Second edition

§ 44. Common Contextual
Associations.
Thematic Groups

Another type of classification almost universally used in practical classroom teaching is known as thematic grouping. Classification of vocabulary items into thematic groups is based on the co-occurrence of words in certain repeatedly used contexts.
In linguistic contexts co-occurrence maу be observed on different levels. On the level of word-groups the word question, for instance, is often found in collocation with the verbs raise, put forward, discuss, etc., with the adjectives urgent, vital, disputable and so on. The verb accept occurs in numerous contexts together with the nouns proposal, invitation, plan and others.
¹ St. Ullmann. Semantics. Oxford, 1962, pp. 130, 131. See also ‘Semasiology’, § 8, p. 20.
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As a rule, thematic groups deal with contexts on the level of the sentence. Words in thematic groups are joined together by common contextual associations within the framework of the sentence and reflect the interlinking of things or events. Common contextual association of the words, e.g. tree — grow — green; journey — train — taxi — bags — ticket or sunshine — brightly — blue — sky, is due to the regular co-occurrence of these words in a number of sentences. Words making up a thematic group belong to different parts of speech and do not possess any common denominator of meaning.
Contextual associations formed by the speaker of a language are usually conditioned by the context of situation which necessitates the use of certain words. When watching a play, for example, we naturally speak of the actors who act the main parts, of good (or bad) staging of the play, of the wonderful scenery and so on. When we go shopping it is usual to speak of the prices, of the goods we buy, of the shops, etc.¹
MEANING RELATIONS IN PARADIGMATICS AND SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS

Modern English has a very extensive vocabulary. A question naturally arises whether this enormous word-stock is composed of separate independent lexical units, or it should perhaps be regarded as a certain structured system made up of numerous interdependent and interrelated sub-systems or groups of words. This problem may be viewed in terms of the possible ways of classifying vocabulary items.

Attempts to study the inner structure of the vocabulary revealed that in spite of its heterogeneity the English word-stock may be analysed into numerous sub-systems the members of which have some features in common, thus distinguishing them from the members of other lexical sub-systems. Words can be classified in various ways. Here, however, we are concerned only with the semantic classification of words. Classification into monosemantic and polysemantic words is based on the number of meanings the word possesses. More detailed semantic classifications are generally based on the semantic similarity (or polarity) of words or their component morphemes. The scope and the degree of similarity (polarity) may be different.