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Lexicology - is an overall study of a languages vocabulary. As a branch of linguistics it is a diachronic and synchronic study
of the form and structure, origin and development, referential and contextual meaning, as well as the usage of words.
General lexicology - is a general study of words and vocabulary of all languages. While, special lexicology - studies the
peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language.
Special L contributes to the general L and the general L deals with the special L. This is the link between the two.
Contrastive lexicology - studies the comparison of one lexical system to another.
Synchrony & diachrony - are two main temporal dimensions of linguistic investigation, introduced by the father of the
modern linguistics, de Saussure:
(synchrony (lat.) = sin - with, chronos - time.)
(diachrony (lat.) = dia - through, chronos - time.)
Diachrony studies the language through time, through history.
Synchronic or Descriptive lexicology - studies words and vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its
development, usually the contemporary languages (the present).
Diachronic or Historical lexicology - a branch of linguistics which deals with the origin and development of the meaning,
structure and usage of the words through time.
Etymology - is a traditional term for diachronic or historical lexicology. Etymology is diachronic study of words. (the same
definition as D/H L)
etymology (Gr.) = etymos - true, logos - word, study.
E.g. antropology (Gr.) = anthropos - human being, logos - study
lexicology (Gr.) = lexis - word, logos - study
geography (lat.) = geo - earth, graphos - sth. drawn or printed
Anthroponymy is etymology of human names.
(anthroponymy (Gr.) = anthropos - human being, noma - name)
E.g. Irena (Gr.) = erinos - peace
Sofia (Gr.) = sophia - wisdom
Sociolinguistics - a branche of linguistics which studies the relationship between language and society. It studies the origin,
development and current usage of words as depending on the needs of social communication and combines in a most fruitful
way both synchronic and diachronic lexicology.
Lexicology vs. Phonetics/Phonology
Phonetics - studies the speech sounds in terms of their articulation, production, quality, distribution. It deals with the material
realisation of the sounds of a given language.
Phonology - studies the speech sounds and their function to build up morphemes. It deals with the abstract units of a sound
system, phonemes, allophones, their distribution and usage. (the word record is recognized as a noun and distinguished
from the verb record due to the position of the stress)
Sounds are important to lexicology. They combine with each other and form words. That is how phonology is linked to
lexicology.
Lexicology vs. Morphology
Morphology - branch of linguistics which studies the forms and structures of words through the use of the morpheme
construct.
Selection of the form of a morpheme may be influenced by the sounds of the neighbouring morphemes.
E.g. We cannot describe the phonological shape of the indefinite article without referring to the sound at the beginning of the
word that follows it (a donkey but an ass).
Morphology is vital for lexicology or in fact it can be regarded as part of lexicology. Morphology is important to the study of
lexicology because words are actually combinstions of morphemes.
(morphology (Gr.) = morph - form, logos - study)
Lexicology vs. Syntax
Syntax - a study of the rules of how words are combined to form sentences in a language.
The form of a word is affected by the syntactic construction in which the word is used. E.g. the verb walk has a number of
forms: walk, walks, walked, walking. The selection of a particular form of this verb is dependent on the syntactic construction
in which it appears. (In present tense we use walk, but in the 3 rd person singular - walks, while in past tense - walked)
Lexicology vs. Semantics
Semantics - is a study of meanings of words of a given language. Semantics, especially lexical semantics is crucial for
lexicology as ir supplies the meaning of the word.
Lexicology vs. Pragmatics
Pragmatics - is a traditional part of linguistics which deals with the contextual meanings of words. It studies the language from
the point of view of the users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints encountered in using language insocial
interaction and the effects their use of the words has on the other participants in an act of communication.
Lexicology and Lexicography
Lexicography is applied knowledge of lexicology. Is the art of making dictionaries. Ultimate goal of lexicology is to produce
good lexicography, as good lexicography produces better lexicology. Lexicology is an overall study of the vocabulary of a
given language, whereas lexicography deals with making dictionaries. This means that lexicology chooses examples to
provide rules and principles, whereas lexicography deals with listing and describing all the words provide by lexicology.
Lexicology should provide all the theoretical needs for making dictionaries.
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2. WORD
The word is a major linguistic unit, a stable and intuitively recognizable unit, which belongs both to the morphological and to
the syntactic and the lexical levels of analysis.
- Grammarians (traditional linguists) define the word as a basic unit conveying a single idea (yet even novel can convey a
single idea).
- Another definition is that word is a segment of a sentence that comes between two pauses. (this is also not right, because
speakers do not normally pause between words)
- According to the semantic definition, the word is the union of a particular meaning with particular complex of sounds capable
of a particular grammatical employment. (but phrases are also capable of particular grammatical employment and consist of
number of sounds: on Friday, whereas it is obvious the particular meaning of Friday, but what about the meaning of on?)
- According to Bloomfields definition the word is a minimum free form, the smallest form that occurs in isolation. (but free
forms may be any pieces of speech. For ex. the answer to the question: Did you say s or z? - could be: z, which is not a
word)
1 free morpheme: What are you going to do now? - Eat bound morpheme: re-, -ed, -tion
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Empty vs. zero morphs
Empty morph is a morph with a form but without lexical nor grammatical meaning.
(E.g. children = 3 morphemes: child = root; en = allomorphy for s plural; r = empty morph
factual = fact+u+al (u = empty morph)
contextual = context+u+al (u = empty morph)
Zero morph - formally there is no morpheme: sheep-sheep (pl.); fish-fish (pl.)
If it is plural, two morphemes should be isolated sheep and s, but the realisation of the plural morpheme is zero. In this
case the number of forms is smaller than the number of meanings i.e. we have one form but two meanings. (because these
morphemes requered a zero plural)
Phonologically conditioned allomorphs - depending on the phonetic environment, the nature of the preceding and following
sounds. (E.g. morpheme s plural in the words: cats, dogs, horses. The s plural has 3 allomorphs:
/s/ - occurs after voicless sounds
/z/ - occurs after voiced sounds
/iz/ - occurs after fricatives and africatives
These allomorphs are phonologically conditioned.
(other examples: morpheme used to express indefinitness, plural morpheme -s, past tense morpheme (of regular verbs) -ed)
Grammatically conditioned allomorphs - appear as a result of the presence of a particular grammatical element.
E.g. - in German and Macedonian the definite article depends on the grammatical feature - gender:
ubavata moma ubavite momi ein grosser Wagen
ubaviot ma` ubavite ma`i ein grosses Haus
ubavoto ma`e ubavite ma`iwa eine grosse Vase
These alomorphs are not conditioned phonologically, but they are grammatically conditioned.
Lexically conditioned allomorphs - are those allomorphes which use is obligatory in specific lexical words.
E.g. - we know that plural morpheme in English is realised by phonologically conditioned allomorphy, but in the case of the
plural morpheme in the word oxen, this rule fails. The plural of ox is not oxes (although foxes, boxes), but it is oxen. So, the
choice of the allomorph -en is lexically conditioned.
Also, allomorphs in the past tense of irregular verbs (the change of the root vowel) are lexically conditioned: swim/swam,
hang/hung, shoot/shot.
Orthographically conditioned allomorphs - depending on the spelling.
When verbs are inflected with the -ing inflection, they lose the silent -e. (take: take+ing = taking)
Tak is an allomorphic root of the proper root take.
Generally speaking we can say that lexical morphemes are usually free morphemes, whereas grammatical morphemes
are usually bound morphemes. But this is not a rule and there are many exceptions. For example, verbs and nouns are
lexical morphemes as well as free, but conjunctions and prepositions, although free morphemes, are grammatical.
Free grammatical morphemes are known as functional morphemes. Bound grammatical morphemes are called
inflections.
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free-bound, lexical-grammatical
free: bound:
lexical: cat, dog, boy, friend, run, go, school reapply, undo, unfair, dismount
bottle, hot, green, phone, museum preheat, boyhood, manly, kindness
leader, tallish
Base - is neither necessarily the smallest nor the initial point. It is any form to which sth. can be added (most often an affix). It
can consist of one or more morphemes. E.g. in unhappy, the base form is happy. But in unhappiness, unhappy is the
base and -ness is an affix.
Root - is the base form of a word which cannot be further analysed without total loss of identity. (It is the smallest initial base
point in the process of derivation to which sth. can be added.) If the affixes
-ing, -ful, -ness are removed from the word meaningfulness, we are left with the root mean. Sometimes the root is equal
with the base (e.g. boy)
From semantic point of view, the root generally carries the main component of meaning in a word.
Stem - is a base to which inflectional affixes are attached. It may consist of:
- a single morpheme (i.e. a simple stem, as in boy), or
- two root morphemes (i.e. compound stem, as in boyfriend) or
- a root morpheme + a derivational affix (i.e. a complex stem, as in mainly, unmanly, manliness).
Affixes, inflections
- Affixes - are bound morphemes. Affix is a letter or group of letters added to a word to change its meaning or the way it is
used. Depending on their position in the base of the word affixes are classified into three groups:
prefixes - affixes added to the beginning of a base, un- in unhappy,
suffixes - affixes which follow the base, -ness in happiness and
infixes - affixes which occur within a base (inserted in the middle of the root), fan-bloody-tastic.
Affixes can be divided into derivational and inflectional.
interfix - an affix which occurs between two bases, (e.g. -o in soci-o-lingiostics).
transfix - a vowel that is inserted in the root. They exist in Arabic where roots are only consonants and by adding vowels
between the consonants you get different words (e.g. ktb: k(a)t(i)b=writer, but k(i)t(a)b=book).
circumfix - a prefix and suffix in combination. There are no circumfixes in English (e.g. in German: past participle is marked
by the circumfix get, gemacht=made).
Derivational affixes are lexical (with meaning): -er in singer. They are class-changing, they change the part of the speech or
the word class (e.g. V-N) and they create new lexemes. (-hood in boyhood).
Inflectional affixes are grammatical. They represent a grammatical category. They are class-maintaining. (e.g. small-
smallest, boy-boys).
Inflections - are also bound morphemes: -s (plural), -s (3rd person singular, present simple), -s (saxon genitive), -ed 1 (past
tense), ed2 (past participle), -ing (present participle), -er and -est (comparison of adjectives).
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- singular number. This kind of a morpheme in which more than one grammatical meaning is stored is called portmanteau
morpheme.
Portmanteau morpheme
They are called word carrier and it is a kind of morpheme when more than one grammatical meaning is stored into one
morpheme.
- E.g. -er = representation of the concept of comparative and nomina agentis (one who does things)
-s = plural morpheme, 3rd p. singular of verbs, saxon genitive.
Syncretism - where different grammatical forms are represented by the same word-forms
(E.g. visiting relative/ visiting a cousine, I put it yesterday on/ I put it always on.)
Syncretism is a result of neutralisation - where the same form is used to represent distinct morphological concepts.
2. Difficulties appear when there is no match between a morpheme and a morph. Two cases are possible: zero morph
and empty morph.
a) The sheep are in the meadow. - The dogs are in the meadow.
Yesterday John hit the roof. - Yesterday John painted the roof.
We can see that the noun sheep is plural as it is the noun dogs, and the verb hit is past as the verb painted. But we can see
that, because of the verb form are and because of the past time adverb yesterday. The plural morpheme -s and the past
tense morpheme -ed with sheep and hit are realised by a zero-form.
Zero morph - formally there is no morpheme: sheep-sheep (pl.); fish-fish (pl.)
If it is plural, two morphemes should be isolated sheep and s, but the realisation of the plural morpheme is zero. In this
case the number of forms is smaller than the number of meanings i.e. we have one form but two meanings. (because these
morphemes requered a zero plural)
b) When the number of morphs is larger that the number of morphemes represented.
person/person-al fact/fact-u-al
music/music-al spirit/spirit-u-al
We can see that adjectives are formed by adding the suffix -al to nouns. But the morph -u- doesnt represent any morpheme
and it does not have any lexical or grammatical meaning. The -u- morph is called empty morph (meaningless form). (Other
examples: -n-: maternal, paternal; -r-: children, brethern; -u-: rivulet)
Empty morph is a morph with a form but without lexical nor grammatical meaning.
E.g. children = 3 morphemes: child = root; en = allomorphy for s plural; r = empty morph
factual = fact+u+al (u = empty morph)
contextual = context+u+al (u = empty morph)
3. Cranberry morph (unique morph) - does not carry meaning in isolation, but acquires meaning only when combined with
other morphemes.
e.g. huckleberry, cranberry
The morphemes huckle and cran carry meaning only when combined with the morpheme berry. Such morphs are called
unique or cranberry morphs.
There are English words whose roots are not existing English words: inane, inept, inert, uncouth, recalcitrant, feasible,
edible, horrible, legible, grateful.
The reasons of this anomaly is historical: they were borrowed as whole words from Latin and French (recalcitrant, edible).
Some of them were not borrowed but formed long time ago and disappeared from the standard dialect (couth in uncouth,
living un- without a base).
Others are cases of historical accident and have bound roots (grateful, horrible).
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Go and went represent the lexeme go, although they dont have a single sound in common. There is no relationship between
allomorphs through a general rule, because the forms have different roots - and this is called suppletion.
Suppletion - impossibility to show relationship between allomorphs through a general rule, because the forms involved have
different roots.
(other e.g.:
- the use of was and were as the past tense forms of be,
- of better and best, worse and worst as the comparative and superlative forms of good and bad,
- nominalisation of the verb despise - contempt, rather than *despisal, 8despisement or 8dispission,
- the adverb well which is related to good.
Morphological changes are due to adding morphemes. The morphological changes are:
- assimilation - affects the realisation of morphemes in terms of the surrounding sounds. It can be progressive (when
the preceding sound affects the following sound: bag-bags, /begz/.) and regressive (when the following sound affects
the preceding sound: wife-wives /waivs/).
- neutralisation - it is pronounced differently but the spelling is the same (e.g. /t/, //)
- ablaut/umlaut - is change of medial vowels (e.g. shine+ed=shone, take+ed=took, goose-geese)
- deletion (omission) - process of adding sth and then deleting it (e.g. put+ed=puted)
- syncope - is dropping of medial sounds (e.g. have+s=has)
- suppletion - a process of supplying a word which is related in meaning with the previous one, but they do not share a
common element either in spelling or in pronunciation. (e.g. go-went, good-better-best, to despise (v.) - contempt
(n.)).
meaning
language idiolect
standard dialect
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Language meaning vs. idiolectal meaning
When we are talking about the lexical semantics we must distinguish: language meaning and idiolectal meaning.
Language meaning - the meaning of the language of a whole group, the speaking community.
Idiolectal meaning - individual speech variation within the same dialect (the language of an individual with her/his own
vocabulary, pronunciation, register or syntax).
Standard meaning vs. dialect meaning
The language meaning can be divided into: standrad meaning and dialect meaning.
Dialect meaning is divided into: historical (temporal), regional (geographical), functional (stylistic) and social (sociolectal)
meaning.
- historical/temporal language which is temporally spread and depends on history.
- regional/geografical language, horizontally spread. Division of English according to different regions.
- functional/stylistic language varieties - this refers to different registers that vary on the scale of formality such as
formal, informal, frozen forms of English etc.
- social language varieties/sociolects - used by different groups of people (e.g. female lg., baby lg) Language
varieties spoken by different groups of people differ in terms of AGE (different lg. of babies and teenagers, etc.),
GENDER (male and female language); STATUS, PROFESSION etc.
Literal vs. nonliteral meaning
The speakers meaning can be literal and nonliteral:
- Literal meaning which is descriptive (actual) meaning of a word and there is nothing individual in it.
- Nonliteral meaning which is figurative by the use of: irony, sarcasm, metaphor (a figure of speech used to convey
meaning other than the one given).
Sense - is intralinguistic, within the language itself, it describes the language by using language and it reflects the knowledge
of the language; it is a linguistic description of a word, i.e. the essential meaning of the word.
Reference - is extralinguistic, outside the language, it describes objects by means of language and it reflects the knowledge
of the world; it is a process of linking the referent with the word itself.
Extension vs. intension
Extension - is a set of potential referents. It is the whole exhaustive reference in the world. The word tree can refer to all
trees in the world. It is almost the same with reference, but there is one big difference. Extension refers to all the reference in
the world, i.e. it is all-inclusive. E.g. chalk = not one only, but all of them in the universe, in the past, present and future.
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Intension - is a whole set of associations evoked by the language expression (e.g. woman, extension - all women; intension -
adult female person).
In semantic analysis of the simple declarative sentences (i.e. propositional sentences), words (or groups of words) which are
not referring expressions (including the verb be), are called predicators.
E.g. Ana is working on a project. work (verb)
Ivans car is white. white (adjective)
Skopje is in Macedonia. in (preposition)
Skopje is between Tirana and Sofia. between (preposition)
I am a techer. teacher (noun)
The semantic analysis of an utterance into predicator and referring expression doesnt correspond always to the
grammatical analysis into subject and predicate, but it does correspond to the semantic analysis of the proposition
into predicate and argument, the two major semantic roles of the proposition played by predicator and referring
expression, respectively. (predicate-predicator, argument-referring expression).
Predicate - is a certain word (verb, adjective, preposition or noun) that can function as the predicator of an utterance, whereas
argument is the obligatory semantic role of the proposition, played by the refering expression.
(A predicate is a non-referring expression that explains the relations among thereferring expressions in a sentence. It is a non-
subjectal part of the sentence). Predicates can be:
- verbs (John loves Mary)
- adjectives (Peter is ill)
- nouns (He is a doctor)
- prepositions (He is between Nataly and Mary)
Conjunctions (and, but, or), articles (the, a, an) and words of other pasrts of speech CANNOT be predicators.
There are 3 types of prediactes in simple propositions:
- one-place predicate: intr. V with 1 argument - She laughs.
- two-place predicate: trans. V with 2 arguments - She eats an apple.
- three-place predicate: V-DO-IO - She gave me a present.
Universe of discourse is a meta-linguistic term and it refers to any possible world, real or imaginary. In the process of
communication we have to refer to objects and very often people refer to referents that are real, but also to the semi-real or
imaginary things. The speaker and the audience have to be aware of the universe, and the world in which we are or pretend
that we are in can be real, semi-real or imaginary world.
* is any possible word, real or imaginary; the world of fairy tales (e.g. the frogs sing). Most of the time our communication
target is real world. On the other hand, in fiction and fairy tales we have to break the semantic rules of the language. In order
to accommodate all the situations in which objects and animals talk, linguist have invented the term universe of discourse. In
any imaginary universe of discourse everything is possible, the semantic rules are broken.
In the process of communication we have to refer to objects and very often people refer to referents that are real but also to
the semi-real or imaginary things. This term includes all the pragmatic situations of a language. For abstract notions we
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use imagination to grasp2 reality. When an astronomer states that the Earth revolves around the sun, the universe of
discourse is the real world; when a patient in a psychiatric ward says: As your Emperor, I comand you, the universe of
discourse is the imaginary world.
Sense relations:
1. Synonymy - is a sense relation which includes words with same or similar meaning, but not 100% the same.
e.g. - whimsical (colloquial) - capricious (formal)
2. Antonymy - is a sense relation which includes words opposite in meaning - e.g. day-night
3. Homonymy - is a sense relation which includes words with the same spelling or pronunciation but different meaning:
- homophony - words with the same pronunciation but different spelling and meaning - e.g. night - knight
- homography - words with same spelling, but different pronunciation and meaning - e.g. wind (n.) - wind (v.);
read (present) - read (past); live (v.) - live (adj.)
4. Polysemy - is a sense relation which includes one word with different but in a way related meanings.
- e.g. ear (organ) - ear (for music)
5. Hyponymy - the meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another. It is a relationship of inclusion.
- e.g. cat/dog are hyponyms of animal
6. Hyperonymy - animal is hyperonymy of cat/dog
2 understand or se fa}ame za
3 zabi na slon
4 surla
5 sad, zdela
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- a given language expression has meaning for us only if we are able to understand its content, which involves
mentally representing it. If such representations are crucial in mediating between words and their content, they
must not be excluded from lexical semantics.
- we actually do things with words whose meaning is best determined by its use in the language community. The
way we use words, what we do with words must play central role in lexical semantics.
- the word meaning has actually all these three aspects (referential, representational and pragmatic aspects).
B - concept (meaning)
In the previously mentioned theories there was a direct link between the word and the object, but in the Conceptual theory of
meaning, the link is through the concept we form in our mind.
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Concepts are notions of the referents as conceived by the speaker/hearer. The concept - is a set of criterial features which
the human mind abstracts from many individual occurences of a referent. E.g. - a coat has many other feature occarences:
can be big or small, long or short, old or new etc., but they are not important; what is important, i.e. criterial is that this piece
of clothing is worn on the top of other pieces of clothing and it is open at the front.
When we think of a word (name) we think of the concept and vice versa, that is meaning consists of our ability (and practice)
of associating one with the other. The link is psychological one. But the problem with this theory is that it may works with
words but not with units such as compounds or units larger than words, such as phrases, clauses and sentences that also
have meaning. Another problem is the empty lexical words.
UNIT 5
Lexical field - is a set of lexical items that are related in meaning. It is a group of items organized within a system and sharing
some similar semantic or lexical features. It is a set of words that might appear in similar or identical context. It is only the
letter which gives anything like a full lexicographical description of the item include.
According to Saussure, lexical field is a set of lexical items sintagmatically and paradigmatically related.
She had a _____ of beer. . example of paradigmatically related lexical items. (vertical order - substitution)
mug,
pint,
glass,
bottle
He had a false ______. .. example of syntagmatically related lexical items. (in horizontal order)
beard,
eye,
nose,
passport
The ______ is rancid. (bajat)
6 vrabec
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butter
bacon ..examples of collocational restriction.
She has blond _____.
hair
Cliches: kind of almost ossified collocation, which have become meaningless through excessive use.
Multi-word lexemes: like phrasal verbs like prepositional verbs: like compounds:
put off, look after, time machine,
give up, wait for, fire extinguisher,
come in think about child safety seat
Lexical gap - is absence of a lexical item in a lexical field where it is expected to exist according to the pattern of paradigm.
E.g. - grammatical gap: E.g. - phonological & morphological gap: E.g. - derivational gap:
may - might tram happy - unhappy
can - could trap bad - unbad
shall - should track ugly - unugly
must - /////// traf
E.g. - lexical gap: E.g. - phonological gap: E.g. - grammatical gap:
father - mother tip, cat - cats
brother - sister tap, ///// - trousers
son - daughter top,
cousin - ///////// tup
E.g. - grammatical gap: E.g. - lexical gap:
table - tables cattle: bull - cow - calf
pen - pens chicken: rooster - hen - chick
chaos - ////// dog: ////// - bitch - puppy
UNIT 6
The sentence which expresses the same proposition as another sentence is a paraphrase of that sentence:
e.g. The police chased Lolita. Bachelors prefer redhaired girls.
Lolita was chased by the police. Girls with red hair are preferred by unmarried men.
Entailment is a relation in which the truth of one sentence necessarily implies the truth of another. (examples above)
Presupposition - assumption implied by the speaker in the sentence. Something was related to us without being specifically
asserted or mentioned. E.g. - He doesnt write poems anymore.
Who sold the car?
Would you like another beer?
Contradiction - the truth of one proposition entails the falsity of another one. E.g. - Trevor is a bachelor, but he is married.
Ambiguity - Structural ambiguity: when a string of words is associated in the language system with more than one
meaning.
- Lexical ambiguity: is the result of homonymy or polysemy.
E.g. - structural ambiguity / syntactic ambiguity:
1. Competent women and men hold all the good jobs in the firm.
(the men holding good jobs are competent, whereas the other does not.)
E.g. - lexical ambiguity:
2. You should have seen the bull we got from the pope.
(the form bull can have at least three different interpretations: roughly, a papal communication, a male cow or
nonsense).
E.g. - structural / syntactic & lexical ambiguity:
3. Mary claims that John saw her duck.
(lexical: Is Mary claiming that John saw the bird she possesses OR that he saw her lowering herself?)
(syntactic/structural: her duck is in one case like me jump and in the other case like my cat)
E.g. - scope ambiguity = structural ambiguity:
4. Someone loves everyone.
(we can interpret the sentence as assigning some lover to each person OR as saying that someone is a universal
lover. The ambiguity arises from the relation between someone and everyone: a scope ambiguity is not lexical
but structural).
Synonymy - sense relation which involves words distinct in form with nearly identical meaning.
Sources of Synonymy:
1. borrowings: native French origin Greco-Latin origin
bally stomach abdomen
to ask to question to interrogate
to gather to assemble to collect
to end to finish to complete
empty devoid vacuous
teaching guidance instruction
kingly royal regal
to rise to mount to ascend
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Hyponymy - sense relation in which the meaning/ sense of one lexeme is included into the meaning /sense of another
lexeme.
E.g. hyponyms of hypernym of (cat, dog)
cat, dog, wolf animal animal
chair, table, bed furniture furniture
clarinet, flute, trumpet instrument instrument
cabbage, carrot, potato vegetable vegetable
rose, tulip, daffodil flower flower
Meronymy - special type of hyponymy that refres to a part-whole relationship between lexical items.
E.g. - system: its metronyms:
car wheel, engine, door, window.
room window, door, wall, ceiling, floor .
Hypernymy - sense relation which involves inclusion. The sense of one word is included in another.
E,g, - animal is hypernym of dog
dog is hypernym of terrier
terrier is hypernym of Spanish terrier
Co-hyponyms - items belonging to the same level. E.g. - poodle and setter are co-hyponyms of dog.
Prototypical hyponymy - here we choose the prototype (best example) of a class as a hyponym of ther hypernym.
Synonymy as symmetrical hyponymy - Symetrical hyponymy - means synonymy where one lexical word is totally
included in the other and vice versa, so they are equal. (e.g. - mercury = quicksilver).
If X is a hyponym of Y and Y is also a hyponym of X, then X and Y are synonyms.
Entailment relations - are similar as hyponymy but they function at the sentence level. We have a pair of sentences. The
truth of the second sentence is derived from the first sentence.
E.g. - I saw a boy entails I saw a person.
Paronymy - words very similar in origin, etymology, pronunciation and spelling and easily mistaken.
E.g. effect (n) affect (v)
ingenious (clever) ingenuous (sincere)
These are false synonyms.
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UNIT 7
Antonymy - sense relation of oppositeness in meaning. (e.g. - come/go, dark/light, hot/cold, in/out, male/female, up/down).
1. gradable antonyms
cold - hot .cold - cool - tepid - lukewarm - warm - hot
good - bad . good - fair - poor - bad
large/big - small .large/ big - mediumsized - small
old - young .old - middle-aged - young
tall - short tall - medium tall - short
wet - dry ..wet - moist - damp(ish) - dry
These antonyms are at opposite ends of a continous scale of values. They are GRADABLE or CONTRARY antonyms.
2. complementary antonyms
alive - dead
awake - asleep
male - female
open - shut
present - absent
single - married
These are COMPLEMENTARY or CONTRADICTORY antonyms. If one member of the pair is applicable, the other cannot
be and vice versa. They are mutually exclusive.
3. relational antonyms
above - below
buy - sell
employer - employee
husband - wife
parent - child
teacher - pupil
borrow - lend (If you borrow money from me, logically I lend it to you.)
The first antonym describes a relationship between two objects and the other one describes the same relationship with a
reverse order. They are RELATIONAL or CONVERSE antonyms.
5.
negative affixes derivational antonyms
(a-) achromatic, amoral, anarchy, asymmetry
(anti-) antichrist, anticlimax, antifreeze
(dis-) dislike, dismount, disobey
(in-) inaccurate, illegal, improper, irregular
(mis-) misadventure, misbehave, mislabel
(non-) non-conformist, non-existant, non-smoker
(un-1) unbelievable, unhappy, unpleasant
(un-2) undress, unlock, unscrew
(-less) careless, speechless, toothless
These are DERIVATIONAL ANTONYMS - formed by adding negative affixes: a-, anti-, dis-, in-, mis-, non-, un-, -less)
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6. not happy - unhappy
Syntactic antonymy - formed by adding the negative particle not. Not happy - doesnt mean - unhappy. Syntactic antonymy
is not the same as derivational antonymy. Derivational antonymy is stronger. Unhappy is stronger than not happy.
Polysemy and Antonymy - where a single word has more than one meaning i.e. different meanings if the same word
appears in different contexts.
polysemous words: antonyms of the polysemous words:
silence noise, music
work leisure, loaf
old new, young
firm soft, loose
criticism praise, (lack of)
a mouth of a river (ustie) a mouth of a person
a foot of a mountain (podno`je) a foot of a person
a tail of a rabbit a tail of a coat (frak)
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Metaphor is a figure of speech used to convey mening other than the one given. It is a word or phrase used in an
imaginative way to describe something else, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make the
description more powerful. It expresses comparison. E.g he runs as fast as rabbit- he is a rabbit. I
s understanding of one concept in terms of another or metaphor is hidden comparison.Metaphor as a literary device is a
figure of speech based on a percieved similarity between distinct objects or actions.It is very important for the conceptual
system shared by all human beings.
UNIT 8
Lexical ambiguity - when a word has more than one meaning and it has two or more synonyms which are not synonyms to
each other. Lexical ambiguity - with polysemyc and homonymyc words.
E.g. club - social organization bust - sculpture of the chest crop - harvest
- wooden stick - to break - a handle of a riding whip
pen - enclosure (trlo, zatvor) plane - airplane port - seaport sage - wise (mudrec)
- hand writing instrument - flat surface - port wine - plant (`alfija)
Grammatical ambiguity - when a sentence has two or more paraphrases which are not synonyms to each other. The
ambiguity is not inherent in the word but it is due to syntax.
E.g. - Visiting relatives can be boring. (visiting = subject, modifier)
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Referential versality - if a phrase or word can be used to refer to a wide range of different things and persons. There are
some words that derive their meaning from the context and have no meaning on their own if isolated (here, there, how, then, I,
you, me).
Deictic expressions - are said to be versatile, not ambiguous:
- She (any female person);
- I (any speaker);
- here (can be anywhere)
Referential vagueness - means thattwo words are not ambiguos but are referentially vague according to certain standards.
They are dependent on the language, culture and community.
E.g. - tall and short are vague words.
A Pygmy can be tall, but compared to a Macedonian he can be short.
- mountain and hill
Vodno may be a mountain for a person from Britain, but for Macedonian it is a hill.
Polysemy - when a word has two or more meanings that are related to each other.
E.g. brow a part of the eye the top of a hill, cliff
diamond a precious stone a baseball field (in the shape of diamond)
ear the organ of hearing a sense for hearing (music, languages..)
eye the organ of seeing the ability, the power to see; sth like an eye
foot part of the body of a mountain, bottom part of page
fork instrument for eating fork of a road
iron a type of metal a device (made of iron) for pressing clothes
leaf a part of a tree a sheet of paper
leg a limb of an animal of table or chair..
mouth of a person of a river
lip of a person of a jug (rab)
tail of an animal of a coat
tongue of a person of a shoe
Homonymy - when a word has two or more meanings that are not obviously related to each other in any way.
bank financial institution side of a river
club a social organization a blunt weapon
pen a writing instrument a small cage
stick a piece of wood (cause to) adhere
bear animal bear children, knowledge, ignorance
Homophony - special case of homonymy - words with different meaning and spelling, but same pronunciation.
E.g. heir air meat meet
tail tale by buy bye
threw through male mail
knight night here hear
for four bow bough
bear bare weight wait
sight site reign rain
higher hire plane plain
sea see die dye
write right rite feet feat
him hymn
Homography - special case of homonymy - words with the same spelling, but different meaning and pronunciation.
E.g. wind (n) [wind] - wind (v) [waind]
lead (v) [li:d] - lead (v) [led]
read (v) [ri:d] - read (v) [red]
row (n) [rou] - row (n,v) [rau]
tear (n) [ti] - tear (v) [te]
can [kn] - can [kn]
bow [bou] - bow [bau]
Patterened homonymy - items that share the form, arent related in meaning and belong to different word classes are called
patterned homonyms. They perform different grammatical function.
E.g. That girl..(demonstrative); above (prep., adv., adj.)
The girl that I saw.. (determiner); act (n., v.)
I think that (conjunction) back (prep., adv., conj.)
after (n., adv., v.)
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before (prep., adv., conj.)
box (n., v.)
Non-patterned - when the items belong to the same part of speech (e.g. tail-tale).
Partial homonymy
Full homonyms share the form in all cases.
Partial homonyms - homonyms that have only one identical word form from the homonymous pair. (or two, if the verbs have
the same form for past tense and past participle).
E.g. axis, axes light, lights
axe, axes light, lighter, lightest
UNIT 9
Ranking heads and modifiers of a construction - head is a central element accompanied by dependents called modifiers.
In English the head is on the right.
E.g. - plural noun hands modified by a plural determiner these. (Modifier follows the grammatical rule of agreement between modifier and
the noun)
Clitics - forms unable to stand alone for phonological reasons and must be attached to another word.
Enclitics - clitics attached to the end of the preceding word (as in English). - E.g. Hes leaving now. Theyre here.
Proclitics - clitics attached to the beginning of the following word (as in French). - E.g. Suzanne les voit. (Suzanne sees them.)
Host - the word to which clitic is attached.
UNIT 10
- semantic broadening - words get more general meaning. (Historical meaning of the word was more precise and modern meaning
becomes
more general).
E.g. - earlier meaning modern meaning
aunt fathers sister father or mothers sister
butcher one who slaughters goats one who cuts up and sells meat in a shop
dog for hunting any dog
barn only barley was kept any crops are kept
manufacture make by hand produce by machinery
- semantic narrowing - the process in which the meaning of a word from general becomes more specific. (the sense of an expression in time
has
been narrowed)
E.g. - earlier meaning modern meaning
gay joyfull homosexual
accident (any) event unintended disastrous event
silly merry foolish
sly skillful cunning, deceitful
deer any wild beast wild ruminant of a particular species
disease any unfavourable state illness
grumble make low sounds complain
witch male or female sorcerer female sorcerer
- semantic shift - when words changed their meaning through the course of time undergoing a complete semantical shift. Is a kind of semi-
prime word formation process by which the original meaning of a word has been lost and it has acquired a totally new meaning. E.g silly
originally meant merry or happy but today it means stupid.
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Linguistic causes of Lexical Change:
1. differentiation of synonymy - every lexical system has a tendency to get rid of total identity between words.
E.g. - beast-animal, deer-beast, time-tide.
2. fixed content - E.g: the word token became restricted in use to a number of set expressions: love token, token of respect
(token=sign-noun)
3. ellipsis - omission of some elements from a fixed expression. E.g. - expecting from expecting a baby
media from mass media
minerals from mineral waters
propose from propose marriage
summit from summit meeting
sale from cut-price sale
UNIT 11
Righthand Head rule - the head of a morphologically complex word is the rightmost constituent of that word. The head is on the right.
E.g. - un-kind =adj, because kind (the rightmost morpheme) is an adjective.
e.g. nice girl, girl - head, nice - modifier. This rule applies for preffixation and suffixation as well.
e.g. beauti-ful, ful - head, beauti - modifier - the suffix is the head because it is on the right and determines the word class.
e.g. mis-fortune, mis-modifier, fortune-head
Complex derivations:
activation: act (verbal base) + -ive (affix) = active (adj.) worker, seller, writer, teacher = verb+ -er
active (adj.) + -ate (affix) = activate (v)
activate (v) + -ion=activation (n)
unhappiness: happy, unhappy, unhappiness (because un- combines with adjectives, not with nouns: unable - not unhealth, and happy is
adj., happiness is noun).
unhealthy: health, healthy, unhealthy (because un- combines with adjectives: unhealthy, not unhealth)
7neutral: break-able, defend-er, decid-ing, self-ish, beauti-ful, hair-less, brave-ly, kind-ness (no change)
8 non-neutral: part-ial, Boston-ian, fantas(y)-(t)ic, person-ify, nat-ion, audac-ious, electric-ity, product-ive, public-ize, democrac-y
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Origin of derivational affixes: neutral - native, most non-neutral - Latinate (foreign). Native non-neutral suffix is -th (used to form abstract
nouns from adjectives): long-length, broad-breadth, wide-width.
e.g. - borrowed preffixes: homo-, multi-, neo-, anti-, bi-, circum-, a-
- native preffixes: mis-, un-, for-
Pragmatic semantic is a study of the language from the point of view of the users, i.e the study of the way in which language is used to
express what somebody rally means in particular situation, especially when the actual words may appear to mean something different.
Pragmatics is the traditional part of linguistic that deals with the contextual usage of the words and it includes conversational analysis,
conversational imposture, presupposition, and speech acts.
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