Hypernymy– See Hypo-hypernymic relationships

Hypo-hypernymic relationships / hypernymic hierarchies – type of systemic relationships in the vocabulary reflecting the hierarchy of categorization of the denotata. Hh.r. treats lexical items as 'upper' terms (the superordinate or the hypernym) or 'lower' terms (the hyponym): tulip and rose are hyponymic to flower; lion and elephant to animal. – See Hierarchical taxonomy; Systemic relationships in lexis

Hyponym – a subname, specific/subordinate term to hypernym, a term of higher level of generalization. E.g. since the referents of the word 'table' are included among the referents of the word 'furniture', 'table' is a hyponym to 'furniture'. – See Hypo-hypernymic relationships

Hyponymy – the relation of class inclusion. – See Hypo-hypernymic relationships

I

Identity-of-unit problem – the question on the level of the language system seeking to establish where one word ends and another one begins on the dictionary level. Cf. lexeme, lexico-semantic variant, variants (phonetic, morphological), allolex, topology. The expression or content plane of the word may vary, but the modifications may not be abundant enough to split the word up into different units. The identity-of-unit problem relates to cases when variation within the word does not impair its globality as a separate lexical unit. Here we deal with a three-fold contrast: identity/differentiation; continuity/variability; invariants/variants.

Ideographic groups – a verbal (lexical) representation of a conceptual domain. – See Semantic fields; Lexical groups; Lexical sets

Idiolect (from Gr. idios ‘own’ + -lect in dialect) – a variety of language as spoken by a certain individual (e.g. the language of Shakespeare); the speech habits of a single person. – See Sociolect

Idiom proper / idiomatic expression / set expressions / phraseological unit – a phraseological unit with pronounced stylistic characteristics owing to which an element of play is introduced into speech; a ready-made sequence of words, 'fossilised chunks of language', which function as a single unit. Is. are word-combinations or multi-word units. – See Phraseological units. According to the degree of idiomaticity is. can be:

• opaque in meaning – when the meanings of the individual words cannot be summed to produce the meaning of the 'idiomatic' expression as a whole (e.g. 'to kick the bucket' contains no clues to its idiomatic meaning of 'to die'), – See Phraseological fusions;

• semi-opaque – when one component preserves its direct meaning ('to pass the buck' can be paraphrased as 'to pass the responsibility') See Phraseological unities;

• transparent – when both components are used in their direct meanings but the combinations acquires figurative sense, motivated by the meanings of the components ('to see the light' meaning 'to understand'). – See Phraseological combinations

Idiomatic – having the qualities of a phraseological unit (q.v.), i.e. when the meaning of the whole is not deducible from the sum of the meanings of the parts.

Illocutionary force – the communicative intention of the speaker, the basic purpose of an utterance being produced, the final sense of the utterance.

Image, mental /mental picture – a type of concept (q.v.), a formation of a higher level of abstraction than a percept; generalised images of different objects and phenomena of the same class:– telephone in general, any telephone. M.i. reflects a set of most obvious, outer features of the object. M.is. are expressed by lexical units – names of concrete objects. Their meanings render generalised perceptive images, a set of perceptive features: to laugh – to make sounds and movements of the face and body. Sometimes a m.i. is represented by the inner form of the word itself – bluebell, snowdrop, bulldog. Anthroponyms can also reflect perceptive features: Titanic, Кощей. as well as phraseological units: уши топориком, хвост трубой, with flying colours.

Image schema (scheme) – a standard model of metaphoric restructuring of conceptual domains, relates target domains and source domains, reflects basic lines of similarity analysis. I.ss. are general principles according to which human cognition, anthropocentric by its nature, organizes the non-object reality on analogy with spatial and temporal world which is given to us in its empirical experience. The notion of i.s. is based on the following assumptions:

• we understand the world on the basis of out empirical experience, bodily feelings and associations,

• our physical experience (based on our 5 senses) is what we understand literally

• many abstract concepts are extensions of our physical concepts

I.ss. can be intercultural (e.g. argument is war, emotions are liquids) and culture-specific, in which case they reflect peculiar correspondences between domains as reflections of culture-specific concepts (e.g. marriage is a sports game, marriage is business – an i.s., peculiar to American culture, which is fixed in idiomatic and metaphorical expressions). – See Domain, source; Domain, target

Implication – a broad linguistic term comprising all kinds of meaning, not found in dictionary definition of a lexical unit or standard meaning of grammatical structure; indirect judgement derived from contextual (verbal and non-verbal) factors in a current situation of communication. In some textbooks – synonymous to connotation (q.v.), part of pragmatic meaning of a lexical unit.

Implicational component of meaning – in Prof. Nikitin's semantic theory peripheral part of lexical semantics of a word, semantic features directly or indirectly predetermined by the intentional component (q.v.) of lexical semantics. In general both intentional and implicational parts of the semantics reflect properties/features of the denotata. On the basis of the type of predetermination of implicational features of the referent by its essential characteristics, the following subtypes of implicational component are discriminated:

• rigid implication – highly probable features;

• strong implication – probable features;

• weak implication – unlikely features;

• negative implication – features, incompatible with the core semantics of the word, which can never be applied to this referent; however, some times properties belonging to negative implication can be nominated by an explicant within an explicational combination and hence assigned to a referent in case of expressive, emphatic, mostly stylistic usage – e.g. hot winter, living death,одиночество двоем. – See Oxymoron

Some implicational characteristics are context-bound, implied or named by the context. – See Lexical meaning; Combinatory semantics

Implicitness – semantic phenomenon when some meaning is implied but not plainly expressed via existing linguistic means (through lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, general meaning of syntactic structures). Opp. to explicitness.

Indivisibility – characteristic of a word which presupposes the impossibility of its being divided without the loss of meaning

Informal vocabulary – vocabulary widely used in informal situations of current day-to-day communication. Not to be confused with slang (q.v.).