Inflexion – a grammatical (form-building) morpheme/affix, indicating a morphological form. – See Grammatical meaning

Integrity/semantic integrity – characteristic of a word as an indivisible whole from semantic point of view; this principle does not disprove the principle of componential structure of meaning.

Intensifier – a word with intensifying semantics (e.g. very, awfully, vastly, beastly, etc.).

Intensifying connotation – part of the connotative semantics of a word which prompts possible emphatic or intensifying functioning of the word. – See Expressive connotation

Intentional (component of) meaning – the core part of lexical meaning in Prof.Nikitin's semantic theory. Represents a complex of essential semantic characteristics which refer to the description of denotata and referents named by the word. Semantic nucleus of lexical meaning; structured unity of semantic features, which constitute this type of referents. I.c. is obligatory, as these features are obligatory to the referents of this class. Intentional characteristics can imply (to this or that extent) other characteristics which belong to the periphery of the word's informational potential.

International word – a word of mostly Greek/Latin origin or produced nowadays of Greek/Latin morphemes, found in the majority of languages, denoting some wide-spread (international) phenomena in particular in political, scholarly areas. E.g. international, telephone, politics. Intensification of intercultural communication and the expansion of English as lingua franca launched a class of anglicisms (q.v.) which can be qualified as international words as well (lobby, killer, teenager).

Irradiation (radial network) – a type of networking semantic structure of a polysemantic word, when the originating lexico-semantic variants do not follow one-by-one order but each of them can produce semantic offshoots themselves. Opp. to concatenation (chain network) (q.v.).

Irony – an expression of meaning, often humorous or sarcastic, by the use of language of a different or opposite tendency. – See Figurative language

Isomorphism (theory of i.) – a theory which postulates the absence of qualitative difference between levels of language, making it possible to analyse and describe them by means of the same methods and principles. I. can be applied to the study of the semantic structure of the word and principles of verbalisation (e.g. opposition univerbal – multiverbal nomination).

J

Jargon – 1. words or expressions used by a particular group or profession (medical jargon). J. is defined as the restricted, technical, or shoptalk words and expressions of any particular group, as an occupational, trade, scientific, artistic, criminal, or other group. E.g. finals used by printers and by students, Fannie May by money men, preemie by obstetricians were jargon before they became slang. 2. barbarous or debased language. Typology of j.:

• advertese – a jargon of advertising, characterized by specific features: a) special use of occasional word-formations which by the power of associations and connotations help promote the product on the market; is characterised by the extensive use of nonce-words (abbreviations and blends mostly) which evolve associations with full-fledged words rich in positive connotations (digitally yours – for LG); b) profuse use of doublespeak lexicon (q.v.);

• shoptalk – professional lexicon and usage;

• journalese – characterized by a) abbreviations; b) nonce-words based on either positive or negative associations; c) extensive use of overworked phrases (clichés) – to usher in a new age, to prove a boon to mankind, to pave the way to a bright new world, to spell the doom of civilization, etc;.

• motherese – the jargon mothers fall into when talking to their babies;

• babytalk – often incomprehensible for an adult speaker language spoken by babies who are just acquiring the norms of the language;

• many others as distinguished by the register (q.v.): carspeak, cablese, etc.

L

Lacuna/lexical gaps (lit. 'blank space') – systematic vocabulary gaps, i.e. the presence, absence or skewed distribution of verbal equivalents (words and morphemes) to some conceptual entities. This problem can be viewed as the correlation between the level of conceptual sphere and the level of language in terms of absence of one-to-one correspondence between conceptual sphere and the lexicon which can be illustrated by the following phenomena:

• one word could express several meanings (polysemy – q.v.); and one form may express several meanings (homonymy- q.v.);

• one notion could have several verbal means of expression (synonymy – q.v.);

• a notion may not have a univerbal means of expression but can be nominated by a phrase: to take a leave, have a smoke;

• several notions may be conveyed by one word: to walk = to go on foot; enjoy = get pleasure;

• some words do not express notions (interjections);

• the contents of notions could change in the course of the development of human society (e.g. train, coach, doctrine, machine etc.).

Typology of l.:

1. inner lacunae – lack of a word which presence in the language could be predicted by the existence of semantically close elements (e.g. newly-weds – ?a couple who have been married for a long time; jeans  trousers vs skirt  ?);

2. interlinguistic lacunae – the presence of a word in one language and the absence of the corresponding verbalized form in the other.

Language - a semiological system serving as the main and basic means of human communication:

• national language;

• sociolect (q.v.);

• idiolect (q.v.);

• literary language.