Branches of linguistics. Synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study. Lexicology – ‘the science of the word’
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The Functional Classification Prof. Alexander I. Smirnitskiy Лексикология английского языка (1956) -the functional approach proceeds from the assumption that PhU may be defined as non-motivated word-groups functioning as word-equivalents; -the functional approach seeks to establish formal criteria of idiomaticity by analysing the syntactic functions of PhU by analysing the syntactic function of PhU in speech; -semantic inseparability and grammatical inseparability of PhU are viewed as the aspects of idiomaticity which enables to regard them semantically and grammatically equivalent to single words; -PhUn are characterised by a single stylistic reference irrespective of the number and nature of the component words.
-two-summit and multi-summit (двухвершинные или многовершинные), which have two or more meaningful constituents. According to the parts of speech of the summit constituents, one-summit units are subdivided into: -verbal-adverbial units, the semantic and grammatical centres are in the first component, e.g. to give up, to put through, to get up etc.; -units equivalent to verbs, their semantic centre being in the second component and the grammatical centre – in the first one, e.g. to be surprised, to be tired etc.; --prepositional-substantive units equivalent either to adverbs or to copulas, their semantic centre being in the nominal constituent and no grammatical centre, e.g. by heart, by means of etc. According to the parts of speech of the summit constituents, two-summit units are subdivided into: -attribute-substantive units equivalent to nouns, e.g. black art, couch potato, dark horse, Dutch courage, rough diamond etc.; -verb-substantive units equivalent to verbs, e.g. to take the floor, to break the ice, to lose one’s heart, not to lift a finger etc.; -phraseological repetions equivalent to adverbs, e.g. now and never etc.; -adverbial multi-summit unts, e.g. every other day etc. The Structural-Semantic Classification Prof. Alexander V. Kunin Английская фразеология (1970) -Phraseology is regarded as a self-contained branch of linguistics and not as part of lexicology. -Phraseology deals with a phraseological subsystem of the language and not with isolated PhU. -Phraseology is concerned with all types of set expressions. -Semantically set expressions fall into phraseological units with fully or partially transferred meanings, phraseomatic units with components used in their literal meanings and border-line cases. -Phraseological and phraseomatic units are not regarded as word-equivalents, but some of them are treated as word correlates. -Set-expressions are ready-made units not created in speech; they are not elements of individual style but language units; they are characterised by lexical and semantic stability. According to the communicative function determined by their structural-semantic features four classes of set-expressions are defined: nominating units denote extralingual entities, e.g. as the crow flies; nominating-communicative verbal phrases can be transformed into a sentence when used in the passive voice, e.g. to break the ice – the ice is broken; to pull somebody’s leg – somebody’s leg is pulled. interjectional units express emotions, e.g. a pretty kettle of fish, by George! communicative units are proverbs, sayings, quotations whose structure is similar to that of a sentence, e.g. Familiarity breeds contempt. The Formal Classification Types of phraseological units: -nominal phrases: the root of trouble; - verbal phrases: the break the news; - adjectival phrases: as good as gold, head and shoulders over sb; - adverbial phrases: in the long run, from head to foot, by heart; - conjunctional phrases: on the one hand, as long as; - prepositional phrases: in the course of sth; - interjectional: Well, I never! Phraseological units functioning like nouns: N + N maiden name N’s + N cat’s paw, ladies’ man N + prep + N the arm of the law N + subordinate clause ships that pass in the night Phraseological units functioning like verbs: V +N to take advantage V + postpositive to give up V + and + V to pick and choose V + one’s + N + prep to snap one’s fingers at V + one + N to give one the bird V+subordinate clause to see how the land lies Phraseological units functioning like adjectives: A + A high and mighty A + as + N as old as the hills Phraseological units functioning like adverbs: N + N tooth and nail prep + N by heart, of course adv + prep + A + N once in a blue moon prep + N + or + N by hook or by crook Phraseological units functioning like interjections: imperative sentences: Bless (one’s) soul!, God bless you! According to their origins, phraseological units in Modern English may be divided into: native, e.g. to eat the humble pie ‘to submit to humiliation’ < ME to eat umble pie (umbles ‘the internal organs of a deer’); to save for a rainy day; to beat about the bush ‘not to speak openly and directly’; to lose one’s rag ‘to lose one’s temper’ etc.; borrowed, which, in their turn, can be either intralingual (borrowed from American English and other variants of English) or interlingual (borrowed from other languages). 37. Polysemy, synonymy and stylistic features of phraseological units. Semantic Aspect of Phraseological Units Absolute synonyms (identical in meaning and stylistic connotations): break one’s word = depart from one’s word; bring (drive) to the bay = drive (force) to the wall; like lightning = with lightning speed = like a streak of lightning; Ideographic synonyms denote different shades of common meaning, e.g. to come to / arrive at / jump at / leap at a conclusion. In other cases, they differ in intensity of a given meaning: to have two minds – to be in twenty minds; to be in one’s cups ‘tipsy’ – to be drunk as a skunk ‘drunk and incapable’; Stylistic synonyms (appropriate only to definite contexts): What on earth is this? – What the hell is this? on the Greek calends – When pigs fly. Polysemy of phraseological units: to be on the go – 1) be energetic; 2) keep doing smth; 3) be in a hurry; 4) be drunk. Phraseological units may contain different figures of speech. metaphor, i.e. the transference of the name based on the association of similarity between two referents, e.g. a lame duck, in a nutshell, to swallow the pill; simile, e.g. as old as the hills, as good as gold, as cross as two sticks; metonymy, i.e. the transference of name based on the association f contiguity (an attribute or adjunct is substituted for the thing meant), e.g. all ears, all eyes for, cat’s paw; hyperbole, i.e. deliberate exaggerated statement not meant to understood literally, but expressing an intensely emotional attitude, e.g. a whale of time; a drop in the ocean. Stylistic Aspect of Phraseology Not all phraseological units bear imagery: clichés / stock phrases (see you later, take it easy, joking apart etc.); some proverbs (better late than never); some euphonic units: - rhyme (out and about); - alliteration (forgive and forget, now or never, safe and sound); - repetition (little by little, inch by inch); - with archaic words (to buy a pig in a poke).
-translation loans from Latin, e.g. to take the bull by the horns, a slip of the tongue (Lat. lapsus linguae), with a grain of salt (Lat. cum grano salis), second to none (Lat. nulli secundus); from French, e.g. by heart (Fr. par coeur), that goes without saying (Fr. cela va sans dire); from Spanish, e.g. the moment of truth (Sp. el momento de la verdad), blue blood (Sp. la sagre azul) etc; -barbarisms (non-assimilated loans), e.g. sotto voce (It.) ‘quietly, in a low voice’, la dolce vita (It.) ‘the good life full of pleasure’, al fresco (It.) ‘in the open air’, cordon bleu (Fr.) ‘high quality, esp. of cooking’.
Phraseological units based on real events: -everyday life, e.g. to be packed like sardines; to play cat and mouse; to be wet behind the ears; to go to bed with the chickens; professional jargon, e.g. to be in deep waters, to be in the same boat with sb (nautical sphere); to nip sth in the bud (agriculture and gardening); to keep one’s finger on the pulse (medical sphere); fair play (sports); to come up against a brick wall (building); flavour of the month (cooking) etc.; -historic references: to throw someone to the lions (Roman entertainment of putting people in the arena with wild animals); Baker’s dozen (to guard against miscounting, bakers habitually gave thirteen loaves when selling a dozen), red tape (legal documents were bound with a red tape), white elephant (a precious gift given by a Thai King to a sub-king to ruin the latter) etc.
-national folklore, e.g. to rain cats and dogs, to have nine lives etc.; proverbs, e.g. the last straw, to catch at a straw etc.; -antique myths and legends, e.g. a swan song (Ancient Greece); the Trojan horse (Rome); crocodile tears (Egypt); the lion’s share, a dog in the manger (Aesop’s fables) etc.; -the Bible, e.g. an eye for an eye; a wolf in sheep’s clothing etc.; -literature, e.g. to be as busy as a bee (G. Chaucer); to fight the windmills (M. de Cervantes); an albatross around one’s neck (S. T. Coleridge); something is rotten in the state of Denmark (W. Shakespeare); to grin like a Cheshire cat (L. Carroll) etc.; -film production, e.g. Elementary, my dear Watson! home alone. 39. Dialectology as a branch of linguistics, its aim and basic notions. A dialect vs a variant. Dialectology is a linguistic subdiscipline concerned with dialects. Its origin — apart from a few early glossaries and dialect dictionaries — can be traced back to the early 19th c. historical and comparative linguistics. In 1876 Georg Wenkersent postal questionnaires out over Northern Germany. These postal questionnaires contained a list of sentences written in Standard German, which were then transcribed into the local dialect, reflecting dialectal differences. Many studies proceeded from this, and over the next century dialect studies were carried out all over the world. During the Romantic era the ‘dialects of the common people,’ which were up to then held in low esteem, were elevated to the position of ‘more original’ linguistic forms; the comparative method was used to reconstruct the earlier stages of a language from its dialects. In the investigation of general historical linguistic principles by the Neogrammarians, the dialects were even seen as being superior to the written language, since it was here that ‘consistencies in sound formation’ were genuinely apparent. Commonly studied concepts in dialectology include: -the problem of mutual intelligibility in defining languages and dialects; -situations of diglossia, where two dialects are used for different functions; -ialect continuum, i.e. a network of dialects in which geographically adjacent dialects are mutually comprehensible, but with comprehensibility steadily decreasing as distance between the dialects increases, e.g. Dutch-German dialect continuum, a vast network of dialects with two recognized literary standards; -pluricentrism, where what is essentially a single genetic language exists as two or more standard varieties.
According to the New English Dictionary, the oldest sense of the term dialect (1577) was ‘a manner of speaking’ or ‘phraseology’, in accordance with its derivation from the Gr. dialectos ‘a discourse or way of speaking’. The modern meaning is somewhat more precise. In relation to a language such as English, the term dialect is used in a special sense to signify ‘a local variety of speech differing from the standard or literary language’. A dialect is a linguistic system that -shows a high degree of similarity to other systems so that at least partial mutual intelligibility is possible; -is tied to a specific region in such a way that the regional distribution of the system does not overlap with an area covered by another such system; -does not have a written or standardised form, i.e. does not have officially standardised orthographic and grammatical rules. A regional accent refers to features of pronunciation against a geographical background. Accents may also convey social implications and be prestigious, neutral or low class. A regional dialect refers to features of grammar and vocabulary against a geographical background. A regional dialect includes a distinctive regional accent but the reverse does not necessarily follow. Dialect linguistics (areal linguistics, linguistic geography) is a subdiscipline of dialectology concerned with the investigation of the geographic distribution of linguistic phenomena. In dialect geography, phonetic, phonological, morphological, and lexical approaches are primarily employed. The recorded data are presented in the form of linguistic maps which facilitate the interpretation of the specific geographic distribution and the structure of individual features from a historical, cultural, social (extralinguistic), and language-internal (intralinguistic) point of view. A linguistic atlas is a comprehensive representation of dialectal features for a whole region or a whole linguistic area. 40. Standard English: characteristic features and the problem of definition. -a variety of English with standardised pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and spelling that have no local base; -used as the norm of communication by the government, law courts, and media; -taught to native speakers in school and to learners of English as a foreign language; -a canon of literature and translations; -prestigious within a country; -only a minority of people within a country (e.g. radio newscasters, translators) use it. Most people speak a variety of regional English, or a mixture of standard and regional English.
Northern
Midland Eastern
Western Southern
Variants Scottish English Irish English
-a strong literary tradition and the Bible (1983); -its own dialects; -vast lexicographic description: John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808-1825, 4 vols); Scottish National Dictionary (1976, 10 vols); the Scots Thesaurus (1990, 20 000 items). Scotticisms: a lassie, a laddie, a billy, a kilt, a tartan, a glamour ‘magic spell; charm’, a slogan ‘a battle cry of a Scottish clan’, a wean ‘child’; wee, bonny; to greet ‘to cry’, to keek ‘to peep’, to ken ‘to know’; ilk ‘the same’, ilka ‘every’; Scotticisms of Germanic origin: a bairn ‘a child’, a burgh ‘a small town’; stark ‘strong’, couthie ‘nice, pleasant’, to awe ‘to have, to possess’, to wale ‘to choose’; Scotticisms of Celtic origin: a bannock ‘flat quick bread’, an ingle ‘fire, fireplace’, a binn ‘a waterfall’; English words that underwent semantic changes in Scottish English: scheme ‘local government housing estate’, mind ‘memory, recollection’, travel ‘go on foot’, gate ‘road’; idioms: to miss oneself ‘miss a treat’; to be up on high doh ‘to be overexcited’, etc.; colloquial words: high ‘highest quality’ as in it’s high; fair ‘completely’ as in I fair forgot; brave ‘good’ etc.; a wide usage of contractions: canna (cannot), dinna (do not), mebbe (may be), didna (did not), twouldna (it would not), etc.
English first appeared in Ireland during the Norman invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century. Since the 19th century, it has become the dominant language, with Gaelic found only in certain rural parts of the west. In the east, the link was the strongest with England, but in the north it was with Scotland (now Ulster Scots). The standard spelling and grammar of Irish English are the same as that of Standard English; however, there are some unique characteristics, especially in the spoken language, due to the influence of the Irish language on pronunciation. -ords borrowed from Irish Gaelic: a bracket ‘a spotty cow’, a booley ‘a temporary dwelling’, a smur ‘thick fog’, agra ‘a form of address to a beloved person’, a bannalana ‘a woman who sells beer’, cardia ‘friendship’, a colleen ‘a young woman’, a doorshay ‘a gossip’; whiskey, shamrock, blarney ‘flattery’; -English words which underwent semantic changes in Irish English: able ‘strong, muscular, energetic’; a boy ‘any man before marriage’; room ‘non-residential premises’; to fox ‘to simulate’; to join ‘to start’; to travel ‘to walk’; strong ‘healthy; rich’; -English words which retained their original meanings in Irish English: harvest ‘autumn’; lock ‘a small number’; mad ‘angry’; -words of Irish origin in Modern English: phraseological expressions and proverbs which are translation loans from Irish Gaelic: He had no more use for it, than a pig for side pockets; to be on the baker’s list; to be on a bad head to sb.
a limited vocabulary; a greater use of paraphrase and metaphor; a simplified phonological system; a reduced morphology and syntax.
The roots of British lexicography go back to the 7th-8th c. when Latin was a means of international communication in Europe and the language of the most important religious texts. To facilitate their reading and translation, English monks produced glosses based on interlinear translations from Latin. These texts were supplemented with lists of Latin-English equivalents – glossaries (L. glossarium ‘collection of glosses’ < Gk. glossa ‘obsolete or foreign word’) – lists at the back of a book of difficult and unusual words and expressions with explanations of their meanings used in the text. The term is also used to denote a list or dictionary of special terms found in a particular field of study or area of usage, with accompanying definitions, e.g. Glossary of Linguistic Terms. Main Problems of Lexicography The problems of lexicography are connected with the selection of headwords, the number, the structure and contents of the dictionary entry. Selection of headwords: -the problem of whether a general descriptive dictionary, whether unilingual or bilingual, should give the historical information about a word; -selection between scientific and technical terms; -it is debatable whether a unilingual explanatory dictionary should try to cover all the words of the language, including neologisms, nonce-words, slang etc.; -the problem of whether the selected units have the right to a separate entry (syntagmatic boundaries of the word) and which are to be included under one common headword (paradigmatic boundaries of the word).
-a linguistic definition is concerned with words as speech material; -n encyclopaedic definition is concerned with things for which the words are names.
1. diachronic dictionary reflects the development of the vocabulary by recording the history of form and meaning for every word registered. In such dictionaries the entry has the following specific features: -the arrangement of meanings is chronological; -the etymology of the word is given an exhaustive treatment; -the history of the word’s forms and meanings is illustrated by quotations from the works of different periods; -meanings and quotations are accompanied by dates indicating the time of the word’s first or last registration. 2A synchronic dictionary is concerned with present-day form, meaning and usage of words. Some synchronic dictionaries are at the same time historical when they represent the vocabulary of separate historical periods without tracing the evolution of the language, e.g. Middle English Dictionary.
-a pronouncing dictionary is a dictionary recording contemporary pronunciation, e.g. Jones D. Everyman’s English Pronouncing Dictionary; -a rhyming dictionary is a list of words in which headwords are arranged in alphabetical order starting with their final letters, e.g. Walker’s Rhyming Dictionary of the English Language;
-a dictionary of spelling records contemporary spelling, e.g. Maxwell C. The Pengamon Oxford Dictionary of Perfect Spelling; -a pictorial dictionary contains graphic illustrations to all topics, e.g. The Oxford-Duden Pictorial English Dictionary.
-the sphere of human activity in which they are used (linguistic dictionary, medical dictionary); -the type of the units (phraseological dictionary, dictionary of abbreviations); -the relationships existing between them (dictionary of synonyms and antonyms). A concordance (O.Fr. concordance (12c.) ‘agreement, harmony’) is a list of all the words which are used in a particular book or in the works of a particular author, together with the contexts in which each word occurs, e.g. The Concordance of the Bible, The Concordance to Shakespeare. One and the same dictionary can be described as general and special, e.g. a pronouncing dictionary. 45. Important milestones in the history of British and American lexicography. Download 282 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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