- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •II. Analyze the following text. Say how many words and lexemes it contains:
- •Analyze the functions of the italicized words in the following texts:
- •Seminar II General Survey of the English Vocabulary
- •VI. Point out informal (slang or colloquial) or formal words from the following extracts. Write them out into three columns and give your reasons:
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •II. From the words given below pick out the archaic words and comment on their usage and meaning:
- •IV. Give modern English equivalents of the following archaic words; classify them into lexical and grammatical archaisms; translate them into Russian:
- •V. Group the following neologisms according to the way of their formation; translate them into Russian:
- •VII. In the following verse, find the words belonging to the poetic diction:
- •VIII. From the following extract, pick out archaisms, give their modern English equivalents:
- •IX. Pick out 20-25 literary learned words from the book on your home-reading. Seminar III Etymological Characteristics of Modern English Vocabulary
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •Seminar IV Morphological Structure of English Words and Affixation
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •Seminar V Conversion
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •II. Find examples of conversion in the following sentences, analyze the converted words according to the scheme:
- •III. Comment on the form and meaning of the following converted words, translate them into Russian:
- •IV. Translate the following sentences into English, use words from the previous exercise:
- •Seminar VI word-composition
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •II. Discriminate between compound words and free phrases:
- •III. Classify the compounds according to the meaning of their first component, state whether it denotes time, place, purpose, cause, property, etc.; translate them into Russian:
- •IV. Classify the compounds into motivated, partially motivated and idiomatic, translate them into Russian:
- •V. Analyze the following compounds according to the scheme:
- •Seminar VII Shortening and Secondary Ways of Word-Building
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •Seminar VIII Semantic Structure of English Words
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •II. For each example, say whether the result of the semantic shift is narrowing, widening, degeneration or amelioration.
- •III. Identify the type of semantic shift that has occurred in each case, choose either metaphor or metonymy:
- •Seminar IX Homonyms and Paronyms
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •II. Give perfect homonyms to the following words:
- •III. Find homophones to the following words, translate them into Russian or explain their meanings in English:
- •IV. Find homographs to the following words and transcribe both:
- •Seminar X Synonyms and Antonyms
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •IX. Give antonyms to the following words. Say whether they are derivational or absolute:
- •X. Classify the following antonyms according to their meaning into contradictory and contrary:
- •Seminar XI Word-Groups and Phraseological Units
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •II. Analyze the semantic structure of the phraseological units, give Russian equivalents:
- •III. Give English equivalents of the following Russian phraseological units, explain their meaning:
- •Questions and Tasks
- •I. Consider your answers to the following:
- •II. State which of the following words are used in America and which in England:
- •III. Translate the following words into English giving two variants – British and American:
- •IV. Point out words which have different meaning in BrE and AmE and those which have the same meaning in BrE and AmE but which have acquired an additional specific meaning in AmE:
- •Seminar XIII Lexicography
- •Questions and Tasks
- •The scheme of lexicological analysis
- •Examination questions
- •Bibliography
Seminar VIII Semantic Structure of English Words
1. Word meaning: referential and functional approaches to meaning.
Types of meanings: a) grammatical and lexical meaning; b) denotational and connotational meaning; c) volume and content of meaning; d) vocabulary and contextual meaning.
Semantic structure of the word.
4. Polysemy. Types of lexical meaning. Monosemy.
5. Change of meaning.
Questions and Tasks
I. Consider your answers to the following:
1. What are the two approaches to the study of meaning? What aspects are distinguished within them?
2. Explain relations in the Richards – Ogden triangle.
3. What is the grammatical meaning? What is the lexical meaning? What is the difference between them?
4. What is the interrelation of the grammatical and the lexical meaning in different parts of speech? What is the difference between notional and form words?
5. What is the denotational meaning? What components does the connotational meaning include?
6. What is the emotive charge? What is the stylistic reference? How are words classified stylistically?
7. What is the volume of meaning? What is the content of meaning? What possible correlations of volume and content of meaning exist?
8. What is the vocabulary meaning? What is the contextual meaning? What varieties does the contextual meaning fall into?
9. What factors restrict combinability of words?
10. What is the basic unit of meaning?
11. What levels are distinguished in the semantic structure of meaning? What are relations between the levels?
12. What are integral / differential semes?
13. What is a lexico-semantic / lexico-grammatical variant?
14. Are the majority of words monosemantic or polysemantic? In what stylistic layer are there many monosemantic words?
15. Does polysemy exist in language or in speech? Why?
16. Does the semantic structure of a word remain unchanged?
17. What is the difference between the diachronic and synchronic approaches to polisemy?
18. Enumerate the types of lexical meanings.
19. What is a direct / figurative meaning? What is a central / marginal meaning?
20. What factors influence the development of polysemy?
21. What factors assist in change of meaning? Characterize them.
22. What is the modification of meaning and its varieties?
23. What is the transfer of meaning? Characterize its varieties.
24. Investigate the semantic structure of the following polysemantic words describing their lexico-semantic variants: scandal, time, paper, argument, sentence.
25. Give an example of a polysemantic word the semantic structure of which includes lexico-grammatical variants.
II. For each example, say whether the result of the semantic shift is narrowing, widening, degeneration or amelioration.
1. wife: OE (wif) “a woman” > MnE “a married woman”
2. nuke: “to destroy with nuclear weapon”' > “to destroy in any manner”
3. marshall: ME “groom for horses (literally “horse slave”)” > MnE “high ranking officer”
4. starve: OE (steorfan) “to die (of any cause)” > MnE “to die from hunger”
5. villain: ME (vilein) “feudal serf, farmer” > MnE “a wicked or evil person”
6. butcher: OE (bouchier) “one who slaughters goats” > MnE butcher “one who slaughters animals”
7. girl: ME (girle) “child” > MnE “female child”
8. lyric: “poem to be sung with a lyre” > “any poem to be sung”
9. lewd: “of the laity (i.e. non-church)” > “indecent”
10. barn: “a storehouse for barley” > “any kind of storehouse”
11. undertaker: “a person who undertakes something” > “funeral director”
12. gossip: ME (godsip) “god parent” > “the one who talks scandal”
13. knight: ME (kniht) “manservant” > “noble man”