LECTURE 5
VOCABULARY AS A
SYSTEM
1. Meaning Relations in Paradigmatics
1. 1. The word and its associative field
1. 2. Lexical fields
1. 3. Word families
2. Synonyms.
2.1. Classification of Synonyms
2.2. Sources of Synonyms
3. Antonyms
Meaning Relations in Paradigmatics
Attempts to study the inner
structure of the vocabulary revealed
that in spite of its heterogeneity the
English word-stock may be analysed
into numerous sub-systems the
members of which have some
features in common, thus
distinguishing them from the
members of other sub-systems.
These attempts have focused on three
main areas:
that of individual words and
their associations,
that of semantic or lexical fields,
that of word families.
The word and its associative field
According to this approach, every
word is involved in a network of
associations which connect it with
other terms in the language. Some
of these associations are based on
similarity of meaning, others are
purely formal (i.e. based on forms),
while others involve both form and
meaning.
Lecturer
(1) connects it with the verb
forms lectured and lecturing by
formal and semantic similarity
based on the common stem
lecture;
2) connects it with teacher and
tutor by semantic similarity;
(3) associates it with gardener and
labourer because they all have the
suffix -er forming agent nouns from
verbs;
(4) associates it with the adjective
clever and the inflected adverb
quicker by accidental similarity in
their endings.
The use of an arrow and that of
etc. at the end of each line of
associations suggests that the
line has no limit and that an
infinite number of words can be
added to those suggested in the
diagram.
Any word chosen from a given
context will suggest other words
to us, because they either
resemble or differ from each
other in form, meaning or both.
Such relations are referred to as
'paradigmatic'.
They are called relations 'in
absentia', because the terms
involved consist of a word
present in the utterance and
others that are not actually in
the same utterance but that are
substitutable for it in that
context.
For example, 'difficult' is
paradigmatically related with 'easy',
'funny', 'silly', etc. in expressions
such as 'an easy question', 'a funny
question', 'a silly question', etc.
Similarly, 'question' is
paradigmatically related with
'problem', 'word', etc. in
expressions like 'a difficult problem',
'a difficult word', etc.
Lexical fields
A semantic or lexical field - 'named
area of meaning in which lexemes
interrelate and define each other in
specific ways‘ Crystal (1995) . For
example, the lexical field of 'kinship
terms' comprises the lexemes:
father, mother, son, daughter,
cousin, nephew, uncle, aunt,
grandfather, grandmother, etc.
Lexical field theory, or word-field theory
was introduced on March 12, 1931
by the German linguist Jost Trier.
He argued that words acquired their
meaning through their relationships
to other words within the same
word-field. An extension of the
sense of one word narrows the
meaning of neighboring words, with
the words in a field fitting neatly
together like a mosaic.
If a single word undergoes a semantic
change, then the whole structure of the
lexical field changes. Trier's theory
assumes that lexical fields are easily
definable closed sets, with no overlapping
meanings or gaps. These assumptions
have been questioned and the theory has
been modified since its original
formulation
According to lexical field theory, the
vocabulary of a language is essentially a
dynamic and well-integrated system of
lexemes structured by relationships of
meaning. The system is changing
continuously by the interaction of various
forces such as the disappearance of
previously existing lexemes, or the
broadening or narrowing of the meaning
of some lexemes.
The system is mainly characterized
by the general-particular and part-
whole relationships, which hold not
only between individual lexemes
and the lexical field within which
they are best interpreted, but also
between specific lexical fields and
the vocabulary as a whole
'Fields are living realities
intermediate between individual
words and the totality of the
vocabulary; as parts of a whole,
they share with words the property
of being integrated in a large
structure and with the vocabulary
the property of being structured in
terms of smaller units' (Jost Trier).
Jost Trier (15 December 1894 – 15
September 1970) - a German philologist
For example, the lexical field of
'colour terms' includes the lexemes:
black, white, red, green, yellow,
blue, orange, etc. Similarly, the
lexical field of colour terms,
together with those of kinship
terms, military ranks, vehicles,
among others, are only parts of the
whole English vocabulary.
Furthermore, the general
lexeme red for instance may in
turn be considered a lexical field
(or sub-field) within which the
particular lexemes scarlet,
crimson, vermillion, etc. may
best be interpreted.
Word families
Words are grouped into 'families'
on the basis of their
morphology, both their
inflections and their derivations.
A family consists of a base form,
its possible inflectional forms,
and the words derived from it by
prefixation and suffixation.
(a) state (verb)
states, stated, stating (inflections)
stateable, statement; misstate,
restate, understate (derivations)
(b) skill (noun)
skills, skill's, skills' (inflections)
skilful, skilfully, skilfulness, skilless,
skilled (derivations)
Laurie Bauer and Paul Nation
(1993) developed the notion of
word families by proposing a set of
levels into which families are
divided. The levels are established
on a number of criteria relating to
the frequency, productivity,
regularity and predictability of the
affixes in English.
The criteria are ordered in terms of
their importance.
The first concerns frequency,
specifically the number of words in
which an affix occurs; -er, for
example, occurs far more frequently
than -ist to form 'agent' nouns from
verbs (speaker, violinist).
A Frequency Dictionary of
Contemporary American English
An invaluable tool for all learners of American
English, providing a list of the 5,000 most
frequently used words in the language.
The dictionary is based on data from a 385 million
word corpus – evenly balanced between spoken
English (unscripted conversation from radio and
TV shows); fiction (books, short stories, movie
scripts); more than 100 popular magazines; ten
newspapers; and 100 academic journals – for a
total of nearly 150,000 texts.
The second criterion relates to
productivity, the extent to which an
affix continues to be used to form
new words; -ly is still highly
productive in deriving adverbs from
adjectives (stubbornly,
speculatively).
The third relates to the
predictability of the meaning of the
affix; -ness is only used to form
nouns from adjectives, with the
meaning 'quality of' [craziness,
tiredness), whereas -ist has a
number of possible meanings.
The remaining criteria concern
regularity of spelling and
pronunciation (of the base and
affix) and regularity of the function
of an affix in terms of the word
class of the base to which it
attaches.
Using these criteria, Bauer and
Nation (1993) establish seven levels
of family relationship.
At the first level, each word form is
regarded as a different word; so,
there is no family.
The second level groups words
that have a common base but
variant inflectional suffixes
(plural and possessive for
nouns; present and past tense,
and present and past participle
for verbs; comparative and
superlative for adjectives).
At the third level are added words
formed by the addition of 'the most
frequent and regular derivational
affixes', which are established on
the basis of an analysis of a
computer corpus, viz. -able, -er,
-isb, -less, -ly, -ness, -th, -y, non-,
un- .
At level four are added forms with
'frequent, orthographically regular
affixes': -al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism,
-ist, -ity, -ize, -ment, -ous, in-.
At level five come forms derived
with some fifty 'regular but
infrequent affixes', e.g. -ary, -let,
anti-, sub-.
The sixth level has forms derived by
'frequent but irregular affixes': -able, -ee,
-ic, -ify, -ion, -ist, -ition, -ive, -th, -y,
pre-, re-.
Lastly, at level seven are included words
formed using classical (Latin and Greek)
roots and affixes, e.g. bibliography,
astronaut and the common prefixes ab-,
ad-, com-, de-, dis-, ex-, sub-.
Develop
Level 2: develop, develops,
developed, developing
Level 3: developable, undevelopable,
developer(s), undeveloped
Level 4: development(s),
developmental, developmentally
Level 5: developmentwise,
semideveloped, antidevelopment
Level 6: redevelop, predevelopment.
Synonyms
Synonyms are two or more words of the
same language, belonging to the same
part of speech and possessing one or
more identical or nearly identical
denotational meanings, interchangeable,
at least in some contexts, without any
considerable alteration in denotational
meaning, but differing in morphemic
composition, phonemic shape, shades of
meaning, connotations, affective value,
style, valency and idiomatic use.
(I. V. Arnold )
The synonymic dominant
expresses the notion common to all
synonyms of the group in the most
general way, without contributing
any additional information as to the
manner, intensity, duration or any
attending feature of the referent, i.
e. it is a typical basic-vocabulary
word.
Inthe synonymic series to
get, to obtain, to
acquire, to gain, to win,
to earn the verb to get is
a synonymic dominant as it
can stand for all the verbs
of this group.
Characteristic features of the dominant
synonym
high frequency of usage;
broad combinability, i. e. ability to
be used in combinations with
various classes of words;
broad general meaning;
lack of connotations.
The majority of frequent words are
polysemantic and the frequent
words usually have many
synonyms. The result is that a
polysemantic word may belong in
its various meanings to several
different synonymic groups.
PART
1) piece, parcel, section; segment, fragment,
etc. ;
2) member, organ, constituent, element,
component, etc. ;
3) share, portion, lot;
4) concern, interest, participation;
5) allotment, lot, dividend, apportionment;
6) business, charge, duty, office, function, work;
7) side, party, interest, concern, faction;
8) character, role, cue, lines;
9) portion, passage, clause, paragraph.
Classification of Synonyms
1) complete or absolute,
2) ideographic,
3) stylistic,
4) phraseological.
(K. T. Barantsev)
Absolute synonyms
canreplace each other in
any given context without
the slightest alteration in
denotative or emotional
meaning and connotations
(terms peculiar to this or
that branch of knowledge)
Linguistics: noun - substantive;
composition - compounding
Medicine: epidermis – scarf-skin, scarlet
fever - scarlatina;
Names of tools, instruments, machines,
technological processes: basement –
foundation, fan – ventilator, oil – petrol,
plane – aircraft.
Geographical divergence: lorry – truck,
tin – can, pavement – sidewalk, etc.
Ideographic synonyms
denote different shades of meaning or
different degrees of a given quality.
are nearly identical in one or more
denotational meanings
are interchangeable at least in some
contexts, e.g.:
beautiful – fine – handsome – pretty,
different – various,
idle – lazy – indolent,
According to denotational and connotational
meanings ideographic synonyms can be
subdivided into:
Synonyms which are very close in
their meaning: horrible – terrible,
answer – reply;
Synonyms which differ in their
meaning considerably: journey
(travelling by land), travel
(profession or with scientific
purposes or discovering), voyage
(by sea or by air), trip (a short
period of time).
Synonyms which differ in the volume
of the notion they denote: illness –
disease (illness is wider for it implies a
weakened state of one’s health in
general whereas disease means a
special kind of disorder), smell – scent
(smell is wider as it implies any kind of
odour whereas scent is associated only
with pleasant smells).
Synonyms which differ in the connotation of
manner of the action, e. g.:
To shake -to tremble – to shudder – to
shiver – to wobble – to rattle – to vibrate
To shake is a fairly general word.
It can be used to talk about objects
moving• There was a loud bang and the
building shook.
It can also be used to talk about people's
bodies moving because of cold, strong
emotion, or illness • Mary shook with
rage
To tremble - to shake slightly in a way that
you cannot control, especially because you
are upset or frightened • Trembling, she
approached him.
To shudder - to shake for a short time
because you are afraid or cold, or because
you think something is very unpleasant •
Maria shuddered as she stepped outside
If someone shivers, their body shakes
with small movements, especially
because they are cold or frightened•
We sat shivering under a blanket.
If something wobbles, it moves from
side to side because it is not steady
or balanced• The desk wobbles when
you put anything on it.
If something hard rattles, it shakes
and makes a quick series of short
sounds • The wind blew and the
windows rattled.
If something vibrates, it makes small
quick regular movements that you
can hear or feel • The engine began
to vibrate.
Synonyms which differ in the degree
or intensity of the action, e. g.:
to alarm – to frighten – to terrify – to
intimidate – to scare (to alarm -
causing of a milder degree of fear
than to frighten; to terrify - to
frighten to an extreme degree; to
intimidate - pressure, threat; to scare
- the causing of sudden and often
unreasoning fear or panic);
Synonyms which differ in the
degree of some quality, e.g.
synonyms expressing excellent
quality:
big – huge – enormous,
tired – exhausted.
Synonyms, the distinctive feature of
which is based on the time, duration
and quickness of the action, e.g.:
look – glance – glimpse. All of them
denote a conscious and direct endeavour
to see, but a glance is a look which is
quick and sudden and a glimpse is quicker
still, implying only momentary sight.
Stylistic synonyms
are synonymically correlated words which
differ not so much in meaning as in
emotive value and stylistic sphere of
application.
Thus, pictorial language often uses poetic
words as stylistic alternatives of neutral
ones, e.g.: nouns: maid for girl, bliss for
happiness, eve for evening, morn for
morning, thrall for distress, steed for
horse;
adjectives: lone for lonely, forlorn
for distressed, jocund for merry,
mute for silent;
verbs: quit for leave, vanquish for
conquer, hie or speed for hasten,
smite for hit or strike;
adverbs: haply for perhaps, full for
very, etc.
Phraseological synonyms
the difference in distribution:
morphological,
syntactical
lexical
morphological valency can be
illustrated by such kind of
synonyms are many – much, few –
little;
syntactical – by bare and naked
(bare in reference to persons is
used only predicatively while naked
occurs both predicatively and
attributively;
lexical difference in distribution
can be illustrated by the verbs to
win – to gain. Both can be used
in combination with the noun
victory: to win a victory, to gain
a victory. But with the word war
only win is possible: to win a
war.
Sources of Synonyms
Synonyms which originated from the
native language: fast – speedy – swift,
handsome – pretty – lovely;
Synonyms created through the adoption
of words from dialects: mother – minny
(Scot.), dark – murk (O.N.), charm –
glamour (Scot.).
Synonyms which owe their origin to
foreign borrowings: to end - to finish
(Fr), help – aid (L.), heaven – sky (Sc.).
Synonyms connected with non-
literary figurative use of words in
pictorial language: dreamer – star-
gazer, profession, occupation –
walk of life.
Synonyms – euphemisms and
vulgarisms employed for certain
stylistic purpose: to lie – to distort
facts, to spend – to blow in.
Some synonymic oppositions
appeared due to shift of meaning,
new combinations of verbs with
postpositives and compound nouns
formed from them: to choose – to
pick up, to abandon – to give up;
Quite frequently synonyms, mostly
stylistical, are due to shortening:
doctor – doc, laboratory – lab,
ANTONYMS
two or rarely more words of the
same language belonging to the
same part of speech identical in
style and nearly identical in
distribution, associated and used
together so that their denotative
meanings render contrary or
contradictory notions.
My only love sprung from my only
hate!
Too early seen unknown, and
known too late!
Romeo and Juliet” (Act I, Scene V):
V. N. Komissarov, the author of
the Dictionary of English
antonyms, classified them into
two groups:
absolute/root antonyms,
derivational antonyms.
absolute antonyms have different roots
(late – early, day – night); express contrary
notions (ugly - beautiful).
derivational antonyms have the same
root but different affixes (to please – to
displease, successful – successless). In
most cases negative prefixes un-, non-, in-,
dis-, pre-, post- and suffixes -ful, -less are
used. Express contradictory notions, one of
them excludes the other (active – inactive)
Antonyms do not differ either in
style, emotional colouring or
distribution.
Paradigmatic antonyms, i. e. two
words revealing regular semantic
polarity in their invariant meaning:
thick layer – thin layer, thin forest –
thick forest, thick slice – thin slice,
etc.
Antonyms which may be
contrasted on the syntagmatic
axis, only in certain contexts.
Thus, for instance, the
adjectives fat and thin are
brought together as antonyms in
collocations like a fat man – a
thin man.
