Dialectism – a dialectal word.

Dictionaries – compendia containing lexicographic descriptions of lexical units.

• bilingual d.;

• diachronic d.;

• etymological d.;

• general (general-purpose) d.;

• learner's (pragmatically oriented) d.;

• native speaker's d.;

• restricted d.;

• subject (specialised/terminological) d.;

• synchronic d.;

• unilingual (monolingual) d.

Diminutive suffixes – word-building (derivational) suffixes, implying smallness, either actual or imputed in token of affection, scorn, etc. (e.g. –ette, -let, -kin).

Discourse – a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, constituting a speech event; a dynamic process of expression and comprehension governing the performance of people within linguistic interaction. D. peculiarities are regarded as sufficiently systematic features, which have a direct bearing on the functioning of discrete lexical units. A combination of factors, such as typical patterns of usage, frequency of occurrence, stylistic conventions of the register become an essential feature of the word's actual and potential significance as a unit within the system of language. Varieties of d. – spoken d. and written d. which display some formal differences between them in orthography, morphology and syntax as well as in conventions of usage and style. Many of these differences stem from their functional features, in particular the fact that spoken conversational language is always situation-bound and provides verbal and non-verbal feedback between the speaker and the listener. It has therefore no direct counterpart in the written language.

Discourse analysis – distinguishes between functional varieties of speech events, such as monologues and dialogues, oratory, narrative, and so on; studies the choice of linguistic units as well as conventions governing their use and linguistic regularities in general in each case of a stretch of speech, distinguishing between the informative and the imaginative, formal and informal, spoken and written media in communication.

Disintegration of polysemy – See Split of polysemy

Disjunction – a principle of combinatory semantics (q.v.); applies to negimplicational explicational combinations, oxymora (q.v.) when an incompatible semantic component is 'switched off' or 'wiped/crossed out'.

Disphemisms (kakophemisms) – stylistically marked words and expressions with negative connotations used instead of neutral words with the aim of derogation, pejoration or abuse. Ds. are opposed to euphemisms (q.v.). Euphemisms 'improve' the negative associations connected with the denotata by means of positive evaluative connotation of euphemistic expressions, thus masking the unpleasant content, whereby ds. 'decrease' the evaluation of the denotata by means of negative evaluative connotation (q.v.) of disphemistic expressions, thus accentuating the negative content. E.g. smeller – 'nose', poetaster 'a bad writer'.

Distinctive stress pattern – discrimination between otherwise homographic nouns and verbs with the help of the stress: con'duct v – 'conduct n.

Distinguisher – a differential seme (semantic component) (q.v.) within the semantic structure of a word which makes it semantically distinct from other words. E.g. for words manage and try the distinguishing component will be 'factivity/non-factivity' (respectively). – See Componential analysis; Marker

Distribution – immediate linguistic environment of a morpheme:

• complementary d. – is said to take place when two linguistic variants of one and the same morpheme cannot appear in the same environment (e.g. prefixes il-/ir-/in-/im- are allomorphs of one and the same morpheme as appear in irregular, illegal, innavigable, immortal depending upon the initial sound in the following stem). Their function and meaning are the same, but the environment is different.

• contrastive d. – different morphemes are said to be characterized by c.d. if they occur in same environment and signal different meanings (e.g. suffixes –ment and –ing are different morphemes, not allomorphs, as they have the same environment, but different functions and meanings).

• non-contrastive d. – different morphemes are said to be characterized by n.-c. d. if they occur in the same environment and signal the same meaning – e.g. syntactic – syntactical. They are called free variants of the morpheme. – See Variation, morphological

Divisibility, morphological (also morphological segmentation) – the ability of a word to be divided into such elements as root (q.v.), stem, and affix(es) (q.v.).

Domain – a conceptual sphere as a set of conceptual entities concentrating around one concept. In cognitive linguistics domains are understood as cognitive contexts which trigger semantic priming of a certain linguistic unit. Cognitive contexts are chunks of knowledge, informational cognitive networks which underlie and underpin linguistic semantics and provide understanding of linguistic units. These contexts are termed differently: base, domains (cognitive spheres, or contexts)/ active zones (R.Langacker); mental spaces (J.Fauconnier, and G.Lakoff); ground (J.Taylor); scene (R. Dirven); frames (Ch. Fillmore). E.g. TIME – is the domain for understanding lexical meaning of words morning, hour, winter, century, moment, etc.

• source domain – in cognitive metaphor (q.v.) theory – the conceptual domain chosen as basis for transference procedure, similar in some respect to target domain (e.g. in metaphor foot of the mountain the source domain is body)

• target domain – in cognitive metaphor (q.v.) theory – the conceptual domain one element of which is sought to be expressed with the help of a unit belonging to a source domain (e.g. in metaphor foot of the mountain the target domain is mountain)

Doublets – 1) free morphological or syntactic variants – See Variants; 2) etymological ds. – words of the same origin but which appeared in the language via different source. E.g. channel/canal, cavalry/chivalry, cart/chart, shirt/skirt are etymological ds. – See Borrowing, Source of borrowing, Origin of borrowing

Doublespeak – the term itself is a blend of newspeak and doublethink from Orwell's '1984' meaning language which pretends to communicate but really does not. It is language which makes the bad seem good, the negative seem positive, the unpleasant appear attractive, or at least tolerable (e.g. one of the best examples of the kind belongs to Colonel Opfer, the United States Air Force press officer in Cambodia. after a US bombing raid, he told reporters: 'You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing! It's air support!'). It is language which avoids or shifts responsibility, language which is at variance with its real or its purported meaning. It is language which deliberately avoids clarity, which conceals or prevents thought. Such language is not the product of carelessness or sloppy thinking; rather, it is a result of clear thinking as it is carefully designed to change reality and to mislead. Such dishonest and inhumane use of language and literature on the basis of semantic distortion of words pertains mostly to the sphere of advertizing, mass media, public official discourse, political commentaries and the like. Semantic basis for doublespeak is the ingenious use of connotative (positive and negative) power of the word semantics. – See Euphemism; Political Correctness, Bias words

E

Echoism / echo words – See Onomatopoeia (sound imitation)

Elevation – See Amelioration

Elisional combination – See Phrase

Ellipsis – the omission of a word or words considered essential for grammatical completeness, but not for the conveyance of the intended lexical meaning: e.g. open on instead of 'open fire on'; put to sea instead of 'put ship to sea'; daily instead of 'daily paper' – See Shortening

Emotive/emotional/affective connotation (colouring, component, force) – part (or the whole) of the word's content, reflecting the speaker's feelings, affections, experiences or prejudices. The larger the emotive component within the word's meaning (q.v.) – the smaller the significance of its referential content. When it comes to 'snarl' words, for example, we can see that their reference becomes irrelevant (who cares about the conceptual meaning of fascism, although it still exists and can be defined as 'the right wing political system used in Germany and Italy in the 1930s and 40s'). In this and similar cases the speaker is making use of the unfavourable connotations of such words in order to give forceful expression to the utterance. That is why emotive words do not only carry affective connotations (q.v.) but become part of the loaded language. E.m. is often interwoven with evaluative and expressive meanings. – See Doublespeak; Political Correctness; Euphemism

Enantiosemy – the ability of a lexical unit to develop opposite (antonymic, conversive) meanings within its semantic structure. E. is represented by usual (systemic) E. and occasional (contextual) E. Results of systemic e. are reflected in the dictionary as one of the LSVs of a word, which meaning is in antonymic/conversive relation to the original meaning of the word. Hence, cases of semantic conversion (See Conversness ) can be considered as cases of E. Words with intensifying component in their meaning often develop polar meanings: awfully conveys positive evaluation 'very'. Occasional E. includes cases of the specific use of the word which comes as a result of incompatibility of lexis and prosody. The meaning of the word happens to be at variance with the purport of intonation with which it is actually enunciated. A meliorative word can turn into a pejorative one when pronounced with an altogether different timbre II. Evaluative words are regularly used enantiosemically. E.g. You are a beauty! – Хорош ты, нечего сказать! A fine specimen! – Вот так тип! A pretty business indeed! – Хорошенькое дело! – See Sense