences at different times. due to the frequent formal similarity of words. The differences between British English and American English immediately come to mind. conductor. 70 . The neutral term variety is frequently preferred today since it lacks the negative connotations. but defining instead a sum of linguistic typologies. gas(oline). such words and their use in famous quotations simultaneously belong to Early Modern English and the contemporary language. On the other hand numerous Americanisms have become quite familiar in Britain. As opposed to this. In many descriptions of the English language and in some school grammars we find pairs of lists such as the following: AmE: railroad. In many cases the original American flavour has been lost completely. package. especially for younger British speakers.Old English. truck. parcel. baggage. as well as for a social subclass of a speech community. and social dialect. dialect is the language form of a particular group of speakers. i. a variety of lexical strata. pavement. due to an increase in transatlantic travel and the influence of broadcast media. every single speaker has his or her very personal language. This language form of the single speaker is nowadays generally called idiolect. of dialect. As a rule. petrol.e. guard. the geographic dimension of a language naturally also plays a very important role. British. sl law. Attitude 6. humour Fr. Australian. There is. Thus. Idiolect= the language form employed by a single person. we have to mention the fact that grammar points out that there are numerous varieties of the English language and that what is normally meant by English is the “common core” realised in the different spoken or written forms of the language. linguist. Sociolect = the language of a socially determined group of speakers.4. these are closely interrelated. It is often used for socially determined variants of the language. etc).We shall now look at the explicit classification of varieties of English as given by Quirk/Greenbaum (1973) (quoted in Lipka. this is a notational term that is not at all unambiguous. Sometimes there is a close interdependence between the two variety classes 1 and 2. Also. non-educated). Interference register/field mode ‘style’ AmE lit. further subdivision is possible and so there are varieties within varieties. Education and social standing 3. the social stratum he belongs to (educated vs. med lit. Here is a closer look at the distinction of the six classes. Dialect =the language form of a particular group of speakers. 6. Ger Before considering the relevance of this schema for the structure of the lexicon in greater detail. thus. Subject matter 4. Cockney is really the dialect of a particular social class 71 . each of the six kinds of variety is related to the other variety classes. his profession (mechanic. as well as his attitude towards his interlocutor or the message transmitted. Medium 5. Within each class. Let’s remember The vocabulary employed by one person can reveal a number of things about him/her: his origin (American. The varieties co-existing within the linguistic aggregate of Contemporary English are the following: 1. Region (geographical variation) 2. a set of grammatical patterns and other characteristics common to all 'variety classes'. or physician). 1990:17) in A University Grammar of English. Naturally. poet fml. Region For geographical or regional variation the term dialect is traditionally used. As we have seen. It may be difficult to decide whether these are purely dialectal variants. Although they are similar in orthography and grammar to British English. wee are certainly not only familiar to British speakers. bonnie. Midland and Southern. an Englishman will hear an American Southerner first as an American and may perhaps then classify him as a Southerner in addition. although words such as loch. In everyday usage. Northern. This is often referred to as accent. church. South-western. is perhaps less well known. Welsh. namely Scottish English. and Canadian English are comparable to these two overwhelmingly predominant standards. the UGE distinguishes several other “national standards of English”. Thus. the most obvious difference between the terms accent and dialect is that the former is restricted to varieties of pronunciation. and may perhaps recognize several London varieties. On the other hand. In North America. however. lassie. In brief. Example 1 Here are some examples of British words and their American equivalents.living in a particular part of London. whereas the latter covers differences in grammar and vocabulary. Irish English. A dialect. With regard to lexical variants. South African English. New England. We may speak of a Welsh or Scottish accent. etc. they are often confused. British American coffins chips trousers bill biscuits angry caskets French fries pants cheque crackers mad 72 . New Zealand English and Australian English are in a different position in several respects. there are considerable differences in the lexicon and the phonology. many people are able to distinguish between Canadian. kirk. Regional variation in language seems to be predominantly realized on the phonological level. Another regional variety. he may be able to distinguish within Great Britain between Irish.) Besides British and American English. Scots. It has been noted that there is regionally different familiarity with specific variants of English. Scottish English. we have already seen a number of examples of differences between British and American English. although the term may also refer to variety class 6 'Interference'. but also of a noticeable French or Russian accent. or rather a regional variety. or whether they have a more specific descriptive meaning than their corresponding stylistically neutral equivalents (lake. may also be distinguished by different lexical or grammatical features. e. quoted in Berko Gleason. 1978. across situations. in contrast with dialects. social class soon give way. one of the characteristics of the hierarchical social structure of a country like Britain is that social class takes precedence over geography as a determinant of speech. Education and social standing Within geographically different forms of English there is considerable variation depending on education and social standing. to more detailed and more interesting statements which make reference to the structure of different societies and to the attitudes (i. Subject matter Varieties according to subject matter are often referred to as registers. The relation between language-variation and its social dimension is such that broad generalizations in terms of variables like sex. Within both languages and dialects. This has. 1989:330). age.6. While most of speakers will spend their lives speaking a single language and often a single dialect.Find the British equivalents of the following American linguistics items: gas/gasoline sidewalk baby carriage sneakers druggist checkers 6. 1964 quoted in Hudson.A.5. in fact. This is sometimes referred to as sociolect or social dialect. 1991:48). to the culture) of their members. so that there is far more geographical variation among people in the lower social classes than there is amongst those at the ‘top’ of the social heap. McIntosh & Stevens. defined as 'varieties according to user' (Halliday. 6. gone so far that people who have passed through the public school system (or would like to sound as though they had) typically have no regional traits at all in their language. A speaker may show more similarity in his language to people from the same social group in a different area than to people from a different social group in the same area. The distinction is needed because the same person may use different linguistic items to express more or less the same meaning on different occasions. Registers refer to differences observable within speakers. and the concept of dialect cannot reasonably be extended to include such variation. R. The term register is widely used in sociolinguistics to refer to 'varieties according to use'. they must master several registers in order to be socially acceptable. Indeed. in particular instances. 73 . registers occur as speech adaptations that depend upon the social and communicative demands of the situation (Andersen. Phrases such as that one over there are regularly found in speech. ► Conversational language is often inexplicit. as well as 74 . you see (called ‘fillers’) are common in speech. Medium This term is usually employed to distinguish the spoken from the written variety. but would be out of place in writing. There is much greater likelihood of slang and taboo words being used. but not in writing. and more limited than in writing. often containing rephrasing and repetition. but in another he might write: “I just wanted to let you know that…”. At the risk of slight oversimplification. I mean. perchance. but also relates his act of communication to a complex classificatory scheme of communicative behaviour. favour some bovine lactation in a glass container delivered by your immediate biological female progenitor?'(Do you want your mom to give you a glass of milk?). Such examples suggest that the amount of variation due to register differences may be quite comparable to that due to differences in dialect. ► The vocabulary of everyday speech tends to be informal.7. The contrast goes deeper than the superficial difference between the use of sounds and the use of graphic symbols. Grammar and vocabulary differ. whilst one’s register shows what you are doing.'. because the participants are face-to-face. and their grammar is inevitably loosely constructed. ► Conversation is usually spontaneous: speakers have to ‘think standing up’. They therefore do not have the time to plan out what they want to say. 6. so they must aim to make their language sufficiently clear and precise that it can be interpreted on its own. The contrast is most noticeable when a formal written style is compared to everyday conversation. Phrases such as you know. linked only by and. Each time a person speaks or writes he not only locates himself with reference to the rest of society. Sentences lack the intricate structure found in writing. we may say that one’s dialect shows who (or what) you are. in writing one letter a person might start: 'I am writing to inform you that…. and can rely on the situation to clear up any problems of meaning. domestic.Example 2 The most elegant syntactic structures would not serve their purpose if used in a socially inappropriate fashion. Writers are not usually present when their output is read. This scheme takes the form of a multi-dimensional matrix. too. Or. sometimes in quite radical ways. Lengthy sentences can be heard. such as the following question addressed to a 4year-old: 'Would you. . Equally. .. and sub-headings). preface. preface. is that the time?). layout.... Where was I?). I say.empty nonsense words.Inexplicit . ► The interactive nature of conversation requires a great deal of ‘maneuvering’ which would not usually be found in writing (unless an author was trying to portray speech). and formulae).vocabulary of everyday speech tends to be informal. . Gosh. summaries. there are many written effects which cannot easily be spoken (such as train timetables. which has its own ways of organizing the exposition of a text (e. and capitalization). Because of its permanence. Guess what. of checking that the listener is following (Are you with me? Let me put it another way. Because of its formality. summaries. Conversely.. of changing the topic (That reminds me. sub-headings). There are many vocal sound effects which cannot be satisfactorily written down.sentences properly constructed..language sufficiently clear and precise that it can be interpreted on its own’..writing tends to make greater use of vocabulary whose meaning is precise. -written language is usually much 75 .. On the other hand.. By the way... Such strategies are unnecessary in writing.. they may have an intricate structure. -there are many written effects which cannot easily be spoken (such as train timetables. . indexes. Let’s remember Speech: .g. it also has a special status. being used where it is necessary to make something legally binding (as in contracts) or to provide a means of identity or authority (as in the sacred literature of a religious tradition). writing tends to make greater use of vocabulary whose meaning is precise... domestic. which are difficult to convey in writing (apart from through the use of a few typographical effects and punctuation marks). graphs. There are special ways of opening a conversation (Excuse me.spontaneous: speakers have to ‘think standing up’.). though novelists try.. ► Conversation can use a wide range of tones of voice. use of ‘fillers’ . Our speech is frequently judged by the standards of written language – and found wanting. and limited... and formulae).g. Written language is usually much more permanent and formal than speech. This option isn’t usually available to speakers.). and ending ( ice talking to you.. writing has a wide range of graphic features that do not exist in speech (such as colour. it is more likely to be used to provide the STANDARD which society values. Writing: . which would never be found in writing. indexes. graphs. -writing has its own ways of organizing the exposition of a text (e. and look a word up before they write it.interactive nature of conversation requires a great deal of ‘maneuvering’ which would not usually be found in writing.conversation can use a wide range of tones of voice. Writers can ponder a while. horse would be stylistically neutral or unmarked. 2. derog a horse. while humour denotes attitude more towards the addressee than towards subject matter. not fml a horse that is old or is in bad condition.) horse’. If. to the subject matter. then nag has a meaning or denotation different from horse. nag (slang). With regard to the lexicon. Find terms of addressing people and identify the attitude the speaker expresses towards his/her interlocutor by employing them.. hatred. one which races’ If we take the second definition in the LDCE and COD. The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) compresses this twofold definition of nag into (colloq. linguistic form may be determined by the speaker’s attitude to the hearer or reader (the addressee). There are different kinds and different degrees of formality and informality.) (usu. or with two denotationally different stylistic overtones. 6. we consider a nag to be a horse that is either small. and the one in the OALD without the qualification ’usu old’. etc.. nag is defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) as ‘small riding-horse or pony: (colloq. esp. although it does not include attitude to the subject matter. while informal words usually derive from Anglo-Saxon. This variety is often marked by the ambiguous label style. while both steed and nag are stylistic variants of horse. From the point of view of etymology it is noteworthy that formal words are normally of classical or Romance origin. esp. infml. We must add that Halliday’s tenor is a more precise equivalent. disapproval of her habits. The University Grammar of English (UGE) distinguishes five variants of attitude along the following scale: rigid / FORMAL / neutral / I FORMAL / familiar (of which only the two in capitals are explicitly marked). 76 .8. Attitude In this variety class. namely whether we have to do with two formally distinct variants of the same word. old) horse. or to the purpose of the message. A label as derog clearly refers to attitude towards the thing talked about (here: dislike). then nag is simply a stylistically marked variant of horse. According to this. finer distinctions are usually drawn in many dictionaries. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDCE) (1978) gives two distinct definitions: ‘1. There is a problem here sometimes. or one which races. in bad condition. horse (general).more permanent and formal than speech. on the other hand. Example: if you address a woman with the term ‘bitch’ you show your disgust. However. old. Example 3 Leech (1981:14) mentions the following lexical items as ‘synonyms with . stylistic overtones’: steed (poetic). magazine (R.9.g. compared to other varieties. 77 . I not go to school today. It is further observed that for certain topics (e. It refers to the contact with a foreign language and includes varieties caused by the traces left by a speaker’s native language when speaking English. especially when they are at the beginning of the process of learning the language. bibliotecă) is identified with the Romanian librărie. while others (e. -on the lexical level. interference is probably more important than on the phonological and grammatical levels. Example 4 . /f/ and /v/ (labio-dentals).g. Thus. Nevertheless. form the English interrogative and negative sentences according to the Romanian pattern: You go to school today? o.Romanians sometimes replace the English sounds /θ/ and /∂/ by sounds having anterior points of articulation. The parameters used for defining the six variety classes are not absolute either. As soon as people come into regular contact with each other. /s/ and /z/ (alveolars). . They are graded and variable. Interference manifests itself: -on the phonological level: . -on the grammatical level: Romanian speakers of English. The so-called ‘false-friends’ also belong here. vs. the language that they use is likely to develop features that reflect bonds that exist between them. and there are varieties within each variety. brav ‘good’ are identified with the English sensible ‘reasonable’ and brave ‘courageous’. speakers of English as a foreign language make unaware attempts to force English into the grammatical patterns of their mother tongue. that spoken by a Russian/German/Romanian.10 Summary Summary The ‘variety’ of the English language encompasses all social situations. This tendency is the source of further varieties of English. busolă) with compas.6. attitudinal varieties possess a great deal of independence. There exists a great deal of overlap and interrelation between the variety classes.the English library (R. revistă) with magazin. Certain subjects can hardly be handled in writing (liturgy). funerals) informal language would be inappropriate and distasteful. such as /t/ and /d/. In this respect loan words and loan translations must be mentioned as the result of interference. ‘Interference' This class (set off from the others by a broken line in the diagram) is in fact rather different. legal statutes) must be handled in this medium.the German words sensibel ‘sensitive’. such as the English spoken by French. 6. and compass (R. 'do you people. and then seemed to make up his mind. harder an' harder. Bounderby. At length the molecules are so close that they can no longer pass between one another. on the basis of the given model.6. and goes up wi' yor deputations to Secretaries o' State 'bout us. scientific neutral written a) Florida. This finger pointing downward towards the Caribbean is held by some to be a colony of Cuba. and how you are awlus right. MODEL: text register level medium a. bigger an' bigger. Sir. fro generation unto generation. an' to card. and wi' what sameness. Look round town .' repeated Mr. Something similar can be seen if some marbles in the corner of a box are gently shaken. liberty and happiness of pursuit'. 'I know you are. 'Deed we are in a muddle. Look how you considers of us. and people who believe in 'life. and look how the mills is awlus a goin. what do you complain of?' asked Mr. I coom for that I were sent for. but what are you going to do with the needle?' (From David Frost & Michael Shea: The MidAtlantic Companion.and see the numbers o' people as has been broughten into bein heer. an' to piece out a livin'. still at the same magnification as before. fro year to year.so rich as 'tis . when approached by a young intern wielding a hypodermic needle and explaining' 'Just a little prick with a needle'. "I ha' not coom here. aw the same one way. Can you give the British 'translation' of the following Australian expressions? Australian British Wanna cuppa? Go and tart yourself up! How ya goin' luv? Don't get your knickers in a knot! What's the latest goss? The old man's shot through. In this way the irregular arrangement of molecules in 78 . 'to complain. and talks of us. and how we are awlus wrong. Using the functional differentiation made in the chapter above determine the features of the following texts. I were never good at showin' o 't. and the liquid contracts. and never had'n no reason in us sin ever we were born. an' wheer we live. 'twixt their cradles and their graves. are pulled closer together. Write out a transcription of the dialect speech in Standard English. moving ever more slowly. Sir. Read the following fragment from Hard Times. 22) b) Let us cool the liquid still further and watch it solidify. As be abstract more heat the molecules. The intermolecular force pulls them together so that they form a regular pattern. p. and writes of us. a paradise of senior citizens' colonies ('eventide homes'). fur to weave. by others. Who can look on 't. by Charles Dickens. Bounderby. broader an' broader.' Stephen reminded him. though I ha' had'n my share in feeling o 't. folding his arms. and fairly tell a man 'tis not a muddle?» 3.' 'What. an' in what numbers. Death. Sir. said. Could I bot a fag? Grouse lippy! 2. and how they never works us no nigher to onny dis' ant object -ceptin awlus. Sir.11 Evaluation 1. It is said that it was a Florida hospital patient who. 'Sir. in general way. complain of?' Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for a moment. an' by what chances. Look how this ha' growen an' growen. «Stephen Blackpool 'Now. Look how we live. somehows. The clutch is always foot operated. Such a regular arrangement is known as a space lattice.L. when a promising political career collapsed and he resigned a safe seat in Parliament amid business and financial difficulties which would have crushed most men for good. however. only a legend.151) c) Despite the recent and expensive failure of his latest West End play. quoted in Moody. Harris quoted in Moody.B: Varieties of English.e. The latter method facilitates the accommodation of the considerably transverse movement of rubber mounted engines. E. p. (From Susan Morris and Alan Stanton: Practice Tests for CAE.B: Varieties of English.75. This is invariably installed between the engine and gearbox and is almost always mounted directly on the output end of the engine. by a hydraulic system.L. p. the pedal being linked either by a direct mechanical linkage or.) d) The "Clutch".T. i. though occasionally both it and the gearbox are incorporated in the final drive unit. With Kane and Able having sold over three million copies in England and the paperback ot a Penny More. fifteen years after its first publication.gas or liquid is replaced by regular arrangement in a crystal. p 153) 79 . H. similar to that of hydraulic brakes. (From A Structural Introduction to Chemistry. is. The legend that he wrote his first novel with the cold-blooded intention of making a fortune. H. a lattice in three dimensions. ot a Penny Less continuing to nip smartly out of the bookshops at the rate of a thousand copies a day. It's common knowledge that literature is not his first love. he has little real reason to be permanently dispirited. (From The Penguin Car Handbook by Robert Ireson. as contrasted with the flat lattice or trellis common in gardens. very often nowadays. He only started writing in his mid-thirties. Jeffrey Archer is not noticeably down and a considerable distance from out. .............. 104 7............................................................................... Class-changing prefixes....................... Class-preserving prefixes.................. 106 7...... 105 7....................................................1...............1............................................................................... Composition .................... 107 7.............................................................11......................2.8..............2............3................. Conversion (zero-derivation).................... 82 7..2...........3............ oun-forming suffixes.......... Adverb-forming suffixes . 92 7................. the students should be able to identify the rules according to which certain words have been formed............................................................................................ 1.. to analyze the extent to which the same word-formation rules operate both in English and Romanian and to create themselves words whenever they are 80 ..............6................................................1....Unit 7............................................2.............. Affixation .......................2..............9.......2......... Competences After having read the theoretical information presented in the chapter............................................7........................................3.......................................... Suffixes .....................................3.........4....... 80 7.............................. Prefixes ...........3. Competences ............................................... Reduplication ...................4............... 90 7........................................ Clipping........2........................................................3................5............................ Eponymous words ...................3............................................................... 80 7....... Summary ..3. 81 7................................... Blending .......................... 98 7.............................................................. Evaluation ................12..................................14....................1............................ 81 7........................ 89 7...................................................................1.......................................................13........ Verb-forming suffixes........1.....10.................................................................. Introduction Unit 7 aims at presenting the basic processes by means of which the vocabulary of English can be enriched and at showing the possible problems posed by the word-formation rules with respect to spelling............... Homework II .............. 100 7..................................... Adjective-forming suffixes..................... 107 7..... Introduction ................... pronunciation and meaning inference............................. 7..................................... 82 7........................................ 88 7........................ 93 7.... Abbreviation..... 110 7..... 88 7................................... 102 7................ Deliberate coinages .............2................................................................................ Word-formation rules Contents 7.. 96 7..............................2..............3........3........ to englaze). They have no frequency of use. Affixation Affixation represents the use of prefixes and suffixes with the roots/stems of various words to form new words. But apart from this list of words. abbreviation. The word formation rules are: affixation. Prefixes precede the root/stem. They have been in the language longer.3. blending. The vast majority of prefixes in English are class-maintaining. and are much used in forming scientific words.g. glaze . These rules are called WORD FORMATIO RULES (WFRs). reduplication. and are more frequently employed with the general vocabulary. which could also be labelled lexical core. and speakers should recognize them as words that are actually used. the lexicon contains a set of rules which specify how to form one class of words out of another. they change its meaning and sometimes its morphological status as well (e. Suffixes are placed after the root/stem. conscious (deliberate) coinages. composition. 7. or have come into the language via French. conversion (zero-derivation). happy – happiness). While the prefixes in English are of Latin or Greek origin. Average time for covering this unit: 4 hours The LEXICON (in a narrow sense) is a list of the words of a language.g. A possibly general difference between prefixes and suffixes is that the former are characteristically less ‘integrated’ with the stems to which they are attached than the latter. 7. and they modify the class of the word (e. The lexicon contains actual words.short of an appropriate word. By applying WFRs to the actual words we obtain potential words. Prefixes The number of items to be dealt with as prefixes is considerably reduced. and eponymous words. Potential words are accepted only after they have gained institutional currency in the language. clipping (contraction). But there are also class-changing 81 .3. the suffixes are more often of native origin.1. prefixes. We shall deal first with the latter. Most of the prefixes can be added to bases of more than one form class. 7.3.1.1. Class changing prefixes a- pronounced /´/. This prefix forms adjectives, mainly but not exclusively from forms which are ambiguous between nouns and verbs. The adjectives formed by this process are restricted to predicative position: the house is ablaze vs. *the ablaze house. Other examples are asleep, astir, awash. This prefix is still productive, recent examples being aglaze, asquish, and aswivel. be- .This prefix forms transitive verbs from adjectives, verbs or, most frequently, nouns. Examples are becalm, bespatter, bemoan, befriend, bewitch, bejewel, belittle. en-. This prefix occurs with verbs that describe the process of moving into or being placed into a different state or condition, or being placed in a different position. For example, if something 'enables’ you to do something, it gives you an opportunity so that you become able to do it; if you ‘enrich’ something, you improve its quality or value by adding something else to it. Here are some more examples: endanger, encircle, enfeeble, enlarge, enshrine, enslave, entangle, entrap. Other prefixes in this class are: de- ‘to remove the thing denoted by the noun’ (debark, de-ice, debug, defrost), dis- (disbar), un- (unhorse). 7.3.1.2. Class maintaining prefixes Prefixes can be considered in terms of the form class of the base to which they are added. But they might be also classified on semantic principles. We will adopt the latter classification. a) egative prefixes (the opposite of) un- a prefix of Germanic origin; it can be attached to adjectives, '-ed' and '-ing' participles. e.g. unfair, unexpected, unforgettable, unwitting non- is a prefix of Latin origin; it can be attached to adjectives and nouns. Words formed in this way are usually written with a hyphen, but some of the more common words are written as one word. e.g. nonadjustable, nonbusiness, nonfluency, non-smoker, non-profit, non-resident. in- (with the allomorphic variants il-, ir-, im-) is a prefix of Latin origin that can be attached to nouns and adjectives, and occasionally to verbs. 82 e.g. inactivate, insane, inattention, illogical, improper, irrational, irrecoverable. dis- is a prefix of Latin origin; it can be attached to nouns, verbs and adjectives. e.g. disobey, disloyal, dislike a-, pronounced /ei/ or /Q/ is a prefix of Latin/Greek origin. This prefix is added exclusively to adjectival bases, as in amoral, apolitical, atypical, aphasic, asocial. b) Reversative prefixes (to reverse the action) de- can be attached to verbs and abstract nouns. Verbs formed in this way describe an action which has the opposite effect of, or reverses, the process described by the original verb. e.g. deescalate. dis- is attached to verbs, participles and nouns. e.g. disconnect, discoloured, disorder, disinherit, disobey, dissatisfy. un- is attached to verbs and nouns. e.g. undo, unwrap, unhorse decode, deactivate deforestation, deboost, deaestheticize, decapacitate, c) Pejorative prefixes mis – (meaning bad, improper, wrongly) is a prefix of Germanic origin, attached to verbs, abstract nouns, participles. e.g. misdemeanor, misconduct, misbegotten, misdirect, misprint, misquote, mistreat. mal- (meaning badly, inadequate) is a prefix of Latin origin. It can be attached to verbs, abstract nouns, participles and adjectives. e.g. malformed, malodorous, maladjustment, maltreat, maladjusted, maldistribution. pseudo- (meaning false) can be attached to nouns and adjectives. Words formed in this way refer to or describe something which is not really what it seems or claims to be. e.g. pseudonym, pseudoscience, pseudo-creativity, pseudomycelial. d) Prefixes of degree /size arch-. This prefix of Greek origin, meaning ‘chief, principal, extreme’, is added particularly to human nouns to denote a person who has reached the highest position possible. e.g. archbishop, archdeacon, archduchess. hyper-. A prefix of Greek origin, meaning ‘beyond, above, excessively’, hyper combines mainly with adjectives to form new adjectives, and occasionally it can be attached to nouns. 83 e.g. hyperventilate, hyperactive, hypermarket, hyperglycaemia. hypo–. This prefix means ‘beneath, below’ and it occurs in medical words. It combines with adjectives and nouns. e.g. hypotension, hypochondria, hypodermic, hypothalamus, hypothermia. macro-. This prefix is also of Greek origin and occurs in words that refer to or describe things which are large in size or scope. Words formed in this way are usually technical or scientific. e.g. macrobiotic, macrocosm, macrobiotic, macromolecular, macro-scale, macrostructure. micro-. This is the opposite of the previous prefix, and its meaning is that of ‘small’. e.g. microcosm, microbe, microscopic, micro-economics, microsurgery. out-. A prefix of Germanic origin, ‘out’ can be attached to intransitive verbs turning them into transitive ones. Verbs formed in this way describe someone or something as doing a particular action much better or to a greater extent than another person or thing. For example, if you ‘outrun’ someone, you succeed in running somewhere faster than they do. e.g. outgrow, outrun, outlive, outwit, outswim, outsmart. over-. This prefix combines with nouns, verbs, and adjectives to form new nouns, verbs and adjectives. Words formed in this way indicate that a quality exists or an action is done to too great an extent. For instance, if you ‘overload’ something, you put too large a load on it. e.g. overdo, overeat, overact, overbid, overambitious, overdraft, overenthusiasm super-. This prefix can be attached to adjectives to form new adjectives. Adjectives formed in this way express the idea that the quality described is present in an unusually large degree. e.g. supernatural, superabundant, super-active, super-quick. The prefix can also be attached to nouns to form new nouns that refer to a bigger, more powerful, or more important version of a particular thing. e.g. supermarket, supertanker, superstate, super-computers, super-genius, super-hero, superman, superstar. sur-. It occurs in words that have ‘over’, ‘above’ or ‘excess’ as part of their meaning. e.g. surcharge, surtax, surreal, surplus, surmount. sub- meaning ‘inferior to, next lower than’ is a prefix of Latin origin. It is usually attached to adjectives and nouns. e.g. subadult, subagency, subalternate, subculture, sub-plot, subtype. under-. This prefix can be attached to verbs, past participles and nouns. Words formed in this way express the idea that there is not enough of something or that something has not been done as much or as well as is needed. 84 progovernment. ultra-intelligent.g. A prefix of Latin origin. ultramodern. pro-union. Its meaning is ‘across. anti-missile.g. counteract. underprice. together’. underestimate. cor. through’.g. circumspect. catapult.combines with nouns and adjectives which refer to or describe a person. con-. co-education.e. anti-abortion. This is a prefix of Latin origin. antiseptic. catastrophe. system. counter-espionage. ultrasonic. contra-( contro-). e. pro. antisocial co-. ultrahigh. col-. its meaning being ‘round. its meaning being ‘with. Greek prefix.g. around’. e.. ultrasound. antipathy. collateral. e. e. antiwar. pro-allies. co-operate. coeditor. A prefix of Latin origin.g. controversy. diameter. e.is of Greek origin. This prefix is of Latin origin and it means ‘beyond. circumscribe. philosophy. its Germanic counterpart being counter-. circumcise. pro-democracy. pro-American. ultramarine. anti-Catholic. pro-liberal. anti-colonial. antithetical. The prefix has a number of variants: com-. corroborate. conference. This is a prefix of Latin origin.g. ultra-sharp. It is attached to adjectives. circumlocution.can be attached to nouns. underling. undercooked. diaphragm. pro-Western.g. verbs and adjectives. f) Locative prefixes cata-. A prefix of Latin origin. diagonal.g. It can be attached to nouns and adjectives. contravene. proponent. underexpose. cataract. or policy in order to form words which describe someone or something that strongly supports/is in favour of the person or the thing mentioned. It means ‘against’ and can appear in front of a verb or an abstract noun. e.combines with nouns and adjectives to form words which describe someone or something that is opposed to the thing referred to or described by the original noun or adjective. ultra-. dia. nouns and verbs. e) Prefixes of attitude anti-. pro-feminist. 85 .g. excessive’. co-author. anti. dialogue. e. circumnavigate. meaning ‘down’. pro-. circum-. co. co-edit. e. counterweight. communicate. and its meaning is ‘before’. The origin of this prefix is Latin. if you ‘forewarn’ someone about something. words formed in combination with this prefix are usually written with a hyphen.g. transcontinental. ex-boxer. Attached to verbs. its meaning ‘before’. intervene. superstructure. Words formed in this way refer to an action which has already been done. Words formed in this way describe or refer to one thing that comes before and is relevant to another. This is a prefix of Latin origin. Nouns formed in this way refer to someone who used to be the thing referred to by the original noun. above’ e.g. foresight. inter-departmental. ex-accountant. It combines with nouns and adjectives that refer to a person. pre-. transoceanic. It can be attached to nouns. e. inter-city. the ‘trans-Siberian’ railway is a railway that crosses Siberia. Adjectives formed in this way describe something existing or happening between two or more people or things. its meaning being ‘over. interterritorial. ex-husband. forewarn.g. This is a prefix of Latin origin whose meaning is ‘between. the meaning of which is ‘before’. verbs and adjectives.is a prefix of Latin origin. subcontract. g) Prefixes of time and order ante-. foresee.inter-.combines with nouns to refer to people in order to form new nouns. 86 . meaning ‘under’ e. ex. inter-racial. subway.g. foreword. forearm. antecedent. inter-disciplinary. trans-. transatlantic. ante-natal ex-. For example. nouns and adjectives.is of Germanic origin.combines with nouns and adjectives that refer to or describe a place in order to form words which describe something that goes across the place mentioned. you tell them in advance that you think something unpleasant or dangerous is going to happen. international. antediluvian. transmit. For example. A prefix of Latin origin. ante-nuptial. among’. superscript sub. super. place. ex-communist. e. or thing in order to form new adjectives. but some of the more common ones are written as one word.is of Latin origin. As far as the spelling is concerned.g. A prefix of Latin origin. forename. forefathers. ex-lover.g. e. e.g. international. trans. e. forebear. meaning ‘former’. fore. forecast. ex-president. monarchy. poly. post-impressionism.g. Adjectives formed with this prefix express the idea that there is a large number of a particular thing. unilateral.g. post. postscriptum. precast. unity. usually the basis for later improved models. primogeniture. multi-coloured. ‘both’. multifarious. polytechnic 87 . unison.. if you ‘rewrite’ something. rename. bicameral.g. polyglot.is a prefix of Latin origin. you make changes to something you have already written in order to improve it. primrose. multinational. meaning. bicycle. e. It is of Latin origin and its meaning is ‘again’. rebuild. For instance. monorail. proto-fish. ambiguous. and it occurs in words which have ‘one’ or ‘single’ as part of their meaning. uni. biennial. It is attached to verbs and their related nouns to describe or refer to the fact that an action or process is done or happens a second time.combines with a word beginning with a vowel. Its meaning is ‘one’.g. Its meaning is ‘first’. primordial. but some of the less common one can be written with a hyphen. e. postpone. bifocal. proto-horse. resettlement. pre-cooked. Its meaning is ‘after’. e. primeval. protozoan.g.g.e.g. pre-arrange.means ‘two’. monotheism.means ‘many’.has a Greek origin. unicycle. redefinition. preconception. It means ‘first’. or a large amount of a particular quality. multy-. sometimes in a different way. reiterate. dichotomy. For example. ambidextrous. Words formed by means of this prefix indicate that one thing takes place after another. e. e. polygamist. It can be attached to nouns. Words formed in this way are usually written as one word. h) umber prefixes ambi. polymath. especially when re. ambivalent. precaution. multi-legged. post-medieval..g. pre-Christian. Nouns formed in this way refer to something which comes from the early stages in the development of a particular thing. dilemma. multitudinous. monogamy. polyphonic.is of Latin origin. monologue. e. post-budget. a ‘prototype’ is the first model that is made of something. prototype. redefine. e.g. preamplifier. mono-. protohuman. unisex. proto. reopen. re. prim. e. bi-/ di. reopening.is of Latin origin. posterity. multi-faith. polygon. One of them is the class of the word they form. engineer. It combines with adjectives and nouns. kitchenette. demi-monde. In this section we shall use the former classification. This list of prefixes is not exhaustive. demijohn. we have class-preserving prefixes and class-changing prefixes. unimportant’ 88 .g. and so on. actress.3. our aim being mainly to present the most frequently encountered ones. e. Semi. Reinforcement Prefixes in English are classified into two main groups. let: ‘small. majorette. Thus we have noun-forming suffixes. SUFFIXES Suffixes may be grouped according to several criteria.from Greek and demi. no attempt at exhaustiveness will be made in the list of illustrations provided in each sub-section.we have hemi. namely to suffixes. Another criterion is the class of the base the suffixes are typically added to (de-nominal.semi. feminine’: usherette. etc). -ess: waitress. words obtained by adding suffixes to nouns. demigod. etc). e. 7. Besides semi. of time and order. de-verbal.g. depending on whether they change the lexical class of the root they attach to or not.and half. In order to be understood we must say ‘half’time in the semi-final’ (in a football match) and not ‘semi-time in the half-final’.from French. the latter going back to the Latin dimidium ‘divided into two equal parts from the middle’. It is in order now to pass to the second class of affixes. semi-tone. semi-annual. Again. pioneer.and half. semi-detached.e. potter b) Diminutive and female -ette: ‘small’. hemisphere. number. cigarette.1. i. glover. attitudinal. Thus. its meaning being ‘half’.3. Words formed in this way express the idea that something is equal to one half of something else. verb-forming suffixes.is of Latin origin. 7. The former are further classified into a number of groups on their meanings (locative.2.are not always interchangeable.2. oun-forming suffixes Nouns from nouns a) Occupational -eer: pamphleteer. -er: ‘maker of’. de-adjectival. semicircle. machinery.3.g. computerization. stylist. -(i)an: ‘belonging to. -hood: boyhood. -ity. pedestrianize. width. republican. absurdity. refusal. nationality’. -dom: kingdom.g. Verbs formed in this way refer to actions that involve or are related to the original noun. -er: actor.booklet. epitomize. slavery. stardom -ery: e. -ant: inhabitant. painting. efficiency. containerization. improvement. and it is very productive. -ism: ‘doctrine’ Calvinism. intimacy. instantize. -ist: ‘member of. c) Status. 89 . illiteracy. Portuguese. lubricant. departure. brotherhood. marginalize. entertainment. flirtation. popularize. contestant. idealism. •Nouns from adjectives -cy: accuracy. -ure: closure. manicurist -ite: ‘member of’ Labourite. plutocracy. Vietnamize. -ment: arrangement. lecturer. formation. -ify: This is a suffix of Romance origin. Finlandization. brutality. complexity. apologize. -th : warmth. fracturation. -al: denotes action (derived from dynamic verbs): arrival. modernize. symbolize. membership. -ness: awkwardness. deportee. formality. starlet. auntie. -ship: friendship. boldness. piglet. failure. Johnny. it is less productive than -ize. Japanese. but the nouns formed are of different kinds. Buddhism. -y (ie): daddy. assignee. •Nouns from verbs This is the most common type of derivation. youth. Wagnerite. structurize. cohabitee. containerize. -ation: lexicalization. •Nouns (adjectives) from nouns -ese: ‘nationality’ Chinese. These are: -ize: This is a suffix of Greek origin. occupation’ Buddhist. divorcee.2. Verb-forming suffixes There are two main suffixes deriving verbs from nouns and from adjectives. excellency. It combines with nouns to form verbs. effectiveness. 7. e. commitment. retirement. earnings. -ing: driving. player. characterize.2. domain -cracy: ‘system of government’ democracy. length. producer. Indonesian. publicize. denial. -ee: addressee. blacken. -ish.g. accidental. widen.g. it cannot harm you. grotesque. e. musical. Adjectives formed in this way describe people or things that do not have or do whatever is referred to. For example. brighten. sharpen. 7. quicken. language or characteristics of a particular country or region. clarify. beautify. restless. pointed. harden.e. Dantesque. ‘environmental’ problems are related to the environment. Some recent coinages are fieldless. metrify.3. statuesque. educational.g. The adjectives formed by means of this suffix describe someone or something as having a particular feature. patterned. shorten. This suffix is added very productively to common nouns to form adjectives. For example. regional. e. 90 . ‘comical’ means the same as ‘comic’. flawless. testify. Thus. Adjectives formed in this way describe someone or something that is similar in style to something made or done by the person mentioned. conventional.2.3. It combines with nouns and adjectives that refer to a quality or state in order to form verbs. historical. loosen. furnitureless. Verbs formed in this way describe the process of causing something to have a particular quality or to be in a particular state. The suffix can also be added to common nouns to form adjectives: e.g. dampen. meaningless. fishify (=to supply with fish). if something is ‘harmless’. This suffix occurs in words which refer to or describe the people. flatten. Rembrandtesque. -en: This is only a marginally productive suffix. if a piece of music is ‘Beethovenesque’. dignify. airless. flyless. Haydnesque.g. shoed. ripen. specify. picturesque. hopeless. quicken. wooded.g. e. it is similar in style to the music composed by Beethoven. e. Adjective-forming suffixes Adjectives from nouns -al. brainless. additional. Sometimes –al combines with adjectives ending in ‘-ic’ to form new adjectives with the same meaning. This suffix combines with names of famous people in order to form adjectives. flueless. -esque. Adjectives formed in this way describe something that is connected with the thing referred to by the original noun. Chaplinesque. For example. falsify. e. -ed. -less. amplify. endless. deepen.g. useless. bearded. Scottish. golden -ese: e. Adjectives formed in this way describe someone or something that is affected by the action or process described by the verb.g. passionate. which is not perceptible at all in many –ish words. earthly. flower-like. ‘fiend’. For example. venomous. Chinese. algebraic. But in pairs such as ‘monkish/monklike’ or ‘childish/childlike’. to which it was early attached. Adjectives from verbs -able: This is probably the most productive suffix in this group.g. These two suffixes –ish and –like have the same meaning.g. British. -y: e. Adjectives formed by means of this suffix describe things or people that have the characteristics which are typical of the original nouns. -ic: e. Such shades of meaning occur quite often with suffixes. childlike. creamy. hellish. silky. successful. atomic.g. -like.g. saintly. e. Example Other suffixes which form adjectives from nouns are: -ate: e. useful. Turkish. ambitious. e. English. manly. e. which tend to be ‘influenced’ by their stems in ways in which prefixes are not. boyish. Adjectives formed with the help of this suffix describe things that are similar to whatever the nouns refer to. the suffixes are seen to be subtly different: the words with –ish have a depreciative shade of meaning which is absent from the –like words. heroic. ladylike. motherly. affectionate. they have qualities that other people admire. -ous: e. foolish. The same suffix can also combine with common nouns to form adjectives that describe a person or thing as being like another.g. devilish. sluttish. manageable. 91 . courteous. -ful: e. impish. daisy-like.g.g. forming adjectives from transitive verbs.e. specific. beastly. virtuous. meaty. acceptable. adorable. girlish.g. dreamlike. heavenly. preferable. through the influence of stems like ‘churl’. delightful. Jewish. ‘fool’. childish. if someone has ‘admirable’ qualities. compassionate -en: e. '–ish 'may have acquired this faint nuance. recognizable. fatherly. -ly. e. comparable.g. woolen. catty. Japanese. Portuguese. animal-like.g.g. they have the ability to create and develop new ideas. Other suffixes in this category are: -ly: e.g. e. is now added mainly to nouns: e. e. elegant. absorbent. happily. e. -atory: e.g. blackish.-less: This suffix is no longer productive when added to verbs. biggish. sickly. -some: e. affirmatory. plumpish. 92 . queersome. comprehensive. dampish. derogatory. imaginative. destructive. if something is ‘longish’. Adverb-forming suffixes The main suffixes forming adverbs are: -ly.g. earthwards. tireless. determinant.g. important. -wise: This suffix is productively attached to nouns.g. effective.’). fattish. e. inwards. if someone is ‘creative’. protective. -wards.2. For example. Adjectives formed in this way describe something as having a small amount of the characteristic or quality described by the original adjective. countless. whitish.3.g. previously added to particles (as in ‘afterwards. but a few established examples are current. homewards. which form adjectives from verbs. ignorant. lowly. oldish. compulsory Adjectives from adjectives -ish: This is the most productive suffix of this kind. it is fairly long. This suffix is mainly added to adjectives. brilliant. For instance.g. -ive: This suffix occurs in a large number of adjectives. greenish. thinnish. competitive.4.g. attractive. darkish. are: -ant/-ent: e. some of which contain stems that are not current English words.g. wearisome 7. oddly. Example Other suffixes. constant. active. are classified into a number of groups. i. clockwise. Thus we have noun-forming. ‘snow-white’. súnburn. Compounding differs from affixation in that the latter involves morphemes which cannot have word status. education-wise. therefore. rainfall. Within each of these 4 major classes. COMPOU D OU S b) Subject – verb compounds. bus stop. adjective-forming and adverb-forming suffixes. it still seems most naturally analysed as the subject of the verb. verb-forming. e. toothache . just like prefixes. the nominal element is animate. the principle we have adopted here being the class of the word they form.4. pop-gun. and hence a variety of compounds can be obtained. In most examples.cleaning lady. In these compounds a nominal element is interpreted as the agent of the action denoted by the other. like hovercraft.g. ostrich-wise Reinforcement Suffixes. COMPOSITIO (COMPOU DI G) A prototypical compound is a morphologically complex word containing at least two elements which can otherwise occur as free forms. a variety of combinations. drinking-water. verbal element. Example . revolving door. daybreak. laughing stock b) Verb –object compounds Example .e. lengthwise. hammer-wise. rocking-horse. steering wheel. compounding essentially represents a grammatical device by which complex words can be formed from smaller elements which. have word status. dancing girl.4. ‘delivery van’.e. falling star. plain crash. but in a few. Thus. as independent words. cornerwise.chewing-gum (cf: Mary chews the gum). under normal circumstances. 7. ‘steamboat’. sunshine. though the noun is not animate. snake-bite.g. 7. Most of these examples contain a ‘purpose’ relation: ‘gum for 93 . Depending on the syntactic category of lexical morphemes involved.1. further distinctions can be made on the basis of semantic criteria.bée sting (cf: the bee stings). Prussian blue. umbrella tree. feather-light. watch-tower. COMPOU D ADJECTIVES Compound adjectives are basically classified on the basis of the second elements. well-behaved. widespread. c) Compund adjectives having an adjective as the second constituent: Example . 7. checkpoint. we have: a) Compound adjectives containing an –ing participle Example . pitch dark. foolish-witty. . tongue-tied.night-blind. What can you with respect to the relationship holding between their constituents? 94 . well-read. swimming pool. world-famous Consider the following compound adjectives: daisy-fresh. snow-white. bake-house. dog-tired. hair-raising. magnifying glass. sky high.fortunate-unhappy. b) dancing floor. air-conditioned. carving knife. d) Angora rabbit. dirty-cheap. hairpin bend. razor sharp. b) Compound adjectives containing an –ed participle Example hard-bitten. piggy bank. ice-cold.brick-layer. . Thus. Persian rug. kidney bowl.all-embracing. guide book. Consider the following sets of compound nouns. clean shaven. landing strip. fire-hot. time-consuming. show-room. breath-taking. cheese-cutter. darning needle. How could you classify them on the basis of the relationship that holds between the two constituents? a) bell jar.chewing’. c) blotting paper. box kite.2. brand new.4. ironing board. dead slow. ‘wheel for steering’. call-box. heart-broken. devilish-holy. to backfìre. to window-shop. -by zero derivation from compound nouns.4. to updàte.3. Brainwashing seems to be the source of to brainwash.7. but to the compound root globe-trot-: globe trotter → globe trotter This ending may now be subtracted. to half-close. Here are some examples: to half-turn. we shall only give some examples: to blue-pencil. Similar examples are: to brainwash. b) Compound verbs formed by zero-derivation (conversion from a compound noun) Since this word formation rule will be described a little later. to shipwreck. to honeymoon. to overchàrge.g. to stage-manage. to còunterbalance. The best way of explaining how the compound verb comes about is to say that a change in the constituent structure of the compound noun takes place. -by linking two words together. c) Compound verbs obtained by linking two words together These verbs are also called 'pseudo-compound verbs' because of their derivational nature. to globe-trot comes from the compound noun globe-trotter. to sleep-walk. to backdàte. to upgràde. COMPOU D VERBS Verb compounds may arise in 3 different ways: -by back-formation from noun or adjective compounds. to proof-read. to gift-wrap. to machine-gun. sleep-walker/walking could both be the source of to sleep-walk. to overdò. so that the -er is seen as belonging not to the simple root trot-. to hand-cuff. to half-rise. 95 . Example Further examples of compound verbs formed by 'subtraction' of a nominal or adjectival ending are to air-condition. to short-circuit. to book-keep. a) Compound verbs obtained by back-formation Compound verbs may have a nominal or adjectival compounds as their sources. to còuntersign. to court-martial. It often cannot be stated with certainty which nominal (or adjectival) form has provided the starting-point for a back-formed verb compound. leaving the compound verb to globe-trot. e. to house-keep. blue pencil = to blue pencil (to mark obliterate with a blue pencil). mop = to mop..) use (noun) > /z/ /T bath (noun) mouth > > > / D/ to bathe to mouth > to close > to use house (noun) >to house b) change of stress pattern: éscort (n) òbject (n) vs. -use N (on): comb = to comb. we have it traditionally called conversion. -surround with . as a woman employed to suckle another’s child). 96 . paper = to paper.N: asphalt = to asphalt.N: fence = to fence. wall = to wall. salt = to salt. -prepare with . -Adj + : wet-nurse = to wet-nurse (to act as a wet-nurse. CO VERSIO (zero derivation) When a word which has hitherto functioned as a member of one class undergoes a shift which enables it to function as a member of another.e. finger = to finger. -action typically performed with N: elbow = to elbow. Conversion is an extremely productive way of producing new words in English..7. butter = to butter. All form classes seem to be able to undergo conversion. rail = to rail. it may involve: a) final voicing: /s/ close (adj. Although conversion does not make use of suffixes to indicate the lexical category (this is why the process is also called zero-derivation).. and the process seems to be able to produce words of almost any form class. shoulder = to shoulder • Derived from COMPOU D OU S: . handcuff = to handcuff.+ : sandpaper = to sandpaper. es`cort ob`ject Below we shall take a closer look at the types of zero-derivation a) Verbal zero-derivation • Derived from SIMPLE OU S -cover with. sugar = to sugar.5. hedge = to hedge. head = to head. hammer = to hammer. i. or one word with extended functions...N: cream = to cream. vs.. one derived from the other. The question that arises here is whether the result of such a shift is two words. bottle = to bottle. curry = to curry. to spy= a spy. to swim = a swim. crazy = a crazy. gay = a gay. to answer = an answer. daily = a daily. it is possible to speak of conversion to an adjective. to guess= a guess. The possibilities of converting words in English are numerous. double = a double. it is argued that such collocations could be treated as compounds. By this criterion brick garage and Liverpool accent contain adjectives formed by conversion. the ifs and buts. but this phenomenon occurs only occasionally. Quirk (1972) (quoted in Bauer (1991: 228) suggests that when such elements can occur not only in attributive position but also in predicative position. the pros and 97 . which makes it unnecessary to view such elements as instances of conversion. calm = to calm. the hereafter. off = an off day. regular = regulars. to goggle = a goggle. bitter = bitter. . : b) ominal zero-derivation • Derived fromVERBS: to call = a call. to fall = a fall. as is shown by the following examples: the dos and donts. interjections and even affixes can all act as bases for conversion. adverbs. to commute = a commute. creative = a creative.• Derived from ADJECTIVES: dirty = to dirty. narrow = to narrow. However. to command = a command. natural = a natural. the ins and outs. given = a given. Prepositions. dyslexic = a dyslexic. to interrupt = an interrupt •Derived from ADJECTIVES (relatively rare and frequently restricted in their syntactic occurrence): comic = a comic. nasty = a nasty. but me no buts. For some scholars it appears to be the case that the use of an element in attributive position is sufficient for that element to be classified as an adjective. in the examples above brick but not Liverpool has become an adjective by conversion. to smell = a smell. final = the finals. conjunctions. On the basis of: This garage is brick * This accent is Liverpool he would conclude that. c) Adjectival zero-derivation • Derived from OU S: this represents a less clear case of zero-derivation since it is not completely clear whether or not conversion is involved. • Derived from ADVERBS: adverbs may appear as attributive modifiers: down = a down line. to up (prices). :absent = to ab:sent. One cannot predict how many syllables will be retained in the clipped form (advert. there are instances where changes of this type occur so regularly and with such ease that many scholars prefer to treat them as cases of syntactic usage rather than as word-formation. so that the adverb/preposition down can become a verb (to down tools. and an adjective (the down train). CLIPPI G/CO TRACTIO Clipping is the process by which a word of two or more syllables (usually a noun) is shortened without a change in its function and meaning taking place (e. Clipped words are generally used in less formal situations than their full-length equivalents: they indicate an attitude of familiarity on the part of the user. clipping can be of mainly 3 types: a) Aphaeresis (fore-clipping) represents the reduction of the fore part of a word. This means. Example One final problem needs to be solved with respect to conversion. 1990:85) has proposed a set of criteria for doing this. However. it is sometimes difficult to determine the direction of the derivation. (heli) copter. According to the part of the word that is omitted. ad. This can be seen in such examples as (tele) phone. (air) plane. 98 .6. advertisement > advert. Reinforcement Conversion represents the derivational process whereby an item is converted to a new word class without any concomitant change of form. or towards the audience.g. (omni) bus. Moreover.cons. Generally. mike< microphone). whether a certain word class represents the basis of conversion or the derived word class. Admittedly. he downed his beer). or whether to bottle is derived from bottle. examination > exam). (violon) cello. whether bottle is derived from to bottle. we can assume that the lexeme in whose paraphrase the other lexeme is used is the derived one. 7. The unpredictability concerns the way in which the base lexeme is shortened. most of these form classes can undergo conversion into more than one form class. namely how do we know. for instance. or to be more specific. Marchand (1964) (quoted in Lipka. ad). for example that the verb to nail ‘to fasten with a nail’ is derived from the noun nail. either towards the object denoted. since in the paraphrase of the verb we use the noun. a noun (he has a down on me). The main pattern is for the beginning of the base lexeme to be retained as in ‘bi < bisexual. is often much more complex than in the examples that have been discussed so far. enthusiast) have acquired meanings rather different from their full forms and are not felt to be shortenings. (pre)script(ion).b) Syncope (mid-clipping) consists in the reduction of the middle part of a word: e. and such forms are as much instances of word manufacture as of clipping’. bike< bicycle. since moving picture. Words like mob from mobile. Here are some examples Example . even slightly pedantic flavour. phorate < phosphorodithioate. spec(tacle)s. Here are some examples: memo(randum). It seems likely that such examples as movie. fancy< fan(ta)sy.e. telly < television. pram are on the way to independence. Curio (i. . pants from pantaloons and brandy from brandywine. Instead the clipped forms have acquired a formal. pram < perambulator. (re)fridge(rator). (head)shrink(er). pub < public house. perambulator are not much used. Consider. miss(tress). lunch. the recent formations parylene < paraxylene. The same holds true for van < caravan and miss < mistress. movie < moving picture. (py)jam(a)s. particularly in scientific terminology. commie < communist. celebs < celeb(ritie)s c) Apocope (back-clipping) is the most productive of the three types and consists in the omission of the last part of a word. In cases like these there seem to be no limitations on the clipping except that the clipped form should be a possible word. an object valued as a curiosity) and fan from fanatic (admirer. since their longer forms are not used.perm < permanent wave. Clippings show various degrees of semantic dissociation from their full forms. cable(gram) cab(riolet) chap(man). hanky < handkerchief. 99 . fax (from facsimile) A much rarer type is where both ends are clipped. prepreg < preimpregnated. luncheon. Bauer (1991:233) points out that ‘clipping.g. pop < popular music. vet < veterinary surgeon.a few clipped forms that end in –ie/-y: Aussie < Australian. for example. are no longer felt to be clippings. The categories that frequently undergo contraction are simple words and adjectivenoun phrases. shortened from the Latin mobile vulgus. the middle of the word being retained as in (in)flu(enza). Many appear in quotations between inverted commas. Example Here are some more examples of blends: blotch = blot + botch. transistor from transfer and resistor. chump = chunk + lump. a punning effect is the result: foolosopher echoes philosopher. The effect of word-play may be achieved when syllables simply overlap: shamateur = sham + amateur (in sport. Velcro (fastener consisting of two strips of fabric which cling when pressed together) = velours croché (in French). or inserting part of one word into the middle of another. flaunt = flout + vaunt. blends take the first part of one word and the last part of another. As a rule. flurry + fly + hurry. rather than mixing phonemes at random.7. radiotrician from radio and electrician. blurt = blare + spurt. to snoopervise = snoop + supervise. Most of the blended words will not be found in dictionaries and are not in common use. Lewis Carroll was the one to coin a number of such blends as chortle from chuckle and snort. mimsy from miserable and flimsy. ‘disguised compounds’ or ‘portmanteau words’. sportcast = sport + broadcast. motel from motorist and hotel. In blending. c) commercial language: travelogue from travel and catalogue. grumble = growl + rumble. Amerind = American + Indian. Many blends are puzzling until one has met them in context. splutter = splash + sputter. fakesimile echoes facsimile. 100 . They may be defined as new lexemes formed from parts of two (or possibly more) other words in such a way that a transparent analysis into morphs is not possible. a player who is classed as an amateur. or learned where their constituents come from. the coiner is apparently free to take as much or as little from either base as is felt to be necessary. and icecapade (a spectacular show on ice) echoes escapade. Blends seem to appear very frequently in: a) jocular language. sexcapade = sex + escapade. cablegram = cable + telegram. twirl = twist + whirl. b) scientific language: bit from binary and digit. while often making money out of his play like a professional). flubber = flying + rubber. When a constituent echoes in some way the word or word-fragment it replaces. One restriction: the splitting up of consonant clusters from either of the original words is not allowed.7. One reason for the lack of popularity of blends may be the problems of comprehension which they present. BLE DI G Blends are also called ‘telescoped words’. Eurovision from European and television. compander = compressor + expander. the greatest difficulty in pronouncing blends is in deciding which syllable should take the primary accent. .other differences in the spelling of a shared syllable are seen in botel/boatel = boat + hotel (hotel for boat-travellers). swelegant/swellegant = swell + elegant.e. liger = lion + tiger. 101 . slantindicular/slantendicular = slanting + perpendicular. the first syllable must be unaccented /ski:nu: /. A more complex example is given by skinoe = ski + canoe (miniature canoes which fit the feet). and this obscures the fact that the first element is ski /ski:/. squarson = squire parson (a land-owning parson). slanguage = slang language. are: refujews = refugee Jews. b) The pronunciation of blends presents greater problems. e. since. This blend seems to pose an insoluble accentuation problem. /:tQndZ´«m´n/. smog = smoke + fog. tangemon (= tangerine + lemon) can have the following pronunciations and stress patterns: /:tQN´«mon/. celtuce = celery + lettuce.appositional blends: ballute = balloon + parachute. if the resemblance to canoe is to be preserved. cattalo = cattle + buffalo. as in squireshop /:skwai´Sçp/ = squire + bishop (a bishop who is also a squire). solemncholy = solemn = melancholy. whose second element is likely to be associated with shop. although uncertainties and ambiguities may be greater because of the missing elements. .g.hurricoon = :hurricane + ba:lloon (a balloon sent into a hurricane to record information about it). as in bomphlet = bomb + pamphlet. a) Variations in spelling arise in cases where there is an overlapping of syllables which happen to be spelled differently in the two source words: -wavering between single and double consonant: guestimate/guesstimate = guess + estimate (an estimate based on conjecture). a) ominal blends Blends can be classified on the basis of the relationships between their elements in the same way as ordinary compounds. Most of the blends are nominal.Two other difficulties that arise with blends refer to the ways they are spelled and pronounced. Apart from difficulties arising when a splinter accidentally resembles a quite unconnected morpheme.silent letter occurring in a source word may be felt as inappropriate in a blend. Appositional blends which are not coordinative. . adjectival or verbal. i. in which the first element specifies or qualifies the second. /«tQn:dZi:m´n/. not every abbreviation counts as an acronym: to be an acronym the new word must not be pronounced as a series of letters. -blends containing a locative element: chunnel = channel + tunnel. c) Verbal blends They are rather rare: baffound = baffle = confound. FBI.000 entries. AIDS (Anti-Immunitary Deficient System). UFO. i. such as RAC (Royal 102 . galvanneal = galvanize + anneal. meld = melt + weld. but as a word. RAM (Random Access Memory). ROM (Read Only Memory). but if we pronounce it as /vQt/. There are large numbers of new technical terms such as VHS (the video home system).8. Thus if Value Added Tax is pronounced as /vi ei ti/. it has become an acronym.e. LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombardment System) and all the terms for computerspeak: PC (personal computer).-instrumental blends: automania = automobile mania. seavacuation = sea + evacuation (evacuation by sea). hydramatic = hydraulic + pneumatic. ABBREVIATIO S/ACRO YMS Among the more questionable methods of word-formation at the present time is that which gives us acronyms. ATO and BA. b) Adjectival blends These are of appositional coordinative type: clantastical = clandestine + fantastical. BASIC (Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). beermare = beer + nightmare (nightmare caused by beer). It includes such familiar forms as hi-fi. Be on the watch-out for such word-forms when you read articles on the internet or when you watch movies. And there are thousands of coinages which have restricted regional currency. fantabulous = fantastic = fabulous. alphameric = alphabetic + numeric (consisting of both letters and numbers). However. attractivating = attractive + captivating. A recent dictionary of abbreviated words lists over 400. that is an abbreviation (alphabetism). words formed from the initial letters of usually separate words. Keep a record of such blended terms and try to find an explanation for why people make recourse to such a word-formation rule. 7. like the one caused by nightmare). daymare = day + nightmare (distress while awake. unusual acronyms are found where the letters are not strictly speaking initial letters in the words in a phrase. tacsatcom (TACtical SATellite COMmunications). ladar (laser detection and ranging). not every abbreviation that could be an acronym is treated as one. whereas in WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) both initial letters of the compound adjective (which is underlined) will be part of the acronym.Automobilistic Club). the phrase from which the acronym is formed is treated with a certain amount of freedom to permit the acronym to come into being. and there seems to be no particular reason why some abbreviations should be ignored. but are not. Occasionally. sonar (sound navigator and ranging). Due to the constraints on the phonological structure of English words. rare earth elements. For example. One example of this kind is KREEP. Recent examples of this are GHOST (Global HOrizontal Sounding Technique). BBC cannot be pronounced as a word. some people might not include them in their word count. ASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). and not as /dZeil/. in BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) only the first part of a compound adjective provides a letter for the acronym. radar (RAdio Detecting And Ranging). On the other hand. This is the case of such examples as laser (Lightwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). Usually blends are formed from the beginning of one word and the end part of a second word. AAA (Automobile Association of America). This is the reason why in some cases it may no longer be clear whether the new word is an acronym or a blend. but blends which make use of the beginnings of the two words. Because of the fact that acronyms depend on the ‘bigger’ words for their existence. one might argue that they are often more important than the original words. Firstly. Secondly. should not be 103 . phosphate’. which refers to a type of moonrock. Far more common is the case where more than one letter is taken from the beginning of one or more of the words in the phrase which is the base of the acronym. where the K is the chemical symbol for potassium. An example in this respect would be JAL (Japanese Airlines) which is pronounced as /dZei ei el/. rejasing (REusing Junk As SomethING else). The lack of predictability in acronyms is given mainly by two reasons. or which reflect local organizations and attitudes – with varying levels of seriousness – such as MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and DAMM (Drinkers Against Mad Mothers). and that the original words may not even be remembered or known. and the acronym stands for ‘potassium. though unusual. whereas other combinations of initial letters could be pronounced as a word. ruled out as impossible. And while it is normal for acronyms to use the beginnings of words, the clearest cases use only the initial letters. Finally, it must be stressed that acronyming is very much orthographically based. Consider, for example, PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique). If the phonetic value of each initial letter were taken as the starting point of the acronym, we would expect it to be pronounced as /pirt/, or /pi´t/ in those dialects of English that do not have post-vocalic /r/. But /pŒt/ shows the expected pronunciation of the orthographic sequence 'er'. As far as abbreviations are concerned, there is an interesting process taking place in contemporary colloquial English. Abbreviations (acronyms) like DJ /di dZei/ (Disk Jockey) are given pronunciation spellings, i.e. deejay, emcee (MC – master of ceremonies), okay (OK), veep (VP – vice-president). Reinforcement Abbreviations are classified into two basic groups depending on whether they can be read as ‘words’ or not. Thus, we have letter words/alphabetisms which are abbreviations that breach the phonological rules in English and that are pronounced letter by letter, and acronyms, i.e. abbreviations that can be pronounced as words. 7.9. REDUPLICATIO Reduplication is the word-formation rule which brings together two or more elements which are identical or only slightly different. Mumbo-jumbo is one of a large number of foolish and fascinating words, such as hocus-pocus and higgledy-piggledy, which give pleasure to the child in us. Etymologists call them reduplicated words. From a phonetic point of view, such words can be divided into: a) reduplicated words based on internal vowel alternations: chit-chat, drip-drop, knick-knack, tip-top, zig-zag. b) reduplicated words based on rhyme: boogie-woogie, willy-nilly, hocus-pocus, hanky-panky, namby-pamby. Now and then, this special kind of word-formation seems to bear an implication of contempt: gewgaw (a gaudy but worthless thing), tittle-tattle, chitter-chatter, and nambypamby. In other cases reduplicated word suggest alternating movement: flip-flop, ping-pong, ding-dong, or instability, nonsense, vacillation: hocus-pocus, wishy-washy, dilly-dally. 104 Some other time they are used as intensifiers of meaning: tip-top, teeny-weeny, miminypiminy. Shakespeare seems to have enjoyed these oddities among words. We find hurly-burly in ‘Macbeth’, hugger-mugger (meaning ‘disorder, confusion’) in ‘Hamlet’, tiddle-taddle, pibble-pabble in ‘Henry V’. Reduplicated words also appear in poetry, as the following anonymous limerick shows: There was a young curate of Salisbury Whose manners were halisbury-scalisbury. He went about Hampshire Without any pampshire Till his Vicar compelled him to walisbury. 7.10. EPO YMOUS WORDS These are common words derived from proper names, i.e. from names of people and from names of places. a) Words from people. -macadam, after John McAdam, a Scottish engineer who was the first to pave streets with small blocks of stone; -mackintosh, after Charles Mackintosh who owned a factory producing raincoats; - guy, after Guy Fawks (1570 –1606) who led the conspiracy known as the ‘Gun Powder Plot’, meant to kill the king; -bobby (a policemen in England), after Sir Robert Peel, who reorganized the police; -boycott, after Captain Charles S. Boycott, agent in 1880 for the estates of Lord Erne in County Mayo. Millions of people use his name in connection with a campaign to bring pressure upon a Government whose policies they deplore. What Boycott did was to carry out his master’s orders and refuse to reduce the rents. As a result, the Irish simply withdrew themselves from him –their labour, their company. Captain Boycott imported labourers to gather in his harvest; he had soldiers with guns standing sentinels over the stooks. In the end, instead of collecting the rents, he fled the country. -guillotine, after Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, a humanitarian fellow, who thought it more kindly than hanging to decapitate wrong-doers by means of that typically French concept, a machine, called after him ‘guillotin’. 105 -quisling, one who betrays his own country by collaborating with the occupying power, after the Norwegian Vidkum Quisling; -lynch, after Captain William Lynch of Virginia, in the 18th century; -plimsolls, after Samuel Plimsoll, MP; -wellingtons, gumboots named after Duke Wellington; b) Words from places -champagne, an effervescent wine, takes its name from a famous region in France where this drink is produced; -holland, linen or cotton cloth, first made in Holland; -damask, cloth produced in Damascus; Consult an etymological dictionary on the internet and find the origins of the following words: - raglan, mesmerism, zeppelin, shrapnel, sandwich (common nouns derived from names of people) - calico, muslin, duffel, bikini (common nouns derived from names of places) 7.11. DELIBERATE (CO SCIOUS) COI AGES These represent deliberate creations or words by writers and scientists. In the Early Modern English period, Shakespeare was one of the most successful creators of words. Thus, the following line from 'Macbeth' tells us very little: Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries. Aroint apparently means “Begone!’. This can be deduced from the context. Since the phrase “Aroint thee, witch!’ occurs also in King Lear, in a crazy song which Edgar sings, it may possibly be a quotation from some old play or ballad that has since been lost. Since Shakespeare used the term twice, and since no other writer has used it at all, we may assume that he may have made it up. Of course there are many puzzling and extraordinary words in his plays, such as bubukles (in Henry V) which apparently means a kind of excrescence, some horrible hybrid between a bubo and a carbuncle: Bardolph’s face was ‘all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o’ fire’. In Twelfth ight, Sir Toby says: “He’s a coward and a coystril that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe like a parish top’. Coystril merely means a knave. 106 showing the truth of the old proverb “Necessity is the mother of invention. Use one of the following prefixes: dis-. science and technology have added many new words to English.’ It has nothing to do with ‘orgy’. 7. hence 'proud. But the form of words is only one aspect. 7. composition.The most amazing of all rare words in Shakespeare is orgulous. and spoiled it by over use.13. but comes from French orgueil. conversion (zero-derivation). The scholars can’t tell us anything about them save that they are all pretty rude. Brillo. Modern English has expanded the range of such means. by using word-formation rules.with each of the following words: a) attentive f) honest k) natural 107 . Notice that some of these words were created from existing words: Kleenex from the word clean. and eponymous words). As opposed to the two basic ways of forming new words in the Old English Period (derivation and composition). un. Jell-o from gel. frigidaire from frigid and air.12. i. Evaluation 1.” Kodak. im-. Jell-o. in-. He only used it once. swelling.e. It went out of currency for more than two centuries. il-. Have to the port of Athens sent their ships. reduplication. clipping (contraction). Other strange words used only once by Shakespeare (and never by anybody else) include riggish. magnificent'. ir-. and Dacron were names made up for certain consumer items. meaning ‘haughty’. their high blood chaf’d. Kleenex. Orlon. Their meaning should also be considered. Frigidaire. abbreviation. and Vaseline are now often used as the general name for many brands of the actual product. nylon. Summary In this unit we have shown that the lexicon of the English language can be enriched by internal means. in 'Troilus and Cressida': Example ‘From isles of Greece The princes orgulous. and was rediscovered by Southey and Scott. Nineteenth-century journalists seized upon it. ribaudred and wappened. Specific brand names such as Xerox. conscious (deliberate) coinages. blending. In modern times. In the following chapter we shall investigate this particular aspect of words. which nowadays amount to 9 (derivation or affixation. t) consistent. of a mind wavering between two or more courses of action h. investigator. 6. By adding -ous. envy. cyclist. q) academic. cool-headed 5. specialist. power. taste. -ant. long-headed 1. p) regard. 7. aim. f) proportion. 5. callous and unfeeling f. long-winded 8. in-. o) dramatic. of strict and rigid principles d. glaze. jewel. speaker. blaze. e. shrewd and far-sighted c. tender by nature e. desire. sleep. dis-. snare. of calm judgement i. excavator. tourist. -ent. be-. l) verbal. radiator. -ist form nouns that name people or things that do something. tedious or lengthy in speech or argument 108 . defense. 3. Form new words by adding these prefixes to the following words. she was very (patience). u) figurative. tongue-tied 4. tomb. n) kind. calm. i) passionate. en-.g. life. double-minded 6. grinder. bore. Here are some of the most productive class-changing prefixes: a-. glory. friend. v) eruptive. navigator. e) Tommy was particularly (mischief). wash. hard-boiled 7. m) experience. de-. clever. 4. j) distinct. s) dependence. inhabitant. attendant. occupant. humour. fun. c) grade. narrator. generous with money b. c) Mary is always (confidence) that she is right. a pianist is someone who plays the piano. f) I like the privacy of a (fence) garden. d) qualified. soft-hearted 2. e) usual. b) That visit wasn't (pleasure). Form adjectives from the following nouns: poison. derive adjectives from the bracketed nouns: a) She waited without complaining.dealcoholize a) competence.unwelcome. reflector. -ant. applicant. fighter. open-handed 9. monster. slave. witch. h) likely. r) place. grace. g) It was a (moment) occasion. b) active. moan. -or. non-. tenant. Give the translation of the resulting words or use them in sentences or your own. Find in column B the right definition of the compound adjectives in column A: A B a. Choose from among the negative prefixes un-. k) block. g) abridged. economist. d) His behaviour was always (courtesy).b) aware c) cautious d) discreet e) fortunate g) literate h) logical i) loyal j) modest l) practicable m) relevant n) resolute o) respectful 2. Now state what each of the following does: driver. The suffixes -er. discouraged and depressed g. according to the example: EXAMPLE: welcome . alcoholize . -ed. fury. name. down-hearted 3. dramatist. spatter. a) Amerind b) dumbfound c) catalo d) dictaphone e) electrocute f) paratroops g) guestar i) Oxbridge j) avionics k) smog l) telescreen m) stagflation n) mailomat o) cablegram q) motel r) Eurafrican s) brunch t) Bakerloo u) beefish v) swellegant w) pneudome 109 .. syncope (medial clipping) (MC) and apocope (back-clipping) (BC)... Indian. mail. screen. cast.. Choose the pairs of words forming blends. the facts. b) Could you .. execute. cattle.. pneumatic. elegant. MODEL: sneet = snow + sleet The choice is made from: breakfast.... dome.. resistor. transfer. b) maşină de spălat.... dictate.. with a knife and a gun. unable to speak. Europe.. 8. Cambridge. fish. f) The bank robber was . lunch.. e) She ... parachute. beef.. Translate the following into English using compound nouns: a) cutremur de pământ. It felt as smooth as silk. h) camuflaj. according to the model. phone.. e) revărsat de zori. hotel.. You can't go on spending as though you were a millionaire. i) centură de siguranţă. g) păta de sânge.j) straight-laced 10... dump. sport. motor.. electronics.. me that book on the table next to you? c) In the final minutes of the football match..... .. d) apă potabilă.. television. k) pieton.. Baker Street. motorist.... confound. electricity. cable. j) cocoşat. distinguishing among aphaeresis (foreclipping) (FC)..... Tom had to shoulder the responsibility for his family's debts... aviation.... American. swell. inflation. c) tunsoare.... Waterloo Underground.. buffalo. d) After his father's death. smoke. according to the model: MODEL: specs spectacles a) story h) fan b) cinema i) copter c) dorm j) hanky d) max k) cello e) memo l) telly f) perm m) pants g) vamp n) wig BC 11. Identify the words which were clipped in order to form the contracted forms and identify the type of clipping... stagnation. 9. Robson . 10.. guest... fog. automat. f) strângere de mâna. Complete the following sentences using a verb (in an appropriate tense) which denotes a part of the body: a) You have no money. the material gently.. Oxford.. telegram. the ball into the back of the net.. cavalcade.... troop. African. star. 14. I am working hard to overcome it. Lohan spent two weeks in jail this year after violating probation stemming from convictions involving her 2007 arrests for drug use and driving under the influence." Lohan settled her $100 million lawsuit against E*Trade. She also said. Fox had threatened her with 30 days in jail for each probation violation.” Lohan often posts updates with the account that’s verified by Twitter as belonging to the actress. Lohan posted a series of Twitter messages last Friday acknowledging her drug problem. which unfortunately doesn’t go away over night. Meanwhile.” she tweeted.h) sportcast p) transistor x) motorcade. Lohan settled a lawsuit with E*Trade over a Super Bowl commercial that may have insinuated that she's a "Milkaholic. Notice which of the studied processes are employed more frequently and try to explain why. She spent another 23 days undergoing rehabilitation at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Lindsay Lohan confirmed on her Twitter page last week that she failed a court-ordered drug and alcohol screening. although the terms of the settlement are confidential. I did in fact fail my most recent drug test. HOMEWORK II Analyse the word-formation rules encountered in the following excerpt. 7. “substance abuse is a disease.com/p/news/national/lindsay_lohan_drug_woes_worsen_cash_V7X0JrWg jWfkDQSZiQMfFO?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=#ixzz10AtU0qyc (accessed 2010-09-21) 110 . “Regrettably.nypost. Source: http://www. Fox must now decide whether to send her back to jail or back into treatment. ........... Time envisaged for covering Unit 8: 2 hours........................ Extension of meaning.............................................................. the students should be able to identify types of meaning....... arrowing of meaning .......................... and to employ the words of the English language properly with their presentday meanings............ Elevation of meaning ..........1. Meaning Contents 8... Summary ........... Competences ....................................5................ Introduction .......................... Models of the linguistic sign .................. Directions in which changes of meaning occur . 118 8........................6............ Evaluation ................2..1................................................................................ 123 8..................... 120 8........ at the same time will offer a view of the directions in which the meaning of words can change............1..................... Competences After having covered the material presented in unit 8.............................Unit 8.......... The meaning of linguistic signs. 8............. 114 8...........7............................ Introduction This unit will introduce the students to some models of the linguistic sign........... It will show the factors that can bring about changes in the meaning of a word and........1...........................8................................... 123 8..... 112 8...... providing thus a basis for a beter understanding of the term ‘meaning’...........2.............. 119 8.....................................................6........... 114 8...................3.....................................6................ The linguistic sign ............. 118 8........6.........................................................3.... 111 8............. 122 8....................... Degradation of meaning ........................................................................................................ 111 .....................6.............2.............. 112 8............ 111 8... to figure out how meanings have changed in time......................................4.......3.........6............................................. Causes of changes of meaning ... But first and foremost we have to look at some models of linguistic sign which derive from Saussure’s ideas about it. We will consider more closely his binary model. focussing on meaning. the context of use. If.1. we separate the language system (LANGUE) from its realization and application (PAROLE). a) Saussure’s approach In Saussure’s view of language as a system of signs. In this context we may distinguish purely language-immanent approaches from those that take into account the extra-linguistic reality.3. Models of the sign In modern linguistics F. THE LI GUISTIC SIG : WHAT'S IN A WORD? In this chapter we will deal with various aspects of the linguistic sign (i. A second important model is Ogden and Richard’s semiotic triangle. and the functions of the linguistic sign. This is symbolized by the arrows in the following diagram: concept sign -----------acoustic image flower ----------FLOWER -------------FLOWER Figure 1. Both are mutually conditioning and evoke each other mutually.3.8.e. It is crucial to realize that both models – Saussure’s and Ogden/Richard’s – abstract from certain facts that have been rediscovered in linguistics during the last fifty years. Saussure was the first scholar to consider language as a structured system of signs. following Saussure. the word). Closely connected is the further question about the definition of the meaning of the linguistic sign. since a sign only derives its value from within the system on the basis of its relation to other signs. These are the users of the linguistic signs. For him the linguistic sign itself has two sides: a given notion (concept) that is associated in the brain with a certain phonic image (acoustic image). Saussure’s model 112 . sign and system are mutually conditioning. 8. we then must distinguish between denotation and reference. since it consists of two parts. the labels ‘triangle of signification’. however. which Ogden and Richards characterize as an ‘imputed relation’. The triangle has to be interpreted in the following way. saying that the ‘symbol’ stands for the ‘referent’. plays a role in the triadic model developed by Ogden and Richards. The relation between the two is indirect and mediated by a concept or ‘thought’. His model of the sign abstracts from the users and the functions of the sign. In brief. or conventional. The last term is justified by the fact that the model includes the referent (object. in modified form: THOUGHT (‘reference’) SYMBOL (‘word’) (‘thing’) REFERENT Figure 2. its content is defined as a concept and therefore as a mental entity. According to Saussure there is no necessary connection between the signifier and the signified. The term reference. The term is either used for the relation between the full linguistic sign and an extralinguistic referent. In the latter. thing. This is symbolized by the broken line connecting the two. or the action of a speaker referring to an extralinguistic object 113 .The notions of concept and acoustic image are later replaced by him by the terms signifié (signifier) and signifiant (signified). This. to which we will now turn. b) Ogden and Richards’ ‘Semiotic Triangle’ The model of the linguistic sign developed by Ogden and Richards is represented in figure 2. for Saussure the linguistic sign is binary. the extralinguistic object denoted by the linguistic sign is not included. which Ogden and Richards also label reference. is used in a different way by Ogden and Richards than in many recent linguistic theories. identified with thought. reference is usually understood as a relational concept. There is no direct relationship between the word ‘symbol’ and the extralinguistic thing or ‘referent’ denoted by it. and ‘referential triangle’ are also used in the literature. non-motivated. person in the world). Ogden and Richards’ ‘triangle of signification’ Besides the term ‘semiotic triangle’. In this binary model. For him the relation between the two sides of the linguistic sign is fundamentally arbitrary. Its meaning. for example. reflected m. as linguistic signs. thematic meaning. no direct relation between the signifiant (or symbol) dog and a certain class of living beings. there is then. 1990:46) identifies meaning in the widest sense with communicative value. Words. Meaning. While in Saussure’s model the linguistic sign has two facets (the signifier and the signified).4. social and expressive functions of language. conceptual meaning (sense) a. 2. 3. Reinforcement The two basic types of the linguistic sign are Saussure’s and Ogden and Richard’s. the object in the world the word refers to). social meaning and expressive meaning. Geoffrey Leech (1981) (quoted in Lipka. 114 MEANING = communicative value . namely descriptive meaning. these are correlated with the descriptive. They stress the point that the meaning of a linguistic symbol (as a concept or thought) has to be clearly distinguished from the extralinguistic object (or referent) denoted by it. connotative m. quoted in Lipka. sense 2. as shown in the following diagram: 1. is subject to constant change. According to Ogden and Richards’ semiotic triangle. This comprehensive notion can be split up into three groups: 1. or a specific element of this class.5. associative meaning and 3. changing all the time. The second category may itself be further divided into a number of subgroups. John Lyons (1977. collocative m. For him. CAUSES OF CHA GI G OF MEA I G Every word has at least a specific meaning (and by meaning we mean the semantic load carried by any linguistic form). affective m. There is certainly no single. 8. stylistic m. There are a number of factors that determine the change of meaning of lexical items. 1990:46) distinguishes three kinds of meaning. are therefore indirectly related to extralinguistic referents. c. Ogden and Richard’s model has an additional element. e. and at the same time this meaning is unstable.by means of a linguistic sign. namely the referent (i. as well as any other features of language. THE MEA I G OF SIG S That meaning is a notational term becomes particularly apparent if we look at Ogden and Richards' book entitled The Meaning of Meaning (published in 1949) where a list of 22 definitions of meaning is given. thematic meaning 8. d. correct explanation of meaning. associative meaning b.e. . b. `import (n) re`bel vs. in English we have to stress the important words (i. implying extralinguistic factors such as gestures. Is he at home or at work? (serviciu) g. efort fizic a. Words are not isolated in human speech. concrete situations. passage or paragraph. . sentence. lucru) h. (operă) b) Stress In general. the social background of the speaker. (muncă) c. Context can be interpreted: . they are connected and interconnected within the framework of sentences. organised lexical – phonetical – grammatical structures expressing our thoughts and feelings. au`gust (adj) vs. a new combination of words would exercise and spread an influence over the neighbouring words.e. (lucru) f. i. phrase.a) The influence of context: irrespective of its length. (trebăluială) d. Get down to work! (treabă. He gets good money for his work. as in: `August (n) `minute 115 vs. adjectives and adverbs. mis`conduct pro`ject vs. Thus. A woman’s work is never done. . He went out to look for work. the so-called ‘content words’): nouns. `project -nouns from adjectives. which is so closely connected to a word as to affect its meaning. By placing stress on different syllables of identical strings of sounds we can get different meanings of words belonging to different word classes.e. mi`nute. What sort of work do you do? e. etc. His work is strenuous. Shakespeare’s work is known all over the world. in the sense of a determiner. verbs. Consider the way in which the context influences the meaning of the word work: WORK = muncă.either in a general sense. `rebel miscon`duct vs. stress will differentiate -verbs from nouns.or in a strict linguistic sense. as in: im`port (vb) vs. ’ Eduard Sapir (1921) stated that nothing is perfectly static. are subject to the inexorable laws of life. to move. ‘language (. Stephen Ullmann (1962) is the initiator of a mentalistic approach to meaning. The car goes fast. which forbid immutability. usually of paper. By analogy. marked in the dictionaries as "Arch. and by analogy with this second meaning it can be understood as ‘any suitcase’. b. TO GO: to fail.. The others. In his model. The only words of fixed form and meaning are the dead ones. We go home. d) The process of passing from particular to general FAMILY: . c. but undergoing a slow change. to leave. Meaning changes all the time. The most dynamic part of language is the vocabulary (especially in meaning). it can also be interpreted as ‘a woman’s purse’. Thus the basic (conceptual) meaning of the word bag is ‘a sack or pouch. to collapse. cloth or leather’.parents and children -a group of persons connected by blood or marriage -a group of persons forming a household -any class or group of similar or related things GENERAL PARTICULAR e) Analogy (association) Analogy is a mental process involving shift of meaning." (obsolete). There are several stages implied in the change of meaning: 116 .c) The process of passing from concrete to abstract CONCRETE TO GO: to proceed. meaning is a reversible and reciprocal relation between NAME (n) and SENSE (S). TO GO: to harmonize ABSTRACT Black and white go together very well. Analogy can be considered literally and figuratively. to give way His hearing has gone.) is ever-changing: no more settled than the sea or the sky." (archaic) and "Obs. According to John Moor (1961:235). to pass along. which continue to reflect our living thoughts. Money goes fast.. to depart a. a word has a certain form (n) and a certain meaning (S): S (sense/meaning) n (name) stage II: in the course of time. top part of everything (literally & metaphorically) head of the nail/screw/pin/cabbage/flower (resembling the head in shape) HEAD (part of human body) head of the bed/list/table/stairs (resembling the head in position) head of the family/school/house (metaphorically. it can stand for the leader) CO CATE ATIO is the semantic process by which new meanings are added to the basic meaning in succession. which is different from S S S1 n (change of meaning) The two processes through which new meanings are derived from the basic linguistic form are radiation and concatenation. and then we have a case of polysemy. RADIATIO is the semantic process by which the new meanings derive directly from the centre of the basic form and are therefore mutually independent. b) or dies out (is gradually lost) and its place is taken by the new meaning. and one after the other.stage I: originally. 117 . the linguistic item acquires a second meaning: S + S1 (polysemous word) n The original meaning a) is either retained (S=S1). Contemporary is a word which in a dozen years or so has acquired a new meaning. (slang) small electronic microphone to trace telephone conversations. DIRECTIO S I WHICH CHA GES OF MEA I G OCCUR The analysis of the change of meaning can be made in point of range and of evaluation. table 4. fashionable. insect with piercing sucking mouth. up-to-date. 5. i. 8. Below are some exsmples of words whose meanings underwent extension. modern. we have elevation (amelioration) and degradation (pejoration) of meaning. we shall talk about extension (generalization. From the point of view of evaluation. 8. something like this: Contemporary. 2. Seeing this word so often used as a synonym for ‘modern’. widening) of meaning and about narrowing (specialization). food served at table 5.e. (loosely) any insect. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the process will continue and gain momentum.6. (informal) a micro-organism. the side of a ship 6. as shown below: 1. adj. council table 7. With respect to range.1. extended surface of wood 3. the sense may expand to include more referents than it formerly had.6. Example The two processes mentioned above can also be interrelated. 4. 118 . (slang) enthusiast. so that the older meaning of the word will become obsolete and the dictionary will have to make room for a new definition.e. BUG 1. meals provided for pay 8. 3. people are beginning to forget that it really means 'belonging to the same time or period’. board (plank) 2.g. Extension of meaning is the process by which the sense or senses of a word are enlarged or enriched. council We need at least 3 meanings of a word to say if we have a case of radiation or of concatenation. Holy-days originally meant ‘days set aside for religious observance.6.The referential scope of the word is reduced. a modern Bank Holiday implies exactly the opposite of a holy-day. and took on its secular meaning. to a Parisian it is the Seine. male or female. so that we can speak of wollen mills. to a Londoner it means The Thames. Nowadays it means to have a reasonable excuse for doing/not doing something. originally meant broad street → a part of space → any locality. Now it is simply a place for making varied kinds of things. it referred to the situation when one was in a different place from where a crime has been committed. which was formerly one of the main means of making payments – fees – such as those to physicians. for preparing the meal’. it meant the characters in a play. Nowadays it means feeling or giving pain. anybody. It comes from the Anglo-Saxon feoh meaning ‘cattle’. later on it meant a man. 8. namely ‘to get oneself free from confinement or control’. Butcher originally referred to a person who killed goats. Today. It comes from an old Teutonic word for harvest. i. But if we use the same word with the definite article (i. Place (Latin ‘platea’). etc. lawyers. Alibi originally meant elsewhere. But nowadays people use it with a different meaning. the word means either a killer of animals for meat or an inhuman slayer of people. steel mills. Holy-day became holiday. arrowing of meaning is the process by which a word of extensive usage is restricted to a special object (it becomes 'specialized'). Season (Latin ‘satio-nis) seed-time. to lose one’s cape while fleeing’. Mill originally meant ‘a place for making things by the process of grinding. Nowadays.Person (from Latin ‘persona’) originally meant face-mask worn by actors. whereas to an Egyptian it stands for the Nile. it means a person. and so on. Later on the term was used in connection with any slayer of animals who provided food for human use. The same 119 . A word like river refers to a large amount of water that flows towards the sea. The verb to escape meant ‘to get out of one’s clothing. Fee derives its significance from the pastoral and agricultural pursuits with which all commerce was bound up in old days. The Bavarian arnen signifies both ‘to reap’ and ‘to earn wages’. later. while it is a cognate with the present Dutch erne and the German Ernte (meaning ‘a harvest’). later. gin mills. in a different place.e.2. sowing→ 3-month period of the year.e. Earn has originated from some agricultural expression. a very long time ago. The River ). Painful once meant taking pains. Now it is used only to refer to a young female. In this way villain was applied to a low fellow.6. the Old English word deer. meaning ‘farm-house’. Garage meant in the beginning any safe place. Degradation of meaning could be defined as the process according to which neutral words acquire deprecatory meaning. in its turn. ‘a slave attached to one’s toiling place’. in general. In English it was at first a kind of a descriptive term for a particular social class. glad denotes the state of feeling pleasure for a certain specific cause. came from the Latin villa. after the French ‘chair’ was borrowed. narrowed its meaning to ‘a specific species of animals.3. Narrowing of meaning also occurred to native words when replaced by borrowings. A hussy was once a perfectly respectable housewife. It came into the language as villanus. and villany was used in connection with ‘low conduct and thoughts’. Gradually a set of ideas were associated with villain: all the features which were opposed to courtesy. 8. Villain goes back to the French term 'villein' which originally signified ‘a peasant’ and which.holds true for city. and wench just meant 'young woman'. bright’. The Channel stands for the English Channel if used by English people. Very soon the term villain became a term of contempt and was used in connection with a person who did not belong to the gentry. A nice example is found in the historical phenomenon of pejoration in words referring to women. ‘joyful’. namely a hoofed mamal. which changes its meaning into the business centre of London if used with the definite article by a Londoner. the adjective glad acquired the sense of ‘cheerful’ or ‘joyous’ and later its meaning was narrowed: unlike ‘cheerful’. a word degenerates in meaning and a bit later its degeneration gets worse until at last this may become extreme and finally the word is used with a shade of contempt. where respectable words acquire negative connotations over the centuries. The word girl was initially employed to refer to a young person of either sex. which meant ‘animal’. but both 120 . A good example is the word villain. After having meant ‘shining. the males of which have solid horns or antlers’ after the French beast and the Latin animal came into use in the English language. whereas nowadays it is restricted to the place where cars are kept. First. Thus. ‘happy’. Another example is the Germanic word stool (meaning ‘chair’). whose meaning narrowed down to ‘a single seat without arms or a back’. In the beginning it replaced the native word churl (from the Anglo-Saxon ceorl) which had the same meaning. meaning a large important town. Sometimes over the shops of British old-fashined butchers and country tradesmen one can see the word purveyor. in general. fellow can be either contemptuous or can be simply used for ‘man’. And lady — once used just for a woman of noble birth — is now the standard term for any woman. Doctors used to prescribe gestation (i. -To admire is literally ‘to wonder at’. Once it had the meaning of 'partner'. At present.terms now connote a woman of loose morals. Finally. it developed the sense of ‘scoundrel’. poor. which used to be a rather proud description of himself by one who ‘purveyed’ his goods. the ‘happy islands’. then ‘servant’. taking them in the smart float behind the well-groomed pony to the 121 . shade by shade during many centuries it has acquired its present meaning of ‘to gaze on with pleasure’.e. -Fanatic (from Latin fanaticus) originally meant ‘inspired by a deity’. later (in the 15th century) it meant ‘peasant’. Then it acquired the meaning of ‘enthusiastic’. badly-behaved'. Thus it came to be used as a general term for a person of an inferior status in life. The Celts believed that after death their great heroes went to ‘The Silly Isles’. -Gestation meant ‘carrying or being carried’ long before it came to signify the process of carrying young.Boor originally meant ‘a ploughman’. -Knave (German Knabe) originally meant ‘boy’. stupid’ . The Romans applied it frequently to the priests. -Nowadays. In the ballad Robin Hood Rescuing the Widow’s Three we encounter the phrase ‘silly woman’ meaning ‘simple woman’. -Silly (derived from the German selig or the Anglo-Saxon soelig) meant ‘happy. it meant ‘simple’. riding on horseback or in a carriage) plus ‘pure air and seabathing’ during convalescence -Charity was equated with ‘love’ before it fell into disrepute during the last century and got itself an almost contemptuous significance. and this came from the habit of calling the servants ‘boy’. innocent’ as in silly habit (Cymbeline) and silly beggars (Richard II). the meaning of the word degraded to ‘foolish. Example Some more examples are presented below: . and nowadays the word has changed its meaning into ‘marked by an excessive enthusiasm and intense uncritical devotion’. in the 16th century it meant ‘a rustic without refinement’. Nowadays it means 'disobedient. Later. Nowadays its meaning is that of an ‘ill-bred fellow’. In Shakespeare’s time the word meant ‘helpless.aughty used to mean ‘poor’ (literally possessing naught). innocent’ during the Old English period. nowadays it refers to 'man awarded a non-hereditary title (Sir) by a sovereign'. Sinister is a term borrowed from Latin. In general we nowadays use it for any opinion which we do not happen to hold ourselves. Hussy originally meant ‘a house wife’. Its meaning has degraded to the present ‘impudent or promiscuous girl. where it meant ‘on the left’. 122 . for theology concerned itself not only with God but with the nature of the universe.4. Tart was a term of endearment: the girl was sweet like a jam-tart.owners of big houses round about. between 1231 and the end of the 16th century over the whole civilized Europe. ‘a taking-for-oneself. Nowadays. the whole field of natural science. hence a sect or school of thought) was simply ‘a private opinion’. The Church altered all that. But Roman soothsayers considered the left side to be unlucky. Elevation of meaning is the process by which a word acquires a higher status than it initially had. and the whole gamut of personal morality. the word means ‘lacking in refinement or good taste/coarse’. The original meaning of heresy (from Greek hairesis. In Australia it meant a sweetheart. quite the reverse of degradation of meaning. a choosing. Its present suggestion of objectionable selfsatisfaction seems to have grown during the 19th century. Vulgar comes from the Latin vulgus meaning ‘common people’. Little ones were called ‘tartlets’. but it has never had the force and damaging quality of ‘whore’. But in the 1950s this word began to be used as a synonym for homosexual.6. lively’. Such ‘purveying’ has become a casualty of a changing society. Tart got its bad meaning in England about 1900. and among some classes it is still applied to any girl. Private opinion went up in flames. laying down that it was sinful to hold private opinions about theological matters. Among the Cockneys in the 1860s it was ‘a term of approval applied to a woman’. and the word is going out of use save in one respect: it survives in common speech as ‘a purveyor of gossip’. Smug meant ‘trim’ or ‘neat’ or ‘pretty’. and that is now its most usual sense. and over the time the word came to mean ‘evil’ or ‘ominous’. Gay originally means ‘cheerful. 8. Example -Knight (Old English ‘cniht’) originally meant ‘boy’. This term could include almost anything. and the word heresy still carries an echo of the screams of the racked and a stench of burnt flesh about with it. a simple fact that is neither positive nor negative in and of itself. which as an epithet or accusation is generally a deliberate insult. clue. . weired. bead. marshal. The changes the meaning of words may undergo are classified according to range and positive/negative evaluation. We still use many words which existed already in Old English. In some cases. and quite a number of them have been subjected to successive changes of meaning during the different periods of development of the English language.8. it’s awfully nice of you. liquor. try to explain the changes in the meaning of these words. due to various factors. constable. meat. At present. Behind almost each word there is a ‘short history’ of its meaning. mess. -Awfully. jaw. Have you got the guts to do bungee jumping?). cloud. parasite. worm (source: Radford et al. Evaluation 1. whereas now it means ‘an important public official’. Here are a few examples of such words. The word car derives from Latin carra ‘two-wheeled cart’. fast? 8. and within the same period of time. delightful’. buxom.ice ise derived from the Latin nescius meaning ‘ignorant’. Etymology is the study of the history of words. saucer. heckle.7. Nowadays the word means ‘agreeable. which is worth investigating. 2. governor. the change in meaning of a word can only be understood in terms of associated cultural changes or particular historical events. Find a good etymological disctionary and examine how the meanings of the following words have changed over time: assassin. originally connected with ‘terror’ and ‘horror’. the word can mean ‘courage’. The Old French nice meant ‘foolish/simple’. 123 . hysteria. 8. but changeable both in time. Consulting a good dictionary. a. 1999:272).g. Can you figure out how the meaning of the following words has changed in time: sad. Summary This unit has shown that the meaning of words is not stable. treacle.-Minister was used initially to refer to a servant. is now just an intensifier: it’s awfully expensive. The original meaning of the word guts was that of ‘entrails’. this sense being preserved only in informal speech (e. L. prove c. she escaped from her escort. ‘discomfort’ 10. ‘test’ 7. our vegetarian shop was a shambles. boon m. i. g. However. She is small and slim. ‘smoke’ 14. and the sentence would be quite impossible if the word had retained its original meaning. On the left is a list of words which have undergone substantial changes of meaning during the last few centuries. Miss Marple’s knitting wool cannot be a clue. fee l. c. R. thing h. in each case. pen n. The candidate turned up in a dark blue suit. 1994:44) 4. the modern meaning of the word in italics is quite different from its earlier meaning. L. ‘legal matter’ 13. She’s painted a lovely blues-and yellow miniature. electronics and electricity all derive from Greek elektron’amber’ (petrified tree rasin) c. fond 1. ‘feather’ 6. The Japanese manufacturers make heavy use of automated factories. and check your guess in a good dictionary which provides earlier meanings. ‘monk’s costume’ 3. We arrived at a dusty village in the middle of the desert. e. ‘time’ 9. k. the words electron. d. a. on the right is a list of their former meanings in a different order. skill d. silly i. d. are derived from Latin septem ‘seven’ and octo ‘eight’ h. ‘foolish’ 4. reek j. A dishevelled old man. The names of September and October. the ninth and tenth months of the year. disease e. but she has a great deal of poise. (Trask. Try to guess the ealier meaning of the word from the context. impertinent k. ‘unrelated’ 5.R. 1994:44) 3. The word money derives from Latin moneta ‘one who admonishes’ f. L. 1994:45) 124 . The ship’s passengers were quarantined for two weeks. the word sinister derives from Latin sinister ‘on the left hand side’ g. The word book is derived from the name of the beech tree. tide o. Each of the following sentences should seem normal enough. ‘understand’ 2. f. After the break-in. ‘prayer’ 11. j. h. huddled in a doorway. sack b. ‘go’ 15. ‘strong wine’ 8. ‘helpless’ (Source: Trask. (Trask. e. bald and toothless. but he always makes it to the top. No animals are allowed in the cockpit. Can you match each word with its former meaning? a. The word chapel is derived from Latin cappella ‘cloak’. b. Wrapping her cloak tightly about her. ‘livestock’ 12.b.R. wade g. John is a mediocre mountain-climber.. The word charm derives from Latin carmen ‘song’. frock f. .................................... Synonymy .................................. Introduction .............................3.6........................................................... 125 9......Unit 9................. to employ the most suitable lexical item of a synonymic set in a certain context.... Introduction The present chapter aims at offering a detailed description of the semantic or sense relations established among the words of the lexicon................................................. antonymous or homonymous pairs for various words.. 138 9...... Time envisaged for covering Unit 9: 4 hours....................4........... they are expected to enjoy jokes based on all kinds of semantic relations provided at the end of the chapter................... 127 9. 136 9.... 131 9...................... focussing on the paradigmatic ones.............................. the students should be able to identify the semantic relations....................................... Competences After having covered the theoretical material contained in this unit...............1........................... Antonymy.............................................................................. At the same time............. 132 9..... 128 9.............................................................8............................ Competences ... At the same time.................... 125 .1.....2..... Homonymy and Polysemy ..... Summary ........... Hyponymy (meaning inclusion) .... Incompatibility ............................................................................... to provide synonymous.................................. Semantic relations Contents 9.............. 138 9............ 125 9.............2....9...................................................7............ it will also show the stylistic effect of some of these sense relations and the ways in which they can be exploited in literature.. Evaluation ........................5.................... 9...... be structured by means of a series of possible associations. -derivational (based on identity of suffixes). the choice of certain adjectives by animate nouns. among members of the same class of distribution (traditionally called parts of speech). being related to the selectional restrictions governing the production of the strings of discourse.and” kind of relationship. Ever since ancient times scholars in the field of language were aware of the diverse ties existing among the words of a given language. 126 . and are established between lexical items belonging to different word classes. or” kind of relationship. or the types of objects and subjects certain types of verbs may take). Therefore. In this chapter we shall focus on the last type. who suggested the existence of a network of associative fields within the vocabulary of a language. The syntagmatic relations are the relations established between elements that coexist within the same linguistic chain.. -formal (based on accidental sound resemblance). Paradigmatic relations at the semantic level are established. They are situated in contrast position. Consequently. The linguistic elements on the paradigmatic axis are mutually exclusive within one and the same linguistic sequence. namely on semantic relations. In conformity with his general idea on the systematic nature of language. The syntagmatic relations. Unlike the syntagmatic relations. any linguistic element situated in a certain position in a given chain can therefore be defined by means of these two parameters. de Saussure suggested that the lexicon. which are of two sorts: syntagmatic and paradigmatic.Postulating linguistic meaning primarily as a relation brings forward the important problem of the nature of semantic relations.. The syntagmatic relations are directly observable in the spoken or written chain.g. They find themselves in an “either . -semantic (based on meaning relations proper).. these associations are: -etymological (based on resemblance in both their meaning and form).. The linguistic items situated on the syntagmatic axis find themselves in a “both. According to him. A systematic study of these relations was initiated by Ferdinand de Saussure (1965). the paradigmatic (oppositional) ones are not directly observable within a linguistic chain. as a rule. are analysed by sentence syntax (e. we shall deal here only with the paradigmatic relations. too. which are established among the vocabulary items of a language. What is relevant is that the terms themselves are incompatible. hyponymy. sentences with incompatible terms will thus contradict each other. farm. yet we would still never admit that it was both red and orange. this dictionary offers a choice of words to fit any context. even if there may be no clear distinction in the world. If one utterance including a given term negates another utterance in which that term has been substituted. They are: incompatibility. 127 . therefore as many semantic fields. 9. and rain. Sometimes incompatibility is a reflection of a clear definition in the world of experience. antonymy. But this is not wholly relevant. etc. polysemy and homonymy. Consider. house. for example. among members of the same class of distribution. the two substitutable terms. as a rule. We might even describe it as red one day and orange the next day. Grouping the whole vocabulary under 990 heads or topics. a relation which characterizes all lexical elements. namely all denote things that can be owned. In other words. one of them being the categorization of the vocabulary according to a number of topics. Example Consider the example John owns a car/farm/house/shop. The relation of incompatibility can be established on the basis of substitution of items in a given utterance. shop are said to be incompatible because the choice of one rejects the choice of another.3. It becomes obvious that the relation of incompatibility is useful for establishing semantic fields. There is no clear dividing line in the spectrum between these two classes. the colour terms red and orange. Lions and elephants are distinct species and copper and iron are different metals. yet we would never agree that a particular object was red and at the same time orange. This set could not include other concrete nouns such as sky. The existence of such semantic fields in any language can be used in various ways.Paradigmatic relations are established. love. as well as other terms belonging to the same substitution class are said to find themselves in a relation of incompatibility. synonymy. Red and orange are incompatible terms in the following sentences: Mary’s hat is orange / Mary’s hat is red. leaf. The terms in the set car. I COMPATIBILITY The primary semantic relation on the paradigmatic axis is that of incompatibility. an enterprise brilliantly achieved by Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (1941). though there is a close semantic link between them. 1977. a stripe on a dress may be wide if it is only 2 inches wide. Thus. etc. a gradation of width. a) Gradability The term gradability is used to designate those meaning oppositions which admit certain gradations with regard to the meaning expressed. have in common the fact that they may be seen in terms of degrees of the quality involved. 2005:37). ch. a road may be wide or very wide and one road may be wider than another. that is to say. However. all indicated by such adjectives as the previously mentioned ones. Thus. Antonymy is a regular and very natural feature of language and can be defined fairly precisely as the contrasting relation between two lexemes. tough –tender. the basic characteristic of two words which are antonyms is that they share all but one semantic property (e. 128 . ‘big as mice go’. 9). In traditional lexicology these relations are dealt with under the general term of antonymy. Antonyms fall into at least three groups: gradable antonyms (‘pairs that describe the opposite ends of a continuous dimension’).9. A TO YMY The wider concept of incompatibility includes several types of meaning relations that are based on more intimate relations of oppositeness. size. English abounds in pairs of words such as wide – narrow. The three types of antonymic relations are presented in more details below. but a road would have to be many yards wide before it could be so described. warm – cool.. Not only are these adjectives gradable. but they are graded against different norms according to the items being discussed. These. an old man is much older than an old dog. This accounts for the apparent paradoxes of a small elephant being bigger than a big mouse. We have. The property they do not share is present in one word and absent in the other. husband and wife).g. all of them adjectives. Ironically. old – young. binary antonyms (‘pairs that exhaust all linguistic possibilities along some dimension’). age. The temperature required to describe a swimming pool as hot is not the same as the temperature required to describe a drink as hot. And to take another example of a graded term. one of which denotes some positive property whereas the other denotes the absence of that property. good – bad. Several different subclasses have been singled out (Lyons. the temperature of a cold ice cream is not the same temperature as a cold shower. big –small. and converse antonyms (‘pairs that describe the relationship between items from opposite perspectives’) (Parker and Riley. there are different kinds of opposites and we must clearly distinguish between them.4. for small means ‘small as elephants go’ and big. 129 . The definition of this senserelation is therefore based on the logical implication combined with negation. Thus. When we use the UNMARKED terms.which in its turn is very much older than an old piece of cake. The possibility of being neither wide/warm nor narrow/cold is left open.COLD. There is one striking difference between the two types of antonyms. Thus we have not just hot – cold. in the pair old – young. But when we use the MARKED terms. but this does not seem to be a universal feature./warm – cool/ . the road is narrow and the tea is cold. singlemarried. it is not the case that to say something is not wide/warm is to say that it is narrow/cold or the other way round. There is no third possibility. as in How high is it?/ How wide is it? How hot is it? there is no implication that a particular thing is high/wide/hot. then the other must be false. and also Tom is married implies Tom is not single. A further point we need to make is that in each pair one of the terms is generally MARKED in the sense of having a more specific meaning. But they are. If one member of a pair of complementaries is true. Since these antonyms are gradable. the first member is unmarked. in contrast. i.e. but HOT . these belong to the set of incompatible terms we mentioned earlier (7. we imply that the tower is short. although there are only 2 terms. wide= width. but with one specific characteristic. with the intermediate pair /warm-cool/ forming a pair of antonyms themselves.1). similar to the gradable antonyms. high = height. On the other hand. as in How short is the tower?/How narrow is the road?/How cold is the tea?. In English it is the ‘larger’ term that appears to be unmarked. a book has to be approximately 100 years old to be described in terms of old. but in order to be old for a four-year old boy. It is characteristic of complementaries that the denial of one implies the assertion of the other and vice versa. whereas the other term is used to describe more generally the gradable quality. Strictly. in some ways. it need be only a couple of weeks old. namely that they are members of two-term sets instead of the multiple term sets that were discussed above. there is no fixed range of years for which a book may be described as old. but the noun is derived from the marked one.2. youth. With the gradable antonyms. Tom is not married implies Tom is single.e. b) Complementarity Complementarity can be illustrated by pairs of words such as male . alive-dead. Notice that it is the UNMARKED member of the pair that is used to form nouns. in that both exhibit incompatibility. If one is referring to a standard set by history.female. i. there are often intermediate terms. B buys from A. fiancé/fiancée. as the latter phrase can be interpreted to mean that I took the book without his giving it to me. is that there is no absolute distinction between these two types. know/ignore. B is hit by A. 130 . Reinforcement The three kinds of sense-relations between lexical items that are traditionally summed up under the term antonymy differ clearly in many ways. etc. In grammar. as seen in the example above. give/take. is dealt with in the following sub-chapter. Examples are buy/sell. debtor/creditor. parent/child. married/single. active and passive exhibit relational opposition. in front of/behind. however. A number of terms referring to spatial position also belong here .above/below. Hyponymy. husband/wife. c) Reversibility (converseness/relational opposition) A quite different kind of antonymy is found with pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between items. liquid and solid) might be better handled as hyponyms of the same superordinate terms (i. B is A's wife. Example Here are some more examples of converses: to rent/to let. if A is B's husband. alive/dead as gradable antonyms on occasions. whereas Palmer (1976) prefers the term relational opposition. Converses can be completely paraphrased by each other. liquid. for if A hits B.g. Lyons (1977) suggests the term converseness for these.e. too. Complementaries (binary antonyms). my friend gave me a book cannot be adequately paraphrased by I took the book from my friend. Thus. solid and gas are hyponyms of matter. teacher/pupil.An interesting point. north of/south of. Someone can be very male or more married and certainly more dead than alive. If A sells to B. We can treat male/female. gradables and converses always occur in pairs. possibly. However. as a semantic relation. and. where the lexemes imply each other mutually. being concerned to point out their essential relational characteristics. converseness has been interfered with by specific conventionalization of meaning in certain instances. to own/to belong to. which are treated and interpreted as two-member lexical fields It is worth pointing out that some pairs that have traditionally been treated as antonyms (e. give/receive. Thus. insects as well as mammals. one of the constitutive principles of organization of the lexicon of all languages. in their turn.tomato. Hyponymy is one of the main paradigmatic relations. and violet are co-hyponyms of the superordinate term FLOWER. Roget's Thesaurus mentioned earlier is based on hyponymy as a principle of organization. In all such examples a sentence containing the hyponym entails a sentence containing the superordinate term. rose. of course.e. To say This is a rose entails This is a flower. to include both humans and beasts. The relation of hyponymy involves a superordinate ('upper') term which covers a number of hyponyms ('lower' terms). may become hyponyms in relation to a more general term. the second is (on logical grounds) also true. in our case PLA T. The second term in each pair is included in the first. To say that one sentence entails another is to say that if the first sentence is true. (b) in the sense of 'mammals' to contrast with birds. fishes and insects. Relying on your knowledge of biology. There are two girls entails There are two children.rose. fishes. vegetable . but the reverse is not valid. the relation of 'it follows from'). as in flower . A tomato is a vegetable. Superordinate terms. daisy. in one of its meanings it may be superordinate to itself in another meaning. (c) in the sense of 'beast' to contrast with human. This is.5. HYPO YMY (meaning inclusion) Hyponymy is the linguistic equivalent of the logical concept of implication.chalet.9. 131 . Thus it occurs three times in the hierarchical classification of nature. Thus animal may be used (a) in contrast with vegetable to include birds. try to draw a similar hierarchical diagram for the term ‘ ATURE” Hyponymy involves the logical relationship of entailment (i. possible only if it is polysemantic. house . It is a relation of asymmetrical implication of the type established between genus and species. Similarly. but not all vegetables are tomatoes. Example PLANT flower rose daisy pansy violet oak tree birch fir The same term may appear in several places in the hierarchy. 9. Relative synonyms are a proof of the richness of a language. Synonymy was described by Lyons (1977) as a ‘symmetrical hyponymy’. man and boy refer to male humans. allowing for differentiation and specialization within the lexicon. the meaning of boy includes the additional semantic property of ‘youth’ (i. The definition mentioned above also refers to the delicate problem of absolute or perfect synonyms. [+Human]. sofa and couch refer to the same type of object and share most of their semantic properties.6. Man = [+Animate]. [+Male]. SY O YMY Two or more lexical items are said to be synonymous if they share the same features with a slight difference in their deepest semantic content. stylistic) the essential notes of the notion they denote’. but also at that of grammatical forms (for example the means of expressing repeated actions in the past: used to and would). but not A man is a boy/A boy is a man.ADULT]). but reflecting in various degrees and in various senses (semantic. the semantic system of English permits you to say: A sofa is a couch/A couch is a sofa. 132 . So do stool and chair. This differentiation is not only of semantic nature but also of a sylistic one. grammatical. if absolute synonyms do exist. It is often said that absolute synonyms do not exist. b) Relative synonyms. therefore a relation of equivalence in logical terms. Thus. [+Adult] Boy = [+Animate]. It is one semantic relation most dealt with by grammarians and semanticians. except when you wish to describe the ‘boylike’ qualities of a man or the ‘manlike’ qualities of a boy. The degree of semantic similarity between words depends to a great extent on the number of semantic properties they share. Thus. However. This definition makes it clear that synonymy exists not only at the level of lexical units. One of the most complete definitions of synonymy was given by Levitchi (1970): ‘Synonyms are two or more lexical or grammatical units comparable through their content. The greatest majority of synonyms are relative. [. there are words that have many semantic features in common. their number is very limited and restricted to monosemantic terms. On the other hand. a) Absolute synonyms. [+Male]. [-Adult] Consequently. but which are not synonymous or near synonymous. [+Human]. Examples of absolut synonyms would be the terms ‘semi-vowels’ and ‘semi-consonants’ or ‘salt’ and ‘sodium chloride’.e. such as scientific or technical terms. while He has had a drink too much wouldn’t be as offensive as He’s drunk. i. The conclusion arises that for a proper discussion of synonymy we must take into consideration the communication level used by the speaker. dupe – sucker. adieu is jocular. this desire to be well thought of leads us to use ‘kind words’. or cancer. adieu. lexical units considered less offensive or distasteful than the units they replace. so long in which good. for example by conferring overblown titles on people. The term professor has been attached to bartenders. 133 .g. the first term is neutral.c) Stylistic synonyms. spectacles – giglamps. thus disguising the unconventional or socially unacceptable nature of the relationship.e. The terms institute and college have been applied to schools for auto mechanics. bye-bye. ► A variety of stylistic synonyms is representend by the so-called disguised synonyms which are generally based on figures of speech and characterize an object or a person in a certain way. to have kangaroos in one’s top paddock = to be insane). we prefer to discontinue rather than to fire employees. we often create euphemisms that inflate them. veneral disease. bye-bye is familiar and so long is colloquial. In our eagerness to avoid deflating our egos and those of others. People are subject to all varieties of fears. A classical example is the series of synonyms good–bye. as well as academics. He passed away sounds milder than He died. Example Shakespeare . Stylistic synonyms express the same meaning but in various functional styles. television repairmen. we refer to our lovers as companions. Thus. violinist – fiddler. The motives for generating euphemisms are as diverse and as universal as the range of human emotions. magicians and snake-oil salesmen. Another motive for contemporary euphemizing is our strong desire to avoid offending others. This fear of causing psychic pain.the sweet swan of Avon ►Another aspect of stylistic synonymy is represented by euphemisms (Greek eu = ‘well’ and phemi = ‘I say’). barbers and others. innocent = mentally retarded horizontally challenged = stupid. In the series arrogant – cocky. whereas the second is colloquial or even slangy. Afraid to flout social and moral conventions.the greatest English playright . Our fear of specific deseases has led people to coin a lexicon of euphemisms for insanity and retardation (e.bye is neutral. places and jobs. privates. the big C = cancer. the facilities. without the performance of any further surgery. which in Britain is green. aurally inconvenienced = deaf. a vehicle appearance specialist = a car washer. a dip = a pickpocket. a French letter = condome. chic sales = outdoor toilet. cash and carried = married. ►parts of the body (‘forbidden territory’): to be in one’s birthday suit = naked. Eliza smiles = it’s a good time for robbery. the first skirt = the commanding officer in a Women’s army Corps. to go West. to cash in one’s chips. headlights = breasts. Contextual synonyms are synonyms that are conditioned by a fixed context. the last summons. But it is also the context that very often dictates the use of a particular term in a string of synonyms. cut-and-paste job = a surgical procedure in which a patient is opened up and then. bum. sex care provider. a casuality = a wounded or dead person in a war. to go home in a box. the last gateway = death. 134 . a booster = a shoplifter.The fields most likely to be subject to euphemizing are: parts of the body. ►the world of work: a cleansing operative = an English roadsweeper or dustman. to be at rest. to hang up one’s hat = to die. ►crime: bracelets = handcuffs. the TOPOS. to send for the green van = to send for the mental-hospital ambulance. the lightfingered gentry = thieves. because the surgeon discovers that his or her condition is hopeless. ►sickness: acutely visually handicapped = blind. one’s thing = the genitals. boobs. vocally challenged = mute. client of the correctional system/guest = prisoner. sewn up again. war. ►sex: action / enclosure = sexual intercourse. the John/Jack. the world of work. sex worker = prostitute. sickness. It is quite obvious that the use of one term or another in a synonymic series depends on the communication situation and the intention of the speaker. ►death: to rest in Abraham’s bosom. to dangle in the sheriff’s picture frame. exhaust pipe = the posterior. Below we shall give some examples of euphemisms from each of these fields. death. to play on the other side = to be gay. sex. a lounge lizard = an American term for one whose major activity is frequenting discos and nightclubs. Waterloo= toilet. the Regimental restaurant = the mess hall house ►bathrooms: to explain the chain = to show somebody wherethe bathroom is. crime. ►war: bought it = died in action. cleavage. out of which they are no longer synonymous. guest workers = foreign laborers imported to get a job done at lower wages than those required to meet the minimum-wage standards in the host country. gifted for] at languages . far and away. binoculars = field glasses. The existence of the semantic relation of synonymy provides the field for the variety of expressions in a language. Find the synonymous word for the given ones so as to form quantitative hendiadys: part and ……. sick and tired. the twists and ……. Such a figure of speech is the quantitative hendiadys. One story concerns the ‘educated son’ who returns home after four years at college.g. heart and ……. parliament = supreme law-making council or assembly. with might and main. but Selections from Byron’s works vs. an activity which requires the finding of the appropriate equivalents. e. The advantage of this method is a great economy of space and conciseness. taking into account the stylistic level and the context. wear and tear. The translation of a literary text raises delicate problems because of the figures of speech based on synonymy. but there is a disadvantage as well. soft and tender. a definition of the word is given in the form of a paraphrase. safe and ……. She is good [talented. e. every now and …… Synonymy is also particularly useful in the field of lexicography. which represents the association of two or more synonyms by means of the conjunction and. in standardized expressions: Example each and every. Synonyms also serve as a vehicle for humour. where a lexical synonym cannot be provided. Quantitative hendiadys is very frequent in English.g. From this point of view. His mother asks him the meaning of the word 135 . This activity implies the selection of the best solutions from a possible synonymic series.. The pitch range of the voice.range and selection are synonymous in There is a wide selection/range of goods in shops at the moment. which most often resort to synonymy instead of explanations. rough and …. because the explanation given is sometimes insufficient or misleading for people with lower proficiency in language.Example . dust and ashes. In other cases. a good command of synonymy imposes itself as an essential factor for translation.good and kind: She is a good/kind person but That’s very kind [polite] of you vs.. being the main device used by monolingual dictionaries. POLYSEMY A D HOMO YMY The convergence of historical and synchronic approaches to the lexicon brings us to the problem which has been a longwithstanding matter of concern for linguists: how does one draw the line between HOMONYMY (roughly. linguists have made use of three types of criteria: a) The criterion of etymology. story and also on the use of homonyms. On the other hand. 9. ‘To put out’. one of the major concerns of the student of English should be the acquisition of a good command of the synonyms of the language. ‘It means a tale’. we may conclude that etymology cannot be a useful criterion for distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy. during a lull in the conversation the mother is heard asking the son ‘to grab that pesky dog by the narrative and extinguish him’. Consequently. two or more words having the same pronunciation and/or spelling) and POLYSEMY (one word having two or more senses).narrative. Therefore. mint money. they are treated as two separate words or lexemes in present-day English dictionaries. (v) ‘a sări’. (n) ‘primăvară’. since both go back to the same Middle English word flour. In spite of the fact that they are spelled differently. spring: (n) ‘izvor’. She also asks him the meaning of extinguish. Since the speaker of a language does not normally possess any etymological knowledge. because they were formally distinct in Old English and thus have a different etymology. Other well-known pairs in the history of English are: catch . at the son’s homecoming party. In order to solve this problem. (n) ‘conte’. 136 . The context-dependency of synonyms and their stylistic differentiations point to the complexity of this linguistic field and to the difficulty the learner of English encounters in mastering the lexicon. The reason for this is that they are etymologically identical.ounce.1) absolute homonyms. b) The criterion of formal identity or distinctness. The humour in this story depends on the use of synonyms extinguish = put out.chase. There are 3 possible situations. flower 'part of plant' and flour 'powder made by crushing grain' would be treated as a single polysemous word with two meanings. and narrative = tale. inch .7. Ear1 'organ of hearing' and ear2 'head of corn' are distinguished as homonyms. they are pronounced alike. replies the son. all of them implying differences in meaning: b. or words pronounced and spelt alike: count: (v) ‘a număra’. tale/tail. answers the son. That night. and which are given separate entries in the dictionary. b. and pronounced /led/.serial /'siri´l/. homonymy is one of the sources of some stylistic devices such as puns (play upon words). while crane 'machine for lifting' is derived presumably by a visual metaphor from crane 'type of long-necked bird'. 'plumb'.” the Hatter began in a trembling voice – “and I hadn’t but just begun my tea – not above a week or so – and what with the bread-andbutter getting so thin – and the twinkling of the tea -“ 137 . two meanings are psychologically related if present-day users of the language feel intuitively that they are related. or words spelt alike but pronounced differently: lead pronounced /li:d/.2) homographs. On the other hand. polysemous words are given one entry in the dictionary and their meanings are related. meaning 'a conduce'. The figure of speech with which they are most commonly associated. whose meanings are not related. Polysemy and homonymy facilitate creativity in many types of discourse. minute pronounced /:minit/ is a noun meaning 'minut'. your Majesty. most assuredly. Example <<“I’m a poor man. Two meanings are historically related if they can be traced back to the same source. Polysemy seems to have a higher frequency in the language. Reinforcement Homonyms are words with (almost) identical graphical or sonorous form. They are word-forms belonging to distinct lexemes. or words pronounced alike but spelt differently: cereal . is the pun. Puns also lie at the core of much English humour and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland highly illustrates this. which do not necessarily coincide. and therefore tend to assume that they are different uses of the same word. Thus. desert (v) . and syllepsis. If two or more senses are related we recognize a case of polysemy. whereas pronounced /mai:nju:t/. we shall hang separately' (Benjamin Franklin). The pun is a humorous device consisting in the homonymic interpretation of the same word or phrase: 'We must all hang together. or if one meaning can be derived from the other. one historical and one psychological.3) homophones. given their potential for word-play.b. There are two answers. On the other hand. it is an eminently economical phenomenon based on the perception of analogies and establishment of rational associations. But we may ask what 'related' means. or. it is an adjective meaning ‘minuscul’.dessert (n) /di'z´:t/ c) Close semantic relatedness. mess 'dirty or untidy state of affairs' is derived historically from the now rare mess 'dish of food'. strong cigarette. thick.“The twinkling of what?” said the King.” the Hatter replied. Classify the following antonyms as gradable (G). Homonymy exists in all languages. or reversative (R): a. What is the opposite of: dry.e. “It began with the tea. In some cases a number of words share meaning. Now give the opposite of the following: dry wine. 9. complementary (C). 9. strong. Summary In this unit we have seen how words are related to one another on the basis of their meaning. as in He took his hat and his leave. rough. whereas the meaning of some words includes the meaning of others. wife/husband g. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) Syllepsis is a figure of speech implying the simultaneous use of the same lexical unit in two different senses or functions of which one is proper and the other figurative. “Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you take me for a dunce?”>> (Lewis Carroll. there is no semantic correspondence between the English homonyms and their translations. smoking/non-smoking c. a thick person.9. a rough sea. near/far d. in front of/behind 138 . students will not be able to enjoy the jokes based on them. wide/narrow b. Evaluation Evaluation A TO YMY 1. such as syllepsis or the pun. but the lexical units affected by it are different in most cases. in some others they have opposite meanings. i. hard? 2. defeat/lose to e. That is why literary translations should resort to puns existing in the target language. a hard exercise. 3. which may vary from those in the source language. where the second term (in its figurative use) is omitted in 'he took his leave'. innocent/guilty f. Without a sound knowledge of the semantic relation. Semantic relations are the basis of a number of some figures of speech.8. In fact. aren't you? e. A good friend is someone who is kind. I didn't mean to break it . c.you look ridiculous in them! l. Choose from the ones below: giddy chatty stingy intentional hopeless absurd mad pensive immature reliable disgraceful weird amiable famished conscious a. Take those trousers off . You are aware of the fact that he's married. m. Give a synonym for each of the underlined words in the following sentences. b. Charles has some really peculiar ideas sometimes! 139 . i. safe unsafe dangerous modest happy complete expensive interesting important perfect friendly polite correct honest certain flexible SY O YMY 5. WORD OPPOSITE SIMILAR MEANING e. I wish you'd grow up! You are so childish. Our new neighbours are very talkative. I could eat a horse! I'm really hungry. write that too.it wasn't deliberate. I always get very dizzy when I stand on the top of high buildings. n. considerate and totally dependable. Our new boss isn't too bad at all. g. she's quite likeable. k. cheap/expensive man/woman 4.h.he was completely insane. If there is another word that has approximately the same meaning. true/false i. There is only one way of describing Hitler . teacher/student k. What do you mean you can't afford to buy me a drink? Don't be so mean! You've got a lot more money than I have.g. You're looking rather thoughtful this morning. f. h. What is the opposite of the following words? Use the negative prefixes un-/ in/ im-/ dis-. d. o. We've lost the match! You played like a team of grannies! You were pathetic. That's the last time I go to a party with Simpson! His behaviour last night was absolutely disgusting. really. j. open/closed j. The ship .. rights? e..which one is a tree? c. raised an amendment. Rain / reign / rein . j...convention . to startle. a symbol.. to frighten c....reach k.......... There is no .......... Through hard work he .. to extinguish... a ghost.. Flea / flee . chocolates... all virtues and vices.. This .... in taking a few pills.. to commemorate..... i... Decide which word in each of the following groups is significantly different from the others. success.. 7. The USA have signed several . cannot be continued any longer.... The two leaders did not reach any .. The exhibition ... are a permanent danger to the world’s peace... use your dictionary.... 45......... The box . come ..which of them drenches you if you have no umbrella? d. Beach / beech ... Your statement does a(n) ... for delivering food to underdeveloped countries. q. o.... to douse.. and go! m. Bare / bear ....injury d.............. hold ... h. b. The question under .. damage .. wingless insect that feeds on the blood of human beings and some animals? g.. Can't you see this problem is beyond any ....harm ... to her reputation. a password....arrive at ..................? c...6......bargain ... Years...debate a. to honour b.. a phantom..... e. to smother d. If necessary..... p...which one means a small. Key / quay .....contain . agreement .. a spirit.... When does the train ... d... a. Military .... Mark the correct word: a...which one might continue next week? 140 . a logo e... The two characters ..contract .dispute ....by which do you agree to give up lands. Cereal / serial .. to commiserate.000 tons... The bombs caused great ....include n. to soothe..which one is a wild animal? f... to inflame. The two states have signed their first cultural .....pact . .... Cession / session .............which floats more frequently? b.. Fill in the blanks by choosing from the synonymic series the most adequate terms: controversy ... Boy / buoy ... some rare manuscripts..... a sign.treaty g.... a premonition HOMO YMY 8. the station? l. to the airport..which one does a boat come alongside? h....embody . to celebrate......... to alarm.. . thanks...... >Stop! You know the school rules .. Pair / pear .. HYPO YMY 10. f...which inherits and which is everywhere? k.. But.... . Ascent / assent . sir.. Air / heir .. Complement/ compliment ..... How can I get rid of my headache? >Hit your head against a window and the ...... Pail/ pale ......? >No..which one is used for knives... I like the colour it is now... Break / brake .. Berth / birth . soup. b..... A teacher saw two boys fighting in the playground. j. e.... What did the small shy stone say? >I wish I was a little .. I don't care what it's .. Why are black clouds like somebody riding a horse? >Because they both hold the ...which one is a sweet. Waiter.... Did you hear about the novelist who lived on the ninth floor of a block of >He dropped six .....which one is a praise? 9. Fair / fare .which one is a place for sleeping on a train or ship? q. What is it now? Have you ever hunted ....... What is the effect of seven days dieting? > They make one .... g..which one do you pay to be released from jail? o.. read/red stories/storeys rains/reins bean/been bolder/boulder pane/pain bare/bear allowed/aloud week/weak a......i. c..... into a wastepaper basket and lived.which one is a vessel for carrying liquids? n..... I always hunt with my clothes on.... The humour depends on homophones in each one..which one is a device which causes something else to slow down or stop whether it is a car or a desire? r.. tools? j. Fortune Teller: Would you like your palm .. juicy fruit? m. We were fighting quietly. . Which of the following statements are true? 141 . Steal / steel ....No fighting ..... what do you call this? > It's . Complete the following jokes.. we weren't fighting ..... will disappear...which one means 'approval'? p...... Bail / bale .....which do you pay on a bus? l. d.... sir? >Man: No.... flats? h. sir..... a) tennis is a hyponym of sport. c) plant is a superordinate of tree. i) bread is a co-hyponym of milk. g) game is a hyponym of sport. 142 . 1 Taxonomy is a structure in which we meet more general terms as we ascend to higher levels. h) poker is a hyponym of sport. b) cucumber and vegetable are co-hyponyms. Try to extend these taxonomies upwards and downwards and point out any difficulties or points of interest that arise. e) orange and tomato are co-hyponyms. d) calf is a hyponym of creature. j) disease is a superordinate of tuberculosis. f) chess is a hyponym of game. k) swing and toy are co-hyponyms. try to construct partial taxonomies1. On the basis of the answers you provided. Unit 10. Lexical strata in Contemporary English Contents 10.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 143 10.2. Competences ...................................................................................................... 143 10.3. Diachronic lexical strata .................................................................................. 144 10.3.1. Archaisms........................................................................................................ 144 10.3.2. eologisms ..................................................................................................... 146 10.4. Synchronic lexical strata.................................................................................... 149 10.4.1. Technical words ............................................................................................. 150 10.4.2. Slang ............................................................................................................... 151 10.4.2. 1.Sociolinguistic aspects of slang ................................................................... 152 10.4.2.2. Cant.............................................................................................................. 154 10.4.2.3. Argot ............................................................................................................ 154 10.4.2.4. Jargon .......................................................................................................... 155 10.4.3. Vulgar terms.................................................................................................... 156 10.4.4. Dialecticisms................................................................................................... 156 10.5. Summary ............................................................................................................ 157 10.6. Evaluation ......................................................................................................... 157 10.7. H omework .......................................................................................................... 159 10.1 Introduction This last unit aims at presenting the various lexical strata that can be encountered in Contemporary English. It also points out the problems the words belonging to various lexical strata pose in understanding different types of texts. Furthermore, it shall help students identify which lexical stratum is appropriate to particular social and professional circumstances. 10.2. Competences Once the students have finished studying unit 10, they are expected to be able to make the distinction between literary and colloquial English, to identify whether a word is archaic or newly borrowed/created and to adapt their vocabulary to the social and professional contexts of use. Time envisaged for covering Unit 10: 2 hours. 143 The English vocabulary is built up of lexical units which are stylistically differentiated according to their history and persistence in time. By taking the stylistic differences into consideration, lexical units may be grouped into lexical (stylistic) strata. The criteria of determining lexical strata are diachrony and synchrony. Diachronic lexical strata are chronologically determined, whereas synchronic lexical strata must be considered as the totality of lexical units subordinated to the linguistic phenomena manifestly acting in a certain period. 10.3. DIACHRO IC LEXICAL STRATA 10.3.1. Archaisms As we read texts dating from earlier centuries, we may carry over into our speech or writing linguistic peculiarities from the earlier texts. We may also carry them over from texts we hear, such as in theatrical performances, literary recitals and the Church liturgy. Such carryovers are known as archaisms. Thus, swine is the archaic word for 'pig'; ass is the archaic form for ‘donkey’. Such archaic forms are chiefly used for literariness or for irony. Archaisms cover words, as well as meanings and pronunciations that have become old-fashioned or that have been completely excluded from common usage. One should distinguish between: a) grammatical archaisms: -the ending –est in the second person singular of verbs in the present: thou speakest ‘you speak’; thou hast spoken ‘you have spoken’; -the use of two or even more than two negations in one and the same sentence: That cannot be so neither (Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona); Thou hast spoken no word all this while - nor understood none neither). -the use of two relative pronouns: ‘Men shal wel knowe who that I am’. (Caxton, 1485, quoted in Lightfoot, 1979:322) b) phonetic archaisms: words that have undergone changes in their spelling or/and pronunciation in the course of time: hath ‘has’, tough/thee ‘you’, thy ‘your’. c) lexical archaisms: words which have disappeared from the everyday language of the speakers, and which can be still encountered in poetry or historical works, where they create a certain atmosphere, e.g. brow ‘forehead’, morn ‘morning’ According to the persistence in the language, archaisms can be classified into: a. Absolute archaisms (archeologisms/obsolete words) – these are lexical, grammatical or phonetic units that have disappeared from the language altogether. The denoted objects, 144 phenomena, actions, relations, qualities have not lost their reality or use, but their denominations have been replaced by equivalents: e.g. ferne was replaced by ‘remote’, thou/thee and the adjective thy disappeared completely from the language in the 18th century, except in certain dialects and poetry. b. Relative archaisms are words, meanings or constructions that have been excluded from common usage but are still used occasionally in functional styles, dialects, etc. Relative archaisms may be classified, in their turn, into: b.1) potential archaisms, i.e. words, meanings or constructions of limited currency at present. This limitation is due to the replacement of their denominations by equivalents. Potential archaisms often occur in poetry, and they are also called ‘poetisms’. Here are some examples: brow ‘forehead’, ere ‘before’, foe ‘enemy’, morn ‘morning’ The deliberate usage of archaisms is a distinctive feature of the English romantic poetry, represented by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats, who adorned their verses with poetisms. The following fragments are meant as illustration: Example Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, The mourn the marshalling in arms – the day Battle’s magnificently stern array. (Byron's Childe Harold: The Eve of Waterloo) My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams; The morn was clouded, but no shower fell, Tho’in her lids hung the sweet tears of May; The open casement pressed a new-leaved vine Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay...(John Keats: Ode on Indolence) Potential archaisms are also characteristic of fairy-tales, anecdotes and other folklore productions: ‘Thou shalt not repent thy deed’ quoth the golden fish. (The Golden Fish) Specific archaisms are still in use in the official style, some examples of this kind being hereof ‘of this’, thereafter ‘after that’, whereas ‘since, because’, thereof ‘from that cause’, etc. b.2) historisms are words that once denominated objects, phenomena, actions, relations which have lost in time their reality, use or topicalization. Such words have 145 psychoanalysis (psychology). corticosterone.3. dud (a shell that did not explode). sonogram. Walter Scott’s historical novels are good examples in point. designating as neologisms all new words (borrowings. a sport consisting of an encounter between two mounted knights). and war bride. scientific and technical notions (also called terms) being almost daily introduced into the vocabulary. as it was of memorable songs. 146 . radium (chemistry). cootie. eologisms The term was derived from the Greek neo ‘new’ and logos ‘word’ in order to denominate the new words of a language. antiaircraft gun. in accordance with the requirements of man’s activity in various specialized domains. Historisms are such examples as thegn (Anglo-Saxon ‘nobleman’). newly created words. tournament (in the Middle Ages. slacker. being used by writers especially in historical novels in order to create an appropriate atmosphere. trench foot. Some of these military terms are: as air raid. In establishing the neologic character of a word. A certain word is a neologism as long as it is felt as a novelty by the native speaker of the language and as long as it has a low frequency in everyday usage. 10.nowadays only a historical documentary value. Here are some examples picked out from the terminology of several fields of science: galvanoplasty (metallurgy). tank and blimp. two factors should be taken into account: time and frequency. schizophrenia. CAT (computer axial tomography). (an orthodontic technique in which a plastic resin is used to alter the shape of teeth) (medicine). witan (Anglo-Saxon ‘the king’s council). egocentric. cosmetic bonding. Nevertheless it made its contribution to the language in the form of certain new words. We may observe some of the words that came into English between 1914 and 1918 as a direct consequence of World War I. apocope (linguistics). gleeman (Anglo-Saxon ‘wandering minstrel’). words that existed in the language but only recently received attention). and a restricted one. nitroglycerine. extrovert. It would seem that World War II was less productive of memorable words. New realities bring about new words.2. There are two meanings attached to it: a broad one. new meanings. or an increased currency for expressions that had been used before. etc. The World Wars represent an example of how great developments or events leave their mark upon language. designating only those words which were recently borrowed. Placido (British slang) refers to the sum of ₤10. Thus. Jeffrey Archer is also a well-known British novelist. aerial. hacker. Here are some examples. fade-out. VCR (television). dive-bombing. then deputy and chairman of the Conservative Party had to resign his seat in the Parliament. microphone (radio). cable TV. blockbuster.000 bracket in the advertising industry. Seymour indicates a six-figure salary. This Mr. More recent terms would be: bogusware (a computer software intended to damage the computer it is used with). RAM (random-access memory). representing a particular activity that can be or is being carried out by the computer). modem. The term derives from Placido Domingo. blitz. spark plug. gearshift/lever. ot a Penny More. choke. etc. to mop up. Seymour was reputed to have been the first to step into ₤100. film and broadcasting have brought more new words into general use. windshield/screen. we have learned new words or new meanings in carburetor.other terms with military/political significance: to spearhead an attack. Jeffrey Archer2. clutch. three-D (film). byte.000. close-up. and to appease New scientific discoveries and inventions. A couple of neological term related to the financial sector entered the British vocabulary. not a Penny Less 2 147 . computer. a much larger number of English speakers found the need of computer terms in their daily work: PC. projector. From the world of film. teleprompter. phantom bug (a bug deliberately and maliciously inserted into a computer program in order to spoil it). Archer (British slang) refers to the sum of ₤2. radio and television we have such words as screen. loud-speaker.Example -air raid terms: blackout. DOS (disk operating system). This coinage is apparently based on the name of a creative director of the advertising agency Saatchi&Saatchi in the early 1980s. power steering. Some of his best-sellers are Kane and Abel. With the widespread manufacturing and marketing of personal computers during the 1980s. turbocharger. lead-in. convertible. and vaccine. videotape. stand-by. The Prodigal Daughter. telethon. . download. When allegations appeared in a newspaper that he had paid a prostitute this sum. or keprom (an abbreviation from key-access erasable programmable read-only memory. earcon (an audio signal produced by a computer. punningly based on his occupation as an operatic tenor (tenner). such as the automobile. ROM (read-only memory). it is a computer chip’s erasable reprogrammable memory with an electronic lock to protect programs). spam. reel. software. ..... whom no chance can invade... The abler soule. meaning ‘to have an unpleasant secret’.. . which enjoy wide circulation owing to the impact of science and technology of modern life. but... Many writers try to innovate in the linguistic field either by coining words...... or made only once or for a special occasion).... riding side by side on their hobbies’ (from Marryat’s Midshipman Easy). We have such an example in the quotation above: the word interinanimates was coined by the author himself but it was never used again. or by using a device called stylistic derivation which may be effected: -by means of reduction: e. satellite.. -by paraphrase: in Hamlet we encounter the following line: ‘With an auspicious and a dropping eye’.the Atomies of which we grow Are soules.. but their currency is low because of their strict specialization...... ‘Then what’s the skeleton?’ (In Galsworthy’s The White Monkey) based on the saying ‘to have a skeleton in the closet’...g... they may acquire stylistic value if used on purpose in other contexts. However........ echography. These are neologisms which have been borrowed although more adequate equivalents already existed in 148 ..they were a very happy couple.. .. Such neologisms are called nonce words (occurring.. with one another so Interinanimates two soules... From the stylistic point of view... Defects of loneliness controules.. used. television. like any other words in the language.... inspired by the proverb ‘Every man has his hobby-horse’ (meaning ‘everybody has a favourite subject or idea’). -by mixed means: ‘.. We have to mention the fact that neologisms are accepted in the standard language only if they are felt as necessary. When they are obviously superfluous.Neologisms are very numerous in modern languages. nonce words resemble barbarisms. and the romantic poets did not hesitate to use them beside archaisms. The English so-called ‘metaphysic poets’ had a propensity for neologisms.. which thence doth flow... which seems to have been inspired from the old English saying ’to cry with an eye and laugh with the other’.. neologisms are usually neutral if used in scientific and technical texts...... Otherwise they rapidly fall into the category of absolute archaisms. like telephone. We reproduce below an illustrative Example Here is an illustrative quotation from John Donne’s The Extasie: When love. there are terms.. like John Donne.... He told a funny antidote (anecdote).B. 10. sometimes obtain the reverse by creating not merely barbarisms. He is a very pineapple of politeness’. you overpower me with good-breeding. Malaprop spoke of an allegory (meaning an 'alligator') on the banks of the Nile. Synchronic survey of the structure of the English vocabulary FOREIGN AR C H AI C G T H EC AN SL SC NI IE CA NT L IF IC written COMMON spoken medium DI AL EC TA L VU A LG R 149 . etc. . 1973:X) Figure 1. a character in R. . Mrs. sputnik (satellite).The doctor said I was suffering from nerves and high potential (hypotension). effluvium (odour). In Act III of the above-mentioned play she produces the following lines: ‘Sir. (Distress is exerted on her just like hydrostatic power). it gives me the hydrostatics to such a degree’.She went into historics (hysterics). Sheridan’s play ‘The Rivals’). Thus. but the so-called malapropisms (from the name of Mrs. . Some people desiring to polish their language in order to show off. with which they sound more or less alike. (Apart).4. SY CHRO IC LEXICAL STRATA The following represents a traditional synchronic survey of the structure of the English vocabulary based on a diagram given in the introduction to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED. . Example Here are some other examples of malapropisms: -I compute to Manchester (commute). Malaprop.The doctor listened to her chest with his periscope (stethoscope). ‘Oh. These are words substituted for other words (usually neologic in character). Here are some examples: au pair (baby-sitter).the language. (She imagines that exotic fruit enjoy careful ‘breeding’). the term technical does not refer strictly to ‘the language of technique’. good. bad. namely technical. Some of the terms overlap (for example scientific words and technical words). Colloquial English. we have the specialized language of chemists (containing such items as ‘inert gases’. they are encountered in personal letters and newspaper articles). ‘iodine’. but also encompasses specialized words (with the exception of scientific words. as the epithet implies. green.The representation starts out from the assumption that the vocabulary of English contains a large central area. which belong to the literary language). Technical words In English. father. and social classes. slang. literary and slang cover only the vocabulary.1. cant and vulgar cannot be considered ‘language’ in themselves: they are only terms referring to certain elements of the language. of soldiers. Thus. we shall present in more details the sub-types of colloquial English. grammar. From Common English upwards. styles. is that of spoken conversation. vulgar and dialectal. very. ‘valence’). in all stylistic and social strata. We can say. because there is no such language as vulgar English. while some others are quite different since they refer to different individual elements of the language or to different combinations of such individual elements. with respect to the lexicon. for example: he speaks dialect.e. Colloquial forms are also typical of the informal writing style (for example. of students. economics and politics. if they have the formal characteristics of nomenclature. come. Some clarification of the terminology seems to be in order here. standard includes all elements (i. As empirical objects are 150 . The 'core' contains such words as to be. 10. This stratum contains the vocabulary belonging to the domains of reference which the specialists are concerned with.4. and moreover in the formal style. This concept of common English. is equivalent. one clearly delimited set of referents per words. ‘gybe’). conventional but not formal. and so on. The forms referred to as literary are mainly encountered in the written language of poetry and science. Technical vocabularies are considered good. ‘clove-hitch’. vocabulary. pronunciation). which is common to all media.e. They will not be given any special marking in the lexicon. In what follows. whereas downwards there are colloquial forms. to the ‘common core’ which is present in all varieties of English. of handicraft. of sailors (containing such items as ’starboard. i. we have literary forms. Thus. namely to words. symbolized by COMMON. easy without being slovenly. chair. vulgar refers mainly to vocabulary and grammar. but we cannot say he speaks vulgar English. The colloquial speech. run). For instance. reach. we cannot list all the terms (and only the terms) belonging to it. This is filled by paraphrases such as rough sea. on the other hand. Each of these nomenclatures is open.4. Slang One mark of informal style is the frequent occurrence of slang.often not as obviously delimited. one for different types of wave (surf. hitches and bends is controversial even among specialists. one for steering different courses (including gybe. for instance. turnabout. i. There is no obvious linguistic relation between the lexical field (say) of knots and of wave types. Leisi (1985:186) is of the opinion that ‘it would be better to reserve the term slang for the perky and cheerful elements of the specialized language’. nor can we determine boundaries for what is and what is not a sailor’s technical vocabulary. avy Slang. In such cases. reach. rough water. This would be acceptable.F. such that a definition satisfying one person or authority would seem inadequate to another because the prime focus is different. When used by young people and within a closed circle of members (students. The linguist Paul Roberts (1958) has defined slang as one of those things that everybody can recognize and nobody can define. in fact. The field of wave types contains an obvious gap for ‘waves caused by blowing wind in mid-ocean’. very few technical vocabularies reach this ideal. 10. run a ternary set of antonyms. The sailor is certainly professionally concerned with tides.e. where definitions at best are often imprecise and leaky. The sailor’s terminology has more or less obvious subdivisions. these specialized phrases can be very 'distinct'. but it would not contribute to the clarification of which words should be considered technical and which slang. soldiers. Creating clearly delimited domains of reference isomorphic to nomenclatures is the aim of scientific theories. But what is SLANG? In linguistics. but does the word tide belong to his professional vocabulary? On the one hand. R. reef knot. tack. Slang. It contains more than one nomenclature. a nomenclature for knots (including clove-hitch. Army Slang.2. technical language can acquire a shade of cheerfulness. Consider the sailor’s technical vocabulary. sheet bend). the term slang will be more appropriate: thus we have Public School Slang. gybe and turnabout form a pair of antonyms. they can intermingle with slang. that of ‘slang’ is especially notorious. sportsmen). But. tack. swell). as we need them for an easy nomenclature. we substitute for them the clearly delimited entities of our theories. The problem is one of complexity.A. But the division of the field of knots into the three sub-fields of knots. etc. The Oxford Dictionary defines slang as 'the 151 . we must note that some of these traditional spawning grounds for slang have lost their productivity. For example.language of a highly colloquial type. although the contributions of all these persist in the substrata of current slang. Other undercultures contributing heavily are those of hoboes. Even the harmless word joke was once slang. Sports also make a much larger contribution. 152 . of jazz musicians. but continually straying or forcing its way into most respectable company’. But a couple of decades ago. Criminals and police (cops and robbers) still make their often identical contributions. general adoption of terms from gypsies. slang is a part of language and cannot be ignored or dismissed with a contemptuous sneer. One reason why slang cannot be ignored even by the strictest purists is that it has not infrequently furnished expressions that purists use without suspecting their origin. In the 1980s. of cowboys. 10. whose cant or argot still provides a respectable number of unrespectable terms. Even students of language are constantly surprised when they come across words that they use naturally and with entire propriety but find questioned or condemned by writers of a generation or a few generations before.1. Slang emerged from the special languages of subcultures. always hanging on the outskirts of legitimate speech.2. Sociolinguistic aspects of slang. of show-business workers. and that other subcultures have emerged to replace them. of business workers. of soldiers and sailors. of the police. Greenough and Kittredge (1905) (quoted in Baugh & Cable. including the prison population. 1991:307) define slang as ‘a peculiar kind of vagabond language. Yet. or perhaps we should call the more despised of them ‘undercultures’. of all sorts of students. considered as below the level of standard educated speech. But several centres of gravity have shifted greatly during the past fifty years. Teenagers and students can still be counted on for innovation.4. and of immigrant or ethnic populations cutting across these other subcultures. people condemned it as slang and expressed horror at hearing it. of gamblers. Terms from the drug scene have multiplied astronomically. of athletes and their fans. cowboys has very nearly ceased. The expression what on earth seems to be an idiomatic intensive and certainly would not be objected to in the speech of anyone today. The group studied longest and most persistently has been the criminal underworld itself. of gypsies. and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense’. American sock/gumboot (condome). or a drug user. ►criminal’s world: bullpen (prison: a cell or secure area where prisoners are kept temporarily). Secondary slang is a matter of stylistic choice rather than true identification’ (Chapman. boom-boom (sexual activity). fish (a new prison inmate). Examples of this are the computer milieu and the hospital-medical-nursing complex. and in the other the reason is television. ►sex: to get one’s rocks off (to have an orgasm). hubba (a chip or pellet of crack). Chapman (1987) classifies slang into two groups. blue cheer (LSD). Robert L. And it would be wrong to restrict the range of their contribution to sex terms alone. especially male homosexuals. or a criminal. In the matter of sex. bunny fuck (very quick sexual act). basuco (the residue that remains after refining cocaine. fairy (mail homosexual). observant and modish. 1987:xiii). barbs (barbiturates). superiority. and so forth – and hence to express one’s contempt. to get (to get relief or pleasure from a dose of narcotics). namely ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ slang.Some sources of the slang are entirely new. Much of the teenage talk. chippy joint (a brothel). –in need of narcotics). Secondary slang is chosen not so much to fix one in a group as to express one’s attitude and resourcefulness by pretending to be a member of a street gang. to freak out (to have intense hallucinations and other reactions from drugs). Here are some examples of slang terms belonging to various spheres: ►drugs: yellow jacket (a capsule of narcotics). and the speech of urban street gangs. bonehead play (an error. chicken colonel (a full colonel)). so very natural to its speakers that it seems they must be mute without it. ►army: bobtail (a dishonourable discharge). one caused by bad judgment). or a gambler. In the first case an exciting technological inundation is at the base. would be examples of primary slang. bong (a pipe for smoking marijuana. our period has witnessed a great increase in the number of terms taken over from homosexuals. Primary slang is the ‘pristine speech of subculture members. eighty-four (WW II – a naval prison). since the gay population merges with so many others that are educated. 153 . esp. ►sports: blind-side (v) (to tackle or block from an unseen quarter). used as a drug). bogue (adj. booby trap (WW2 –a hidden explosive charge designed to set off by some ordinary act). and cleverness by borrowing someone else’s verbal dress. witty. C-note (a $100 bill). But the term argot may also be applied to the specialized terminology of a profession or trade. case. morpheme. snow (cocaine). as if flapping their wings). Cant and argot are nearly synonyms. in the language of homosexuals it means 'a heterosexual person'. sl.4.2. bone (a diligent student). though most are considered slang: payolo (undercover or indirect payment for a commercial favour). and originating on the coast of South Carolina). typically catchy melodic phrase in a popular musical composition. sawbuck (a $10 bill). blush wine (rosé wine). ►miscellaneous: to drag somebody kicking and screaming in the 21st century (to force to recognize or adapt to change). To two-finger (to pickpocket). argot and jargon 10. and lugger (con-man – from ‘confidence man’) are some cant terms. One speaks of ‘thieves’ cant’ or a ‘thieves’ argot’.3. We may differentiate certain types of slang: cant. it refers to 'a weak opponent'). lip fuzz (moustache). a coconut head (derog. Indicating that he didn’t know what plaintiff meant brought a chide from the attorney: “You mean you came into this court as a witness and don’t know what plaintiff means?” Later. whereas in the slang of sports.4. hook (a repeated. bogue (adj. highly spiced burger). in jazz style and not necessarily a wind instrument). Other such terms have made their way from underground to overground. It was once defined as ‘the Sicilian dialect of Italian’. chicken-dancing (a type of dancing to pop music in which participants raise and lower their arms bent-elbowed. ►student’s language: blob (a mistake). 10. unattractive). CA T is a term that means ‘slang used by the underworld’. style and so on. the interior is white). it means 'a member of a street gang'. eighty-eights (a piano). esp.2. ARGOT. fuzzy navel (a cocktail made from peach schnapps and orange juice). bush (a beard. Katie bar the door! (get ready for trouble). beach music (a style of American pop music based on black soul music and rhythm & blues. the sailor was asked 154 . Linguistic argot consists of terms such as phoneme.) (disgusting. The existence of argots is illustrated by the story of a seaman witness being cross-examined at a trial. fish (in the slang of street-gangs. huffer (a long roll or section of French bread with a sandwich-style filling). ‘a black person who adopts white cultural characteristics’ – the exterior is brown.►music: blow (to play a musical instrument. and are understood by nearly all. whiskers). ditz (stupid person).2. ►food and drinks: belly-bomber (a small. to hang paper (to write ‘bum’ checks). who was asked if he knew the plaintiff. lexical item. bogue (n) (a cigarette). e.4. was the reply. hack (derived from hackney and used to designate any journalist. shades (eye-glasses). lawyers all use special terms of their trade. chick (young woman). firemen. 155 .4. Here are some examples: ►journalese: tail-coat politics (pejoratively. Practically. a cut and paste job (surgical procedure in which a patient is opened up and then sewn up without performance of any other surgery). “Abaft the binnacle”. JARGO . to split (to leave. doctors. 10. to part). but only a small number of specific words and phrases. yes children garage police station police accelerator understand? tyres stop for the lavatory driving on hard shoulder Evel Knievel motorcyclist eyeballs headlights five-finger stolen goods grandma lane slow lane highballing moving fast affirmative anklebiters barn bear den bears boot rest copy? doughnuts drain the radiator dusting jockey lettuce lollipop mobile mattress motionlotion organ grinding pitstop rubber duck slappers smokey on rubber smokey’s balloon stack super cola tags wrapper driver paper money signpost car and caravan fuel making love lay-by first convoy truck wipers police on patrol breath test exhaust beer plates car This type of slang is of low currency and has no basic word-stock or grammatical structure of its own. snapper (photographer taking snap-shots). trade.g.where he was standing when the boat lurched. ►medical jargon: the big C (cancer).2. has the non-cant definition of argot. and occupation has its own jargon: truck drivers. Example David Crystal (1990:102) provided us with a long list of trucker jargon. schoolteachers. but felt as pejorative if used by somebody who doesn’t belong to the group). in one of its meanings. with no personality). The argot vocabulary is made up of common words and phrases with changed meaning (usually metaphors. mechanics. a summer squash/a vegetable (an unresponsive patient who has little or no brain function). every conceivable profession. linguists. and to the attorney’s questioning stare he responded: “You mean you came into this court and don’t know where abaft the binnacle is?”. bush refers to the ‘countryside’. Dialecticisms are words and phrases of current usage only in restricted dialectal areas (but they sometimes penetrate into the common language and even into the language of poetry and proverbs. shore (drain). 10. A kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful speech. It is particularly clear in these cases that the social value of a word is just a matter of convention. usually of whisky). like faeces. Some of the British English terms are employed with different meanings in Australian English. 2. flesher (butcher).3.4. since other words with precisely the same meanings are not taboo (though they may be unrestricted for use as technical terms. Jargon spreads from a narrow group until it is used and understood by a large segment of population. Eventually it may lose its special status as either jargon or slang and gain entrance into the respectable circle of formal usage. For many people.4. mannerly (well-mannered). loch (lake). the effect of linguistic taboo is to give these words extra value as symbols of protest. banshee (ghost. similar to slang. for instance. or with children. and Sheila is not a proper noun but a common one. female spirit warning of death in a house). made up typically of short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness. argot or jargon: thieves' slang 10. cog (cheat). a tube is ‘a can of beer’. 156 . Language peculiar to a group. beyond the bayonds (incredible).Many jargon terms. mob stands for ‘a flock of sheep’. meaning ‘woman’. dram (drink. Vulgar terms (‘four letter words’) are words that ought never to be used. blather (talk nonsense). Reinforcement The term slang can have the following basic meanings: 1. pinkie (little finger). to travel (to go on foot). tiny). a station is a ‘sheep farm’. Thus. bern/bairn (child). Here are a few examples: ►from Scottish: wee (small. irreverence. yoke (thingummy). if hardy comes to hardy (if the worst comes to the worst) good scram to you (good luck to you). bold (naughty). humor. pass into the standard language. ►from Irish: airy (light-hearted). aye (yes). bony (beautiful).4. like poo-poo). but observe the convention to the extent that from birth to death they never say them. nevertheless. Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve). burn (stream). or other effect. provost (mayor). Many people know these words (such as shit). clachlan (small village). Some very picturesque expressions can be encountered in New Zealand English. colloquial. 'twere best not know myself. A little water clears us with deed.5. Find archaisms (lexical.) Hark! more knocking. How easy it is then! Your constancy Hath left you unattended.6. Enter Lady Macbeth. but I shame To wear a heart so white. (Knock). Summary In this last chapter we have tried to help students increase their mastery of English vocabulary from the technical. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst. In figure 1 they are close neighbours and the areas of vocabulary denoted by them merge and interpenetrate. Get on your nightgown. The further we get to the periphery. To know my deed. I hear a knocking At the south entry. scientific and other domains by acquiring recurrent morphemes and words incorporating them in the appropriate contexts of communication. lest occasion calls us And show us to be watchers. slang. Lady. Making the green one red. Evaluation 1. 10. The radial lines connect the peripheral and the central areas of the vocabulary.to be mad as a maggot = to be crazy . Knock. phonetic and grammatical) in the following fragment from Shakespeare's Macbeth: Clean from my hand? o. this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine. Be not lost So poorly in our thoughts. as we have seen. My hands are of your color.hook your mutton = go away! .to be up the boohai = to be lost or baffled It is true that all the categories of words presented have no sharp boundaries. the more we depart from the common vocabulary of common English. and vulgar cannot be precisely and unambiguously defined. Retire we to our chamber. 10. Macbeth. (Knock. 157 .let the hare sit = take it easy . literary. Thus. Here are some of them: Example . Can you guess the meanings of the following neologisms? If not. and we will gladly refund you. to awfulize. s) There's something else I'd like to ask you. sandwich generation. could you possibly put a cold buffet in my room on the 22nd? r) I hope that's right. I'll sleep anywhere! d) I have a further request. and that you've recovered from the busy Christmas period. golden shares. joe. informal (colloquial) English. Find examples of English 'barbarisms' in Romanian. c. For the following examples of formal style. as I find the front rooms rather noisy? m) Could you put me up for a few days? n) Just a sandwich will do. 6. I'm sideways. some others scientific. 3. look the words up in a dictionary. say how they may be expressed in a more neutral style. Match the Standard English words with their dialectal equivalents: 158 .Exeunt. rice burner. and put them in the right order. DDT. How does formal English differ from the informal (colloquial) language? Letter to a friend Letter to a hotel a) I would like a single room with a shower. l) Could I possibly have a room at the back. f) I hope the above is convenient. e) I would like to make a reservation for the nights of 22nd. Note: some of the neologisms are colloquial. a. c) I don't mind where you put me. data capture. q) As I will be arriving quite late. b) I'm writing to ask you a favour. please return them starting date and place of purchase. rock and roll. d. k) I would be extremely grateful. the shaft. 2. b. 23rd. icon. 4. Please vacate this seat should an elderly or infirm person require it. Decide which sentences go with which letter. 5. p) It's the 22nd . Formal vs. and 24th of January. i) Could I have a bite to eat when I arrive? j) I hope you are all well. and the other to a friend. to shoot oneself in the foot. bubble. jet set. o) I look forward to your reply. Should the goods not meet with your entire satisfaction. proceed to the nearest exit point. One is written to a hotel. automall. In the event of fire. g) Write soon and let me know. h) I'm coming down to London at the end of the month to go to a conference. Here are two jumbled letters. Diners are requested to refrain from smoking in this section of the restaurant.24th January. GATED OUT INK ISSUE KITE P. to play d. cake h. P. sandshoes (Scottish) 6. bairn (Northern dialect) 4. valley 10. child f. pumps c.7.P.Standard a. coomb (Wlesh) 2. badger g.O. PROGRAM PRUNO ROLLED UP SHU SHANK SLEEVED STAFF ADMINISTRATIVE SEGREGATION A CRIME 1 YEAR PERIOD OF TIME CORRECTIONAL OFFICER INSTITUTIONAL WRITE UP HOUSING UNIT GENERAL PRISON POPULATION RELEASED FROM PRISON TATTOO YOUR ORIGINAL CRIME NOTE OR LETTER PROTECTIVE CUSTODY PAROLE OFFICER HOW A PRISONER DOES HIS TIME ILLEGAL HOME MADE PRISON ALCOHOL ARRESTED SECURITY HOUSING UNIT PRISON MADE KNIFE ARMS COVERED WITH TATTOOS CUSTODY PERSONNEL 159 . peak i.C. brock (Welsh) 5. backend (Northern dialect) 3. to lake (Lower Northern dialect) 7. Does any relationship hold between the original meaning and the slang meaning of these terms? AD SEG BEEF BULLET C/O CHRONO DORM G. bannock 9. ear b. Account for the change in meaning of the slang terms. HOMEWORK III Dialectal 1. lug (Scottish) Consider the following prison slang terms and their meanings. autumn e. tor (Welsh) 8. com/slang.convictsandcops.htm 160 .TATS YOLKED TIER TIPPED UP TOPPED OUT YARD TATTOOS MUSCULAR LEVELS OR STORIES IN A HOUSING UNIT GANG AFFILIATED OFF PAROLE OUTDOOR RECREATION AREA Source: http://www. An Outline of English Lexicology. Bucureşti Peculea. Th. An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation. V. Penguin Books. Tübingen 161 . Editura didactică şi pedagogică. D. et al. (1990). (1970). An Elementary Course in English. (1973). The English Language. L. Harmondsworth Iarovici. (1992). Editura didactică şi pedagogică. A. L. (1973). London Crystal. (1990). P. Longman. (1993). & Cable. Max Niemeyer Verlag. Lexicologie. London Baugh. Bucureşti Levitchi. E. Brasov Lipka. Limba engleza contemporana.Bibliography Adams. A History of the English Language. "Transilvania' University Press. Routledge. The History of the English Language.