3. Chains, series and cycles
There are many groups of words which are united on the basis of a non-branching hierarchy. They denote different spatially or temporally ordered sequences.
Linear ordered sequences are called chains. Examples of chains are shoulder, upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand, or birth, childhood, adulthood, old age, death which may be viewed as linear ordered.
Some chains are organized in a kind of a cycle because they recur via specific order. These groups of words are called cycles, and the days of the week, seasons of the year are good examples of them.
When words in an ordered set differ in the degree of some variable property, they form series. Words denoting military ranks, numbers (single, double, triple, quadruple,
118
quintuple, sextuple), gradable qualities (freezing, cold, cool, warm, hot, scorching) and
some others are organized into series.
II. Groups of words based on several types of semantic relations
In order to classify the entire vocabulary on the basis of conceptual relations scholars have offered different theories.
W.Humboldt's idea of a vocabulary is that it is an organism where all parts are conceptually related to one another.
In the 19th century when the interest in taxonomies, the idea of structure and method of dividing everything into smaller parts, dominated all branches of sciences, the first unconventional dictionaries like Roget's Thesaurus appeared in the linguistic arena. Dr Peter Mark Roget, a physician and a scholar who worked on diverse projects such as a calculating machine and a pocket chessboard, published his pioneering dictionary in 1852. Influenced by natural sciences, he tried to work out a taxonomy for the English lexicon and divided all the words into six main groups standing for appropriate conceptual areas: abstract relations, space, the material world, the intellect, volition, and sentiment/moral powers. Their further subdivision gave rise to about 1,000 semantic categories.
Later in the 20th century R. Hallig and W. von Wartburg divided all the concepts into just three groups, the Universe, Man, and Man and Universe, each having numerous subdivisions that provide further classifications of lexemes representing them and including the entire vocabulary. This classification of vocabulary into smaller domains according to common concepts was further worked out by Professor I.Trier and is known as classification into semantic (or lexical) fields.
Now we may say that large groups of words in the lexicon are the result of complex sense-relations between words. The most important of them are lexical-semantic groups and lexical-semantic fields. Both of them are based on two types of semantic relations: hierarchy and compatibility, that lead to hierarchical branching:
119
Words of the same part of speech standing for a common concept are usually referred to as lexical-semantic groups (LSG), for example, the lexical-semantic group of FEELINGS {affection, calmness, contempt, excitement, indifference, relief, restlessness, thrill). Other examples of lexical-semantic groups are KINSHIP, COLOUR, FLORA, FAUNA, MILITARY RANKS, EVALUATION. The most typical LSG are taxonomies of natural kinds of animals, plants and kinship.
Lexical-semantic field is a group of words of different parts of speech for a common concept. The concept of TEMPERATURE, for example, may be lexicalized in English by such adjectives, adverbs, verbs and nouns as hot, hotly; cold, to cold, coldly; heat, to heat, heated and some others that make up the lexical-semantic field of TEMPERATURE.
On the whole, field theory holds that the meanings of words in the lexicon are interrelated and form clusters, groups and fields, which in their turn form clusters of larger structures until the entire language is encompassed.
The idea of semantic fields and lexical-semantic groups has become widespread. Yet, it has its restrictions, and is quite problematic.
The borderlines of a semantic field are vague. It is not clear, for example, how detailed the lexicon structure should be. Words are not sharply separated from one another in a semantic field, as demonstrated by the group of colour terms. Some polysemantic or ambiguous lexemes may belong to different lexical-semantic groups, and establishing a borderline between them is not always easy.
And then, some semantic fields have a problem with a common denominator (unique beginner): they may not have a name for it, hence, they display a lexical gap. Thus, in the Russian language there is no common denominator equivalent to the English term meal for завтрак, обед, полдник, узкий. Lexical gaps may also be observed on the level of hyponyms or meronyms. There are, for example, three joints in a human finger, but there is only one name knuckle for one of their types.
Lexical-semantic fields and groups can hardly be called rigorous and systematic, their branching hierarchies are neither symmetric nor full, and have many lexical gaps. Though there is not an agreed criterion for singling them out, the idea of these groupings is very fruitful for understanding the structure of the lexicon. When a word is considered not in isolation but within its nearest context, paradigmatic or syntagmatic, lots of information about its inner characteristics is revealed. And then, classification of words on semantic principles into large classes like fields or groups sharing some common semantic space provides an idea of the structure of the multi-thousand word vocabulary.
Semantic relations are also of special interest to psycholinguists, who study mental lexicon - representation of lexical knowledge in the mind. The results obtained by lexicologists about sense relation of lexical units in the language system are very
120
important for them, as the mental lexicon along with specific characteristics of their own has similar principles of organization.
[Differences in the structures of lexicons in different language
Lexical systems of different languages differ greatly along many lines.
The differences become especially obvious in languages with different part-of-speech structure.While nouns and verbs are universal and can be found in any language, the number of other parts of speech differs from language to language. For example, in some languages there are no articles, or even adjectives or adverbs. Similar concepts may be lexicalized by words of different parts of speech (cf: I am thirsty (prn+v+adj) in English and Я хочу пить (prn+v+v) in Russian).
The organization of all lexical-semantic groupings (synonyms, antonyms, lexical-semantic groups, lexical semantic fields) is different in different languages. Languages differ even in basic lexical divisions, and lexical-semantic fields and groups. For example, kinship, colour, temperature or parts of the body terms divide semantic space differently m different languages.
There are qualitative and quantitative differences between correlative lexical-semantic fields and groups. Some notions have more names in one language and fewer names in another, which makes correlation between the words in different languages only approximate. For example, the words for footwear, clothes and commercial colours are more numerous in English; the words for basic colour terms, the state of the mind and mood are more numerous in Russian, names for snow are more numerous in the Eskimo, and names for holes are more various in the language of Australian aborigines and this leads to semantic differences between correlative words in different languages. In Japanese there is one word denoting the colour range between blue and green, that is why its meaning is different from both 'green' and 'blue' in English.
These differences cause hot debates on the problem of relations between the structure of lexical-semantic groups (fields) and the structure of conceptual fields in the minds of people speaking different languages, the problem of relations of language and thought in linguistics and philosophy. There is a question of whether there are universal concepts that exist independently of a language, or whether language imposes a conceptual framework on our thinking without our noticing it. "We dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native languages", said Benjamin Lee Worf, and his arguments along with those of Edward Sapir, led to the development of a position known as the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, which, however, has not yet been proven.
121
Further readings
Вердиева З.Н Семантические поля в современном английском языке. - М.: Высшая
школа, 1986.
Завражнова С И Системное описание лексики. - М.: МГПИ им.В.И.Ленина, 1985. Уфимцева А.А. Опыт изучения лексики как системы.—М.: Изд-во АН СССР, 1962. Crystal, D.A The Structure of the Lexicon // The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English
Language. - Cambridge, CUP, 1996 (reprinted). Cruse, D.A. Lexical semantics. - Cambridge: CUP, 1991 (reprinted). Lyons, J Structural Semantics. - Oxford: Blackwell, 1963.
122
Chapters. VARIETIES OF THE ENGLISH LEXICON
"... like other local differences of food, dress, and
customs, dialects are often a nuisance. Yet they lend
picturesque variety to language, and variety is the spice
of life".
— M. Pei. The Study of Language, 1965.
Dialect vs. language. Standard norm. Dialectology. Regional, social and stylistic varieties. Regional variation of the English language. Variants of English. British variant of the English language. American variant of the English language
Language change and variation is an inevitable, regular and continuous process. Besides temporal variations that the English lexicon has undergone throughout the centuries, the results of which were discussed in Chapter 3, there are also regional, social, personal, spoken and written variations, that attract the interest of professional linguists. From the linguistic point of view none of them are better or worse, inferior or superior, each of them serves a certain purpose and performs a certain task, and all of them serve as a material for linguistic investigation.
[Dialect vs. language. Standard norm. Dialectology]
Each person in a certain language community speaks in a different way. The language used by a person is distinct m pronunciation, in preferences for certain words and even grammatical patterns. The language pattern of one's individual speech at a certain period of his life is called an idiolect. The systematic use of common patterns m grammar, vocabulary stock and pronunciation by people of a certain locality or a socially limited group makes up a dialect. Several dialects with a literary norm as their centralizing core may be viewed as one language.
The distinction between language and dialect is not clear cut. Sometimes for historical and political reasons two or more dialects may be referred to as different languages, like Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, for example. Or vice versa, some completely different dialects may be called one language. This situation occurs in China, where speakers of different dialects may be almost unintelligible to each other but they share the same written language tradition based on ideographic characters, and on this written basis they may communicate with each other and believe they speak the same Chinese language.
The most prestigious dialect is usually chosen as the standard, or standard norm of the
language. It differs from other dialects, because it is not regional. Educated people usually use a standard norm although they live in different parts of the country and come from different social strata.
123
Besides differences in idiolects, accents and dialects, there are essential differences between written and oral forms of a language, and each of these forms has its own standard norm.
So, all languages exist in numerous variations. English is especially varied because of the great number of its speakers, of its use on vast and distant territories, and of a large range of functions it performs.
[Regional, social and stylistic varieties] • ' "
Different branches of linguistics (lexicology, stylistics, sociolinguistics, and developmental theories) study different variations of a language.
Dialectology traditionally studied geographical phonetic, grammar and lexical varieties of a language used on a certain territory, or regional dialects. Its subjects were mostly elderly uneducated people from rural areas who had not moved throughout the country. The major aim of the study was to reconstruct the historical processes of the languages' spread and relations.
The principal method of investigation has always been a questionnaire on some features of domestic, rural or farming life involving the most stable strata of a language. Such questionnaires help to get information about phonological, lexical, morphological, and syntactic features of lexical units. Language atlases are developed on the basis of the data collected.
It is necessary to emphasize that dialects are not purely regional. Different factors, such as social or ethnic contexts, combine and intersect to form dialects.
Recently there has been a shift in dialect studies. They have moved from the country to the city, and dialectologists have been paying more attention to social rather than geographical space. Characteristic forms of social groups' language are usually referred to as sociolects. Sociolects arise within social groups and are determined by such factors as l)geography, 2)sccioeconomic status, 3)ethnicity/race, 4)age, 5)occupation, and 6)gender.
Intriguing, though very controversial, are studies of the relationship between the social class and language.
It is well known that speakers of the highest social class in Great Britain, for example, are supposed to speak Standard English. So-called Standard English is a social dialect used by well-educated English speakers in different localities. It presupposes very little regional, ethnic or gender variation. One of its most obvious characteristics is RP -received, or accepted pronunciation among the best-educated members of the society. Though only about three percent of the English population speaks RP (see /Hughes and
124
Trudgill 1979:3/), this accent is taught to foreign learners due to its high social prestige. It gives foreigners the best chance of being understood. It is widely used on radio and television and is familiar to all the people. It is also the most thoroughly described British accent.
The lowest social class displays a wide range of local accents and dialects of English.
Good examples of opposition of upper-class (U) and other kinds of English word usage (non-U) were proposed in 1954 by A.S.C. Ross m the article Linguistic class-indicators in present-day English (1954) even though they are not any more characteristic of current English:
U non-U
have a bath take a bath
sick ill
looking-glass mirror
rich wealthy
table-napkin serviette